4X5 Scanners

[douglas_benson1]

What is the current thinking and preferences regarding the available flat bed scanners

with 4X5 transparency adaptors? I am giving strong consideration to buying a

Microtek 1800f, but wonder if I would do as well (maybe even better?) with the Epson

3200 or Umax 1000. I know that this question has been raised before, but it has been

a while and perhaps, given the changing technology and greater accumulated user

experience, is worthy of being revisited.

[morwen_thistlethwaite]

<a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=006VJ6"> Here's a thread</a> on the upcoming Epson 4870.

[david_f._stein]

They are not necessarily quiet or fast, but the Linocolor Saphir 2 and Umax Powerlook

III (same internals) and the last iteration as Firewire versions are EXCELLENT

PROFESSIONAL QUALITY scanners with excellent optics. At 1200 x 2400 hardware, you

have plenty of file size upon scanning a 4x5 negative. I believe one could be found

for $500 and less with transparency adapter. GOOD

[silent1]

I can't yet comment on scan quality, since I haven't received it, but there were recently a number of Agfa Arcus 1200 scanners on eBay for under $200; these are a SCSI scanner that works with the oldest SCSI adapters (and should work with newer ones as well, but the older cards sell for $10 to $20), 1200 dpi optical with an 8x10 transparency window and include masks for 4x5, MF, and 35 mm film or slides, the MF and 4x5 are supposed to be adjustable. I'll know more about it in a week or so, when I have mine along with the SCSI card and get it all installed and running.

[jay_de_fehr]

Hi Donald. I just bought a Powerlook II, which sounds similar to your Agfa Arcus scanner, re. Scsi, resolution, etc. I didn't realize there were so many options for scanning 8x10 negs. Do you have any idea how the Agfa scanner compares to the Umax ? I only paid $20 for mine + $15 for the Scsi card/cable. Are the Agfas more expensive? I had to find a driver for mine to make it compatible with my OS (XP Pro), will you have similar issues with yours? Agfa is probably better in that reagard. I had to go to Umax UK for my driver. I'd be interested to know how your scanner works for you. Mine is also en route, so we should be up and running around the same time. Best of luck, and happy scanning!

[jay_de_fehr]

I had a look at the agfa arcus 1200, and it's resolution is 1200x2400, and my powerlook II is only 600x1200. I guess you get what you pay for!

[david_rosenbloom]

I have owned both the 2450 and the current 3200. These scanners do an amazing job with large format film. Don't expect great results with 35mm but they are useable for certain jobs.

Keep in mind that this is a $400 scanner that does an amazing job at its price point. This machine gives small studios the ability to do hi resolution scans in house, thanks epson.

 

I have compared scans from the 3200 to scans from the latest and greatest imacon. At around 2000 dpi, they are very close. If you need true 4000 dpi then of course the epson will fall short, but keep in mind that these files will be huge unless you are scanning only a small area of the film.

 

I like to keep my LF scans around 300mb => 400mb so I can work with them easily on my workstation, dual xeon 2gig.

 

The new 4870 has not only a new CCD design but it seems like the entire film scanning section is new. The old 3200 only has a light source in the lid, the 4870 has a complete motorized unit in the lid dedicated just for scanning film. I think it will be a decent improvement over the 3200. I will order a 4870 when it is available and put the 3200 on ebay.

[silent1]

<i>I had a look at the agfa arcus 1200, and it's resolution is 1200x2400, and my powerlook II is only 600x1200. I guess you get what you pay for!</i><p>

 

Sometimes you do -- I paid $90 plus shipping for mine, and an additional $9 for an Adaptec 2930CU adapter, but haven't received any of the hardware yet. The Arcus drivers apparently support 98 through XP (I use 98, just updated to SE on Saturday to be able to play a new game that won't run under original 98) -- the beauty of SCSI is that the cards are supported at the hardware level, and SCSI hardware predates Windows 95; most "plain" SCSI cards have drivers native to the OS in 95 and newer, so it's just a matter of the driver software obeying the rules to be compatible with a broad range of OS. Even better, I can add other SCSI peripherals once I have the card installed.<p>

 

What I don't know about the Arcus 1200 yet is whether it can actually scan a negative or transparency the full size of the 8x10 window -- at least one of the other scanners I looked at (a Canon?) has the same size window, but all the documentation swears the biggest trans or neg it can scan is 4x5. That's okay with me -- I'm currently shooting 9x12 cm and plan to add 4x5 within the next year or so -- but it wouldn't hurt my feelings to be able to scan 8x10 if/when I move that far up the LF ladder.<p>

