Digital BW, The Print

Hello Austin,

you wrote:
> Not to poo poo it in any way, as it is an exceptional scanner, 
but I've
> never really thought of it in any way like a drum scanner 
though...as the
> technology is completely different.  That "line" is more 
advertising than
> reality...  When they say that, they are referring to the curved film
> mounting only, as far as I know.  Does anyone here have any 
first hand
> experience with whether the Imacon curved film mounting