New Imacon or used drum scanner (Howtek 4500) for 4x5?

[rainer_viertlb_ck]

what will bring me more quality? a new imacon scanner or a used drum

scanner...a.e. the Howtek 4000 or 4500 Series. At the moment i use a

polaroid 45ultra and a polaroid sprintscan120...and i want to reach

better quality, without having 20.000,--.....has anyone experience or

advices?

thanks....

[switchedcraigmageephotogra]

Imacons are great, I've recently been doing some 5x4 negs on the 848 i use, and they have looked fantastic.

A drum scanner will probably give you more res, imacons max is 2045dpi for a 4x5, and you'll get smoother results, but that does involve oil mounting which is something i dont like the idea of and is a real pain. We've recently had negs back from a place in london covered in crap cause they didnt clean the oil off well enough.

 

Those drum scans were made on a howtek, and they wernt very good, thats not so much the scanner as it is probably the operator.

 

The same neg's i've scanned on the imacon, and they look a lot better and are noticably sharper. But this is a slight issue with the imacon in that at the max res's because it is sharp, and there isnt any oil to smooth things out, the grain is more noticable, even from 4x5.

But this is dependant on film. If you shoot techpan all the time or velvia, the grain is pretty much non existent.

 

personally I'd say buy the imacon, superb results at a good price.

But the best thing to do is to run some tests yourself, imacons and a drum arent the only options though. Scitex (sorry Creo) Eversmarts and the Fuji Lanovia's are superb scanners, infact the fuji finescan 2750 is supposed to be an amazing scanner, so try and get a test on some of these

 

one last point, you can pick up second hand flextight precision III's for about 6000£ which is a bargin especially for 4x5. The 848 would only be worth considering if you need the extra speed. Altough it does produce more shadow detail.

[rainer_viertlb_ck]

hallo...thanks for your sharing you experience. my attention at the moment goes to the imacon 646,- it seems to be the same chip as the 848 just not cooled and therefore slower with little less shadow res. but the differnence of 7000,-- euro or dollars is a lot of...and the speed is not so important to me. i believe that 2000 dpi for 4x5" will nearly allways be enough. what do you think of the two polaroids i am useing at the moment...for 4x5" the 45ultra and for 6x6 - 6x18 the sprintscan 120. he makes problem because it is not easy to have the film flat, without using the glass holder...which i hate for the dust which you have to remove later.....

the reason to upgrade my scanner is that i am used to scan my pictures for my clients, mostly they look better as from unengaged digi.operators. now i started to work for a great museum and i offered them the scanns of my pictures ,- and they will published now my pics on a very high nivel in books and magazines......

so ( maybe its crazy ) , but i want to improve to learn to do this electronic part of my work good........and not to fall on my nose with the digitalisations,- ( cause the people of the museum love my photos...).

so i study and study now about scanning....and i believe that my polaroids wont bring the essential quality, but maybe this is wrong and at the moment its just me who fails....

[carl smith]

Hell you could pick up an older Imacon Precision II in good condition for a great price I suspect. drum scanners are great things but i highly doubt you want to get in to the trouble they can come with. If you can't afford the 868 get it's little brother then. They're nice units as well.

[philip_sweeney1]

After reading this discussion I have a question. I read a review in View Camera magazine a while back. From that review they said the polaroid 45 ultra was the next best thing to a drum scan and without a side-by-side comparison one would not be able to tell the difference. Sounds like you all may not agree.

[rainer_viertlb_ck]

interesting...now i was searching test reviews bozt the 45 ultra too. well mostly they arent very enthusiastic...but the critics are nearly all bout features which are not interetesting me...as how it works for 35mm and mf and so on. my interest in this is only 4 x 5 " . has anyone experience with the polaroid 45 ultra in comparation to imacon or drumscanners?

[switchedcraigmageephotogra]

Hey Rainer...<br>

Well from my experience of the polaroids, they are good quality scanners, and much bigger improvment from the first ones polaroid produced. However, i'd say that in overall terms of quality they dont quite compete with the imacons, and certainly dont compete with a good drum scan. I actually found my little nikon ls-2000 to be better for conventional b&w than the polaroids.<p>

The polaroid 45 suffers as u say from the glass holders which seem to kill some sharpness, and there is the dust problem. also the software i found was pretty poor. The scanners Drange also seemed lacking, not so much detail in the shadows areas. <p>

I'll still say that the imacon is a good choice, and certianly instead of a Howtek. If you still are going to consider getting a drum, look at a used fuji/heidelberg/ICG...<p>

As carl said a used Precision II or III would make better sense than the 646, if you want to save money. The 646/848/precision all use the same rodenstock lens and the SAME CCD from kodak. The difference between the precision and the 646 is that the 646 is Actively cooled...<p>

So look into a used precision, you can get 6x18 holders off the shelf from imacon if you need on of those as well. The 4x5 comes as standard.