 

Another thing to watch is bit depth -- the Arcus is 14 bits per channel, or 14 bit gray; some of the new Canons are 16 bits per channel, and a few contemporaries of the Arcus are 12 bits per channel. For me, it's all going to look like a major upgrade from the 300 dpi optical, 8 bits per channel HP flatbed I'm using now. It's halfway to a miracle if I can get a scan from a B&W negative at all, and forget color (by the time I correct out the orange base, there's nothing left of the red channel information in a reflective scan). My immediate project when I get the Arcus installed is to go back and rescan everything I've shot this year, replacing softish scans from 4x6 inch prints with nice, crisp scans from the 6x4.5, 6x6, 6x9, and 9x12 negatives.

[upscan]

Douglas: remembering that the resolution numbers for flat bed scanners are all fictitious, it pays to do actual scans in the model you think of buying. Microtek is coming out with the i900 which is glassless for transparencies, and promises far better Dmax than other current scanners. I'd wait and forgo the others you mention. For tests pick a slide that is not overly transparent, some scanners just block up if the slides anre on the dense side. See the Microtek at

 

http://www.microtekusa.com/images/broi900.pdf

[nanasousadias]

I think you should wait for the release of the new 4800 dpi Epson scanner, wich is announced for February, 2004. I think it'll be a winner!

[tomasz_zakrzewski]

I have the Arcus 1200 from Agfa. All is fine apart from the most important thing - Dmax. Slide scans are very noisy in the shadows. It was a big disappointment for me, especially that I paid $ 900 for it 3 years ago.

 

Tomek

[brian_kennedy]

I can recommend the 3200 for 4x5 scanning, too. It really is a terrific value, with excellent scans for the price. There's always that caveat -- <I>for the price</I> -- but don't think that that means the results aren't good, just that the price is really good. The scans are good enough for quality prints up to around 5x to 6x enlargement, which for 4x5 is 20x25 or 24x30, larger than most of us can print at home anyway. For prints of 24x30 or larger, you're better off getting a drum scan along with the print than using any home scanner. The 3200 is also extremely fast.

<P>

Still, you might consider waiting around for the new scanner. Not because of the dubious increase in resolution, but because it has digital ICE. Cleaning dust from the huge file resulting from a 4x5 scan is tedious, and if the ICE works as well in the Epson as it does in my 3 year old Nikon 35mm film scanner, it could save you hours and hours of time after just a few scans.

[richard_ilomaki]

Douglas

 

I have just bought an Epson 3200 and am very happy with it. I have scanned only a few 4x5s and no 120s but with the max resolution, I could make prints almost 4 ft wide, which I would seldom do. I actually make 4 x 5 and 8 x 10 contacts but would like to try the inkjet system of Quad tones, so hence the 3200. Also, I can deepen the blacks in Photoshop if needed.

 

From what I have seen, they make a good supplements to "real" prints as toning effects can be more easly, an less toxically achieved, and I can add subtle colour to parts of an image, sort of like what Steven Spielberg did in Schindler's List.

 

I am in no hurry so 4 -5 mins per scan at 3200 is no big deal.

 

I will not stop making prints on AZO and other silver papers!!

 

I got it at a very good price at an Epson display promotion here in Singapore, so it's not much more than 8-10 drum scans. Also, it is dual voltage-110 & 240 so I can use it when I go back to Canada.

 

Cheers and all the best for the season.

[jay_de_fehr]

Hi Donald. The Powerlook II is 12 bit gray scale, and the max density is 3.3D. The transparency scan area is 8.3"x10", so I should be able to scan my 8x10 negs. I think an 8x10 neg at 300 dpi will produce a pretty large file, and I don't see enlarging more than 2 or 3X. I like the sounds of the glassless neg scanner mentioned in an above post. Maybe I'll start saving up, but I'll probably buy an 8x10 enlarger first.

[oskar_ojala]

Like others, I've been happy with my epson 3200 for LF work. I've been scanning 9x12 cm film and scan times are around 4-5 min for the entire image (and my computer is not fancy by today's standards). The largest prints I've made thus far are 25x38 cm (about 10x15") on a Frontier (I don't have space for large prints :) The results are very high quality. The print doesn't show all the details in the original scan, so it's safe to say you can go much larger, particularly since viewing distance comes into play at these sizes.

