Just Bought Minolta 5400 & Silverfast Studio

[thomas_kolbo]

Well, after two years of fence sitting, I finally ordered the first

two pieces of the finally assembly, the Minolta Scan Elite 5400 from

Amazon (New $499,a 3yr Mack warranty I found on Ebay yestereday for

$30 and Silverfast Studio with Kodak and Fuji 35mm transparencies for

profiling the scanner. The remaining pieces will likely be Monaco's

Sekonic/Optix XR Digital Suite and an HP Designjet 90. I've probably

read every post on this site regarding this scanner and comparisons to

the Nikons etc. since the 5400 came out. Yet, there remain questions.

 

(1) In setting up this scanner to be used with Silverfast, I read on

Lasersoft's forum that some wise guy discovered that profiling with

Lasesoft's supplied transparencies and with that product, one only

gets 8 bit scans and the color schemes leave a lot to be desired. Can

I assume this is inherent to the Silverfast software and has nothing

to do with the transparencies?

 

(2) Assuming that fellow was correct, would I be better off trying

the Wolf Faust transparencies? I will be scanning Fuji Astia for new

and recent work and then an assortment of older Kodak chromes and

Kodachrome from the early 1980's. Wolf Faust has a transparency "kit"

for about $75 that covers the Kodak/Fuji stuff.

 

(3) I've read all the dialogue on Monaco vs. Colorvision vs. Gretag

MacBeth for monitor profiling. I have two systems with Sony GDM F500R

monitors that I presently run at: Brightness = 0% and Contrast = 75%

at 6500K. The reason is to preserve the monitor and in a semi-dark

environment it's just fine. There are so many pro's an cons about

comparisons and reiviews, I simply hate the idea of just buying

something to try it. The most compelling thing about the present

Monaco/Sekonic Digital Suite now is that it's available from B&H for

$669 and one gets a L558-R light meter and offers for a free upgrade

to Monaco OptixXR PRo and free EZ Color software offer. Don't know if

the Monaco software has any value at all. Since I shoot with a Canon

F1, there is reason to want that meter out of the deal (it's $450 alone).

 

(4) I plan to use HP's satin paper exclusively unless something else

comes along so I would think one Cathy's profiles for the Designjet 90

would be sufficient?

 

(5) For basic intall of the Minolta, I've read that it is beast to

disable the gamma function on my system first before installing either

Minolta's software or Silverfast. Is this necessary and is there any

reason to install the Minolta software at all?

 

(6) I've read about the little one pixel horizontal green lines

business (seems like a mess). With some much equipment, I can only

position the unit about two feet from the monitor, or ontop of a floor

standing computer. I have considered building a copper case that coud

mount on the underside of a nearby bookshelf, or be turned over and

set on top of the computer. Has anyone considered this type of

shielding would aid in solving the interference problem or am I

barking up the wrong tree on this one. I'll probably build a plexi

box to set over it just ot keep cat hair and dust out.

 

(7) USB2 and Firewire is available (via internal separate Adaptec

card). With Silverfast, what has worked best?

 

I guess seve queations is the magic end to this trip around. I would

appreciate some dialogue. Once I get this working, I'll post some

architectural stuff to get feedback....provided the Minolta works out

of the box (could be a gamble). Thanks

 

TDK

[peterblaise]

.

 

Hi Thomas,

 

It will be interesting to follow this thread since it's so complex, rather than 7 or more individual threads.

 

Firewire is less competitive than USB - USB usually requires a solo bus just for the scanner, and TRUE USB2 or you'll be w-a-i-t-i-n-g a l-o-n-g time for your scans.

 

I think the green-stripped capture may also be memory caching for small RAM systems and or slow bus systems especially with ANYTHING running in background. I have just the OS Operating system and the Minolta DiMage batch software running - not even anti virus software. I use a separate computer for scanning so I do not interrupt scanning with email, rebooting, at cetera.

 

What OS Operating System are you using?

 

16 bit scanning is important for shadow recovery versus noise (multi scan sampling helps) and also for images where you plan on readjusting curves, otherwise, 8 bit may please you for many targets of your scanning, especially if your originals are "right on".

 

What's your pervious history, scanner wise, digital imaging on the computer wise, printer wise?

 

Good luck, and please keep us informed, and share some examples!

 

Click!

 

Love and hugs,

 

Peter Blaise peterblaise@yahoo.com http://www.peterblaisephotography.com/

[dgs]

I have the Minolta (original DSE 5400) and Silverfast Ai 6. First of all, the target that came

with my copy of Silverfast was for Kodak Ektachrome. Wolf Faust's targets do NOT include

Kodachrome. I ordered a Kodachrome IT8 target from B&H and downloaded the file from

the Kodak website. Wolf Faust does include a specific target for Fuji Astia, as well as other

Fuji films.