[switchedcraigmageephotogra]

oh by the way i have compared ultra45 scans to the imacon and there is a noticable difference in sharpness, and these were from 4x5. There is less apparent grain in the ultra45 scan, that is a bit more noticable in the imacon scans but this is all visible in large areas of sky, and in large areas of single tone. you can cut this out with a little filter in the imacon software and the sharpness is still there. <p>

Also if you dont clean the negs well then dust does show up quite a bit on the imacon. Dont waste time with the new dust removal tool of theirs, it works to an extent (ie. on really small bits) but most of the time you have to still spot out by hand. So clean neg = clean scan.

[rainer_viertlb_ck]

i dont use the ultra45 with glass holders,- this problem has the sprintscan with large dias 6x17 or 6x18 which i use too. with this sizes it has a problem to be sharp cause often the film is not flat enough ....so i bought the glass holder,- which i hate. the 4x5" films on the ultra 45 seem to lie enough flat and also enough sharp ,- please consider that the professionel use of my scans will not be bigger than max. 400% or 1200 dpi......so if i dont see a noticable difference in sharpness, colors and shades at this magnification the investment will not be worth for me. although my main focus is the quality of the 4x5" fotos,- if i want high quality i nearly use this size only,- and the sprintscan 120 seems to me to be better than the 45ultra,- except the problem with the filmholder. software problem i dont have with both, cause i use silverfast for the scanners. also i nearly dont use negatives.

at the moment i study what i can find about how to scan correctly, cause i noticed that the weakest part of my digital chain at the moment is ME,- for a lack of knowledge how to scan correct.....if you know good links about this theme please tell me,- i actually read one, which seems to be very interesting: http://www.marginalsoftware.com/HowtoScan/Introtocurves.htm

[mark_davidson]

A used Howtek is a very good instrument and would yield superb scans once

you took the time to learn how to use it to its greatest advantage.

 

A real drawback is oil-mounting and its attendant mess. Though I have been

told that there are new products that solve a lot of those problems.

 

Since you have prepared yourself for a significant investment in a scanner

you may want to look at a used Scitex Eversmart, a new IQSmart from Creo or

a Fuji Finescan 2750 or 5000. All are flatbeds with superb performance. They

all can scan at maximum res across the bed, have very good S/N ratios and

high dynamic ranges. In addition , they have excellent software that allows

you to get a large number of high quality scans done in a short period of time.

These are very popular with quality oriented service bureaus because of their

combination of quality and productivity.

 

Just my .02

[haddon_stevensu]

I am new here but if you go to www.scannerforum.com both those scanners are shown side by side with Air Force Resolution Targets and ST-34 Dmax targets for comparison.

[rainer_viertlb_ck]

finally i bought now a screen 1030ai drum scanner.....after tryin or buying ( and selling...) an imacon 646,- an screen 1015ai drum scanner and a scanmate 5000 drum scanner. the scanmate imo was the best machine....but it had some defect with no solution,- now i have the 1030 screen and i can tell that i am very content. even oil mounting is not so difficult as i thought,- and therefore all the dust problem has disppeared. the resolution is high enough with 5200 dpi,- the scanner is relatively fast, at least so fast as i can be with one image to finish it in photoshop. the results even for 35mm are great.......no comparation with the ccd scanners i have tried before....

[roger krueger]

Just to point out that the copyright notice of scannerforum.com

shows the creator as Phil Lippincot.

 

If you click on the DIMA 2002 Scanner Roundup link (on

scannerforum), you'll notice that he's listed as president of Aztek.

Thus, the results are just a LITTLE suspect.

[3d-aeropanoramic project]

he ralph: this is the original question

 

Subject: New Imacon or used drum scanner (Howtek 4500) for 4x5?

 

 

what has this to do with your answer. pls organize yourself!