none2

Thanks all. Calumet ended up directing me to <a href="http://www.sinarbron.com/">Sinar

Bron Imaging</a> and they were able to get me two replacement levels for 31$US/ea.

I've a Sinar f2 studio camera in need of some minor repair. The horizontal

levels on the front and rear standards are both dry. They appear to be very

easily replaced, with only two screws holding each in place, but I don't know

where I could even get replacement levels. The camera still functions fine of

course, so it's not particularly urgent, but it'd be nice to have the levels for

certain types of work.

Thanks for any pointers!

There's been some recent discussion about these two scanners in this forum <a

href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00CsjT">here</a>.

I've been working (mostly still testing at this point) my KM 5400 II for about two weeks

now. I'm very pleased with the quality of the scans it's producing from my color negative

and b&w negative films.

I've experienced similar problems to Nigel with the scanner dropping off (and kicking off

other USB devices) when my Mac running Mac OS X 10.3.9 goes into sleep mode. It seems

to be a device driver problem though which hopefully will be sorted out in the not too

distant future.

As for the reliability and durability of the KM 5400 II, well, I guess I'll see. It does

definitely feel rather light in comparison to the Nikon scanners I've used (CS V, CS 8000

ED, and CS 9000 ED). The Nikons hold up really well where I work; they get used by lots

of different people who don't always treat them gently.

Were it not for the much higher cost, I'd have gone with the Nikon CS 5000 ED. But when

it came to deciding between the CS V and the KM 5400 II, the KM won me over with its

higher 5400 dpi scans (vs 4000 dpi) and 16-bit/channel (vs 12-bit).

I'd say if you're primary concern is buying a scanner in the price range of 500-600$US

that'll last you for several years, then go with the CS V. For me the KM 5400 II is still an

unknown in terms of its "ruggedness". It may well last me a good few years. My only

hard requirement for it is that it last long enough to be able to pay for itself and a CS 5000

ED. :-)

I've had my 5400 II for about a week now, and have only haven't had any major problems

with it. I'm using mine on a Mac under OS X 10.3.9. I haven't mucked around with its

plug-n-play USB ablities very much. After installing the KM provided software, I shut

down my computer, connected the scanner, powered up the scanner, and powered up the

computer. The scanner showed up fine under my list of USB devices.

One thing of note though, the blue light keeps flashing on powering up the scanner until I

either run the standalone KM scanning utility or launch their scanning plug-in from inside

Photoshop. Running those does some sort of initialization to the scanner.

The resulting 16-bit 5400 dpi scans I've done of color negatives have been truly

remarkable. The b&w scans I've done of my silver based films have been ok, but not as

good as I'd like. One major disappoint I ran into is that the KM supplied software doesn't

support the Digital ICE dust/scratch removal features with b&w scanning. I'm hoping this

is just a limitation of their software that'll either be supported in future versions or maybe

with the Vuescan software (?)

Some other observations...

I've used Nikon's scanners, like the 35mm Super Coolscan V and also their more versatile

Super Coolscan 8000 and 9000 scanners. I like their dedicated 35mm scanners quite a

lot, though the b&w film scanning on them left a lot to be desired. Maybe that's just an

issue with their scanning software. The 8000 and 9000 scanners have very awkward to

use film holders-- particularly the 35mm film strip holder. It's just awful. By

comparison, I'm finding the film holder for the KM 5400 II to be a real joy, but the

Coolscan V is also very easy to work with.

Since roughly two days ago, I've not been able to request critiques for my photos. In the

past I've been able to request 1 photo/day to be critiqued. Just wondering what would be

causing this. Thanks.