Digital BW, The Print

John,

There are several factors. Lets look at the cost for starters. If you are
scanning 100 MF negs a year then out sourcing scans will run you about
$3,000 to $5,000 per year depending upon the service bureau and file size.
So from a cost perspective you could buy one of the three 4000-48000dpi 120
film scanners on the market (Nikon, Polaroid, Minolta) and break even or
save money. If you are only doing a dozen scans a year then sending them out
makes more sense. If you are doing 1,000 a year an Imacon III makes sense or
a new drum scanner of your own.

From a quality perspective it is not so clear. The consensus is that a good
(emphasize good here since any scan can be done badly) drum scan will give
you higher resolution and lower noise levels and overall the best quality
you can get.

The other key quality issue is that it is very important to have the
scanning under your control. A great deal can be done to extract information
from the negative at this stage and I personally want to have control of
that myself.

I have a Polaroid Sprintscan 120 for 35mm and my 6x7 negs. I am quite happy
with the quality of the scans for making prints up to 13x19 which is the
most I can get out of my 1280 and I suspect that larger would not be a
problem. A 4000dpi file of a 6x7 is huge. My big complaint is that the
negative carrier is not full frame and crops the negatives a bit on two
sides. I have seen scan segments from the new Minolta and it is every bit as
good and you can get full frame. I would go that way if I was buying today.

If you can spend in the $5,000 - $7,000 range then you might want to
consider a used drum scanner. I got lucky and found a Howtek D4000 that will
cost me $5,000 to $6,000 installed. I went this route in order to get
maximum scan quality on my 4x5 negs. If I did not have anything larger than
6x7, and considering I already had the Polaroid 120, I probably would not
have done this.

If these $3,000 scanners are not in you budget then you have to look at
flatbed vs. sending it out for drum scanning. If I had to choose myself, I
think I would opt for my own scanner and trade some of the quality for
personal control. Not an easy choice.

Martin




----- Original Message -----
From: "johnoppenheimer" <johnoppenheimer@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2002 7:27 AM
Subject: [Digital BW] Medium Format Negative Scanning


> Should I send out my 120 negs to be drum scanned or buy a functional
> neg scanner for fine art bw 11x14 or 13x19 prints?
>
>
>
> Please visit the Group Homepage to check the Files, Bookmarks, Polls and
other resources as they are often being updated. The page is at:
>
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint
>
> Please follow these basic guidelines:
> - Include your full name with your message.
> - Include the address of your website, if you have one.
> - As threads develop, trim off excess portions of earlier messages to keep
them short.
> - As the topic of a thread changes remember to change the subject header.
> - Good manners are required at all time. No personal attacks or "flames."
> - Complete your Yahoo profile.
> - Before posting a question, search the message archives and the various
resources on the homepage.
>
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>