"Butch Black" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Does anyone have any experience with the Kodak RFS 3600 film scanner? >Calumet has them on sale for $499, less then half the cost of a N***N 4000, >and it can do a full roll of negs uncut. > >Also, has anyone done a comparison between a picture CD scan (or equivalent) >and a scan from a 2800 and/or 4000 DPI scanner? I'm finding the picture CD >scans barely tolerable.
I have been using the RFS 3600 for a year and a half or so. It's main disadvantage is that it doesn't have digital ICE or other automatic dust/scratch removal (I'd guess that's why it's just been discontinued). I try to compensate by keeping my slides scrupulously clean and since I only do high-res scanning when I'm going to make large prints for display, I'd probably keep digital ICE off for those scans even if it were available to me. Being able to scan a whole roll of uncut slide or negative film is wonderful; a big time saver. Resolution is *drastically* better than picture CD! Even the difference between 2800 dpi (my Minolta Scan Multi) and 3600 dpi was eye-opening. There's little to be gained by going to 4000 dpi, though: At higher resolutions most of the extra information you get is film grain rather than image detail. I routinely make 12 x 18 inch prints from scans done on the RFS 3600 (provided the original image is good enough). Some of the PDML people who've been to the Grandfather Mountain Nature Photography Weekend have seen a few of my big prints. Perhaps Cesar can offer some witty comments? ;-) The SilverFast software that comes with the RFS 3600 is brilliant. I scan at 48-bit color, then do all my level adjustment, editing and unsharp masking before converting to 24-bit to archive. Email me if you have any other questions. -- Mark Roberts Photography and writing www.robertstech.com