 

I'm thinking about ordering the "kit" myself, because I have shot a lot of Astia. It does

scan well with just the "stock" Silverfast IT8 target, but one always hopes for better

performance.

 

I'm running a Mac G5 2.5 GHz desktop. The Minolta is connected via firewire and I have

had no problems. Don't know anything about the monitor profiling comparisons. I would

suggest Dry Creek Photo. They review recent monitor profiling systems. I will say that I

print at Costco, because I get excellent results with a color managed workflow and you can

download printer profiles for your local Costco from the Dry Creek Photo website.

 

I don't know about the 8 bit scans for profiling. It seems you only can choose the 8 bit,

but I think it still works if you scan your images in 16 bit. I know the Kodachrome profile

really helps all those scans. I always scan in 16 bit. I'd have to go back to my profiling

instructions to see if you have to profile in 8 bit.

 

I hope your Minolta works. It took me two to get a good sample, but this one has done a

lot of scans in the last year and works good. Knock on wood.

 

Good luck with everything. I've been very happy with the scanner. I have scanned 50 year

old Kodachromes from my father that look wonderful.

[mendel_leisk]

I have next to zero knowledge on profiling scanners, so take the following accordingly:

 

I got a full package of it8 slide targets thru Wolfe Faust, and went thru the Vuescan scanner profiling procedure, with my First Generation Scan Elite 5400. The targets I have are for:

 

Fuji Provia, Sensia and Astia

 

Fuji Velvia 100F and Astia 100F

 

Fuji Velvia

 

Kodak Ektachrome family

 

I went thru the Vuescan scanner profiling procedure, several times, with several targets. I finally got a "pleasing" result, in one calibration procedure, with one particular target, which happened to be the Provia target. It does seem rather hit or miss. I tried to follow the same steps, but results varied.

 

So, having got a "pleasing" icc profile, I latched onto it, and did no further calibration trials. By "pleasing" I mean, the color balance seemed consistantly "plausible" and cast-free, true to the slides (to my eye), the shadows were opened a bit, and the highlights looked good. Not very scientific, I know.

 

One thing, as my scanner's light source "ages", I may need to produce another profile.

 

Anyway, the impression I came away with:

 

You have a target. You have the file containing the data that corresponds to that target. It's seems almost immaterial what slide film that corresponds with. If you can get an ICC profile using that target, that fairly accurately records your scanner's perception of that target, then that ICC profile can be used with a wide variety of film, the film type being immaterial.

 

Now in practice, there are likely limits to that. Scanners probably "react" differently to different films. But so far, it's worked for me, scanning-from-disk thru Vuescan and pointing it to that icc profile, for Scanner Profile. None of scans (so far) are Provia (per the target), yet the Vuescan output from a variety of Ektachrome and Kodachrome scanned to date, all look pretty good with that profile.

[thomas_kolbo]

The computers are HP X4000's dual Xeon 2.6 and 3 gigs of RAM. The drives don't matter, but they are Maxtor 73 gig 10,000 rpm type. I'm using WIN 2000 and Photoshop 7. I have CS but not CS2 and have not loaded it yet. Most of my experimenting has been by eye and until the HP Design jet 90 arrives, I'm printing the practice stuff on an HP 940 inkjet with Kodak semigloss paper. So far I find the print with preview feature shifts colors a bit but I've got a good feel for the change from what I see on the screen to the preview to know how to adjust. It's really all a bit flaky until one can profile everything properly.....assming this scanner works at all. It would be nice to hear something about the install question regarding the Minolta software and Silverfast.

[karl_heinz_zahorsky1]

Dear Thomas,

the information on SilverFast regarding calibration is wrong or totally

outdated. First of all SilverFast's IT-8 target have the highest precision with a Delta E of

only around 2, while Kodak's and other targets have a much higher Delta E.

 

The whole calibration process is fully working in 16 bit and our unique patent-pending

process with bar code controlled reference data recognition makes the calibration a fool-

proof procedure, where nobody can make a mistake.

 

In fact, our targets are bundled with several scanner manufacturers such as Epson,

Microtek, Canon and others. Photographer Robert Fineman is stating: "SilverFast has the

truest color..."

More about our IT8-calibration and targets can be found here: http://www.silverfast.com/

show/it8/en.html

 

best regards

 

Karl-Heinz Zahorsky

President

LaserSoft Imaging

 

http://www.SilverFast.com