Costco scanner vs Minolta Dual IV

[dennis_w3]

<p>Costco has a scanner for $80 which scans a neg or slide (53 mm) in 3 seconds. I currently use a Minolta Dualscan IV, with Vuescan software, which can be futsy and time consuming; the results are great, but I'm wondering if a fast, new model would do just as great a job. The Costco model makes a 14 MB file. Anyone have experience with this?</p>

[robert_martin5]

<p>The Costco unit is basically a camera that takes a picture of your negative/slide. I have a friend that is going to purchase one, but I have not had a report on how it works. </p>

[jim_jones3]

<p>There are several reviews at <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wolverine-F2D14-Negatives-Digital-Converter/product-reviews/B005P99KT8">http://www.amazon.com/Wolverine-F2D14-Negatives-Digital-Converter/product-reviews/B005P99KT8</a>.</p>

[will_delaughter]

<p>I own both a Dimage IV and a Dimage 5400 version 1. I'm afraid that you will be incredibly disappointed with any of the digital converters on the market. The converters are basically a light box and a low-resolution digital camera. Even professional class cameras and a light rig cannot capture the resolution and dynamic range that a dedicated film scanner can capture. The Dimage IV that you own is one of the best non-ICE scanners ever made (the only reason I have the 5400 was for ICE). It has a very wide dynamic range and the ability to actually focus the image resulting in the resolution of the fine pepper grain of the film. Most of the sub $750 film scanners being sold today are fixed focus which is why you see Minoltas and Canons regularly selling on Ebay for far more than their original purchase prices. When properly used, Vuescan will capture far better images with your Dimage IV than you will ever get with the Costco scanner and honestly better images than Sam's or Costco's film lab will provide you. The review Jim posted is worthless because it does not zoom in far enough to show grain resolution and personally the colors from the Wolverine scans are so off-base red they hurt my eyes :^).</p>

[roger_smith4]

<p>Is 14MB a jpeg or TIFF? It sounds low-resolution I would stick with your fussy Minolta and know you'll get more resolution and shadow detail that way. The review video I watched there had some horribly color balanced "professional scans" and Wolverine ones that obliterated shadow detail. Hard to tell which were worse or the condition of the actual slides used.</p>

[Stock-Photos]

<p>Dennis, You will be <strong>very</strong> dissapointed with the image quality of an 80 dollar (scanner) which is not actually a scanner at all, but as others said, is a cheap camera.</p>

[dennis_w3]

<p>That's about all I need to know, I'll keep the futsy, trusty Dualscan. Thanks, folks!</p>

[will_delaughter]

<p>Dennis,<br>

<br />Are you using Windows or Mac? Vuescan is an excellent software, but there are several of us that use the dimage software to capture the files as linear tif's (I burn the tif's to blu-ray at that point) and then use Vuescan in file mode to produce quick good-looking positive images from the tif negatives. Oversampling on the Dimage IV really isn't needed except for some very rare instances so you can pretty much fire away at negatives at 3200 dpi w/ no oversampling very quickly. Then you can clean the ones you want to print (dust) in Photoshop as you need them. If you are using Windows 7, then google "kain anderson" "dimage drivers" to find modified drivers to allow Minolta scanners and software to work in Windows 7 or Vista. I have found that the dimage software scans quite quickly in batch mode with very few issues, but I've never liked the color which is why I use Vuescan to convert the linear negatives to positives.</p>