Hi Jan,
Not trying to pick a nit but I would disagree with you on the idea that you
must demount a slide to achieve a good scan. That might be true in older
scanners but there are scanners starting at $200 that can do a nice job and for
$250 dollars more they will auto focus. The $500+ Epsons can all do prepress
scans but not as well as the $850 Epsons that come with better software in the
hands of experience.
All of Nikon's film scanners scan images wonderfully in frames due to a focus
feature. But they have gotten prohibitively expensive since Nikon discontinued
them.
Out of 1,200+ images in The Burlington Waycars less than a dozen were demounted
and wet scanned after we had some of them blown up in a photo lab as 5x7 film
positives. Granted, if I had my druthers, I would prefer them flat on the glass
even with our prepress scanner. But in order to obtain access to collections,
you have to adhere to the owner's wishes. It's like hunting, ask permission
first. I had no one deny permission to demount a slide. So I am very empathetic
to Andrew's feelings. Plus, it takes an enormous amount of time to cut, prep,
scan, clean and clean some more and then remount the film.
I've found in the end there is usually more wrong with the negative, slide,
photo or the emulsion than the scanner. I've looked at them with a loupe and
microscope and there seems to be no other pattern of degradation other than
less than optimal original material.
Scanning is like racing, the faster you go the more it costs and those last 3
or 4 mph will make you cry. It's a combination of optics, add-on software, high
D-max and lots of storage space = a lot of money and time.
I will repeat my warning to everyone with a slide collection. Get them scanned.
The emulsions are starting to come apart. Even the Kodachrome unless stored
under ideal conditions are beginning to have problems. The Fujichrome seems to
have held up very well and is a wonderful film to scan.
It takes a lot of time and experimentation. But the results are well worth it
when that old cabinet card image pops up and you can see the background detail
no one ever noticed in the print. Or that old red stripe mount Kodachrome pops
up color like it was shot last week.
Randy
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