With current true drum scanners (the Imacon ain't one of them) costing
between $35,000 and $80,000 the number of scans you can get at $45 each
is between about 80 and 1800. At the 80 figure many folks would probably
be better off buying, at the 1800 figure it would be a toss up.
One of the things is that a drum scanner is a lot slower to operate than
a CCD scanner. It takes a certain amount of skill to wet mount the
transparency. And the big file take awhile to load. If someone had a lot
of 4x5 or larger trannies to scan a drum scanner, especially a used one,
might make sense. But for the rest of us Dave has the right idea in my
opinion.
The real advantage of a drum scanner is that the photomultiplier tubes
will handle a lot higher dmax, and not the higher resolution, so to my
mind, they truely are only needed for trannies. A CCD film scanner
should be okay for most negative work.
graywolf
http://www.graywolfphoto.com
"Idiot Proof" <==> "Expert Proof"
-----------------------------------
David Mann wrote:
On Sep 27, 2005, at 4:04 AM, Godfrey DiGiorgi wrote:
Yes, a high end scanner like the Imacon does a better job. If I
could afford one, I'd buy it.
If I had the money for an Imacon or a decent drum scanner, I still
wouldn't buy one.
I'd use a scanning service and pay a trained, experienced scanner
operator to scan my slides for me. They'd do a better job than I
would, and realistically it'd cost much less in the long run as I
don't think many of my photos would truly justify that kind of
treatment.
- Dave
