Good value for money to digitize your old pictures
Written: Jul 28 '05
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
|
Pros: Batch scanning, good with dense film; sharper than a 4800 dpi flatbed scanner
Cons: Quirky mechanicals; slow startup.
The Bottom Line: Yes. Good value for money and good results. The quirks can be mastered by any person with the patience to scan film.
|
|
|
| egcastroleon's Full Review: Konica Minolta Dimage Scan Dual IV Film Scanner (3... |
I purchased a Dual Scan IV to replace a 10-year old Nikon LS-20. With the Nikon I noticed that I could not get any detail from dark slides and from ancient high-speed negatives like Kodak Super XX. Considering that the Dual IV can do batches of 4 to 6 frames and scans faster, the overall throughput is about double the LS-20, which had to be fed one-by-one. This is significant if you need to digitize several dozen rolls. Twice the throughput at one third of the price of the LS-20 is a good deal. The LS-20 is my frame of reference; I have not tried higher-end scanners.
The Scan Dual IV handles dense film material well. It has an exposure control I found useful in handling under- and over-exposed material.
Negative and flatbed scanners are not directly comparable. Scans from prints have a much narrower tonal range than scans from the original negative, and hence are acceptable only as a last resort, when the original negative or slide is not available. I also own a 4800 dpi Canoscan 9950F flatbed with a film attachment. From a subjective observation, scans from the Minolta at 3200 dpi are sharper than scans from the Canoscan at 4800 dpi. Scans from the Canoscan at the highest resolution are somewhat soft and not unpleasant, whereas scans from the Minolta have a harsher quality because it will show the film grain, and actually finer detail. 3200 dpi represents over 100 lines/mm (133 lpmm to be exact.) Only the highest quality cameras working under ideal conditions with very fine grain film will resolve over 100 lines/mm. Practical resolutions are actually in the 30-60 range. Hence, higher end film scanners will top the Minolta only on a very small percentage of slides or negatives.
I purchased the APS film holder. The retail price is almost a half of the price of the scanner, and hence it is relative expensive. This attachment will allow batching a whole roll, all 15, 25 or 40 frames. One caveat is that if you are using the TWAIN driver from within an imaging application such as PaintShop or Photoshop and your PC has less than 512 MB of memory, Windows(tm) will run out of virtual memory. In this case, use the provided scanning application, which will store the image to disk after each scan.
To improve the workflow in my current project that involves over 100 rolls, I purchased a second Minolta. Working with two scanners keeps waiting time to a minimum: I reload one scanner while the second is humming along.
Scanning black and white negs is tricky with this scanner. With the b&w setting scans sometimes acquire a blotchy appearance. Scanning b&w negs as color negatives yields a better tonal rendition. However, in this case the TWAIN driver renders the scans with a color cast, from reddish to greenish. The Nikon is much more consistent in this respect.
The scanner requires some time to initialize. It will ask you to pull out any holder and close the scanner door to calibrate.
The mechanical handling is tricky and requires some learning and skill. The procedures described in the manual must be followed to the letter, or the scanner can self-destruct. In particular, the take-up of the film holder is motorized: you push the holder until it hits a detent, and the machine will position the holder as needed. The trouble is, on certain occasions the detent is not there and this will allow pushing in the holder more than it should. This usually happens when the holder is pushed in while the TWAIN driver is not running. If you don't notice resistance, remove the holder IMMEDIATELY. Otherwise, when the TWAIN driver starts, it will pull in the holder a present amount, and if the holder was inserted more than appropriate, the holder will hit the back wall of the device when the stepper motor is activated. This is b-a-d. The stepper motor will try to drive the holder through the back wall of the scanner producing a horrible grating noise in the process. Left alone, the motor will burn in about 10 seconds. At this point the action of last resort is to reach to the back of the scanner and unplug the power supply.
In sum, to be safe, do not insert the holder until the TWAIN driver is up and running.
The second caveat is that if you are scanning film strips, make sure that the film is totally enclosed within the film holder. Otherwise the holder will not snap shut, and it will jam inside the scanner, with a similar grating noise. This can happen inadvertently if the strip is slightly longer than 6 frames due to overhang at the end of a roll. This overhang needs to be cut before positioning the strip in the holder. This process requires care, because it is not always obvious that the holder is properly closed before insertion.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 270
Interface: USB
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
egcastroleon
|
|
Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.