Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/12/28
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At 11:27 AM -0500 12/28/01, Dante Stella wrote:
>Given that I have a huge backlog of [Leica and compatible] negs to scan,
>is this automated scanner a solution? Does anyone like this thing? The
>pricing is pretty attractive, and so is the batch scan capability. Does
>Silverfast make it usable? A lot of people bitched about the Kodak
>software.
>
>Thanks
>Dante
I recently bought one for my son, who had been using a Coolscan II.
He is very happy with it (on a Mac, system 9.1). He likes the scan
quality, especially the higher dynamic range than the Coolscan and
the batch scan mode. I was able to afford the scanner for him 'cuz I
took the 110 rolls of film that came with it :-). My son said the
software, as far as he is concerned, is slightly better than Nikon's.
Vuescan does not work with this machine, and I don't think Silverfast
does either.
Initially, a lot of people had problems with the software, but as far
as I have been able to determine, it was not because it was bad in
the sense of poor controls or poor interface, but because it was
flaky and crashed very easily. It's gone through a number of
iterations, and the scanner firmware has also been updated. Seems OK
now; he hasn't had a crash due to the scanner software yet, so he
says.
When the SprintScan 4000 from Polaroid first came out, I had it and a
Coolscan 2000 at home for a week, and on the basis of that comparison
bought the Coolscan, due to better dynamic range mostly. Also the
Polaroid Insight software was terrible at the time. Now, so I hear,
the Polaroid is even competitive with the Coolscan 4000, although
I'll believe they have similar dynamic ranges when I get to try it
myself. In any case, Polaroid has worked on their machine and
produced something quite decent, even though it started out poorly. I
believe the Kodak RFS3600 is a similar item, and it has some
features, such as the whole film scanning, that others lack. It seems
quite a good value now.
Just remember that the batch scanning on this thing works on uncut
rolls of film; for mounted slides you need the Coolscan 2000 or 4000
with their often flaky and expensive SF-200 batch attachment.
- --
* Henning J. Wulff
/|\ Wulff Photography & Design
/###\ mailto:henningw@archiphoto.com
|[ ]| http://www.archiphoto.com
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