 

The Epson 4870 should have a completely revamped sensor system. I haven't tried the compating models, so I can't compare. However, I'll add that the best part was that I could make a very nice image from a clearly overexposed slide (obviously correct exposure would have been better, but a even a flatbed scanner and Photoshop offer possibilities not previously seen in this area.)

[douglas_benson1]

Many thanks to everyone for your insightful help. After reading all that has been

offered, I believe that I will "sit tight" and wait for the new Microtek i900 and hope

that they will offer current OS X compatible software.

 

Best wishes for a warm and wonderful holiday season.

 

DAB.

[michael_schiller]

Hi All.

 

I just got an Acer Scanpremio ST on ebay for $57.00 and bought the Silverfast LE (for

MacOSX) for an additional $49.00. How does this scanner compare to the Epson 2450

or 3200 models?

 

-Mike

[silent1]

There was another reason I chose the Arcus over the Epson 2450 or 3200 series -- when I made the decision, I could have paid for either one (spending my Christmas bonus from work; I'm usually a dedicated bottom feeder for lack of funds), but the Epson would have required I upgrade my Windows from 98 to XP -- it will work on 98, but only if it's a factory install of 98SE; mine is continuously upgraded from DOS 3.31 (via DOS 5, DOS 6, Windows 3.0, 3.1, 95 and original 98).

 

I know, I know, continuity isn't considered important in the computer world, but I passed the point of being able to conveniently copy my important data, much less reinstall all my applications, almost ten years ago. And I still routinely use software I installed as much as five years ago (though this past weekend's video driver upgrade, required for a new game, seems to have killed one I was fond of). So, for me, the ability to use the scanner with the OS I already had (not to mention the cost of upgrading to XP) made the decision to go with the older hardware more than one of pure money.

 

I might suggest, though, that a SCSI scanner is one that isn't likely to require replacement due to hardware incompatibility in the foreseeable future -- who knows how long USB will be with us? Look how quickly the long-running ISA bus vanished when PCI got affordable -- and it'd been around for a dozen years; USB has barely half that much time in.

[steve_mutchler]

I used to work for Agfa and sold a few of the Arca 1200's...this would have been about 1992-95...

 

At the time the Arcus was considered pretty good, if I remember correctly I think we sold it for $3200 mostly to high end pro labs and pro photographers...in a couple of years the price dropped to about $2000...

 

The Arca was a "midpoint" scanner between a $25,000 unit we had and the cheaper $1000 +or- units that were sold to the low end customer...

 

I left Agfa in 1995 and I don;t know what happened to the Arcus since...

 

You have to use an Adaptec SCSI card...I don;t remember which model, but if you didn't use Adaptec, there were a lot of problems...

 

I probably sold about a dozen of them in a 2 year period...we competed against a Umax with higher resolution...

And the 14 bit depth was considered great the year the Arcus was introduced as most everyone was at either 8 bit or 12 bit depth...

 

I had heard at one point that Agfa replaced a quite a few of the Arca's due to bad tracking of the light source...but I'm not sure what the issues were...

 

Agfa has been sold and I'm not sure if any of the people I used to work with are still there...but if you can find Bing Leim at Agfa headquarters in Ridgefield Park NJ, I know he can put you in touch with the people who know the most about the scanners...

 

And come to think of it, I think Agfa sold off it's scanner division also...They were located in the Boston area...

 

Hope this helps

Steve

[silent1]

<i>You have to use an Adaptec SCSI card...I don't remember which model, but if you didn't use Adaptec, there were a lot of problems...</i><p>

 

I bought a scanner that didn't come with a card, but have bought (hasn't arrived yet -- had to mail a cashier's check) an Adaptec 2930CU, the same model (if not same variant) as the cards that were with the ones selling with cards -- and at under $15 including shipping, a lot less money than the extra $100 to $130 for the scanners selling with cards. This is one of the most standard SCSI cards ever made, and is natively supported by Win98, so I don't expect problems. I'll know for sure when I get it, of course, but I've had very good experiences with getting computer stuff to work as long as I didn't have just entirely the wrong hardware.

[david_skirmont]

I use a Epson 2450 for 4x5 scans. The qualitly/price is great. I have printed cropped images up to 16"x20". Amazing detail. I still think real wet prints look better, but nobody that sees my work can seem to tell the difference. I would get the full edition of silverfast with all of the calibration targets for really good results.

 

The 3200 should be a great scanner for you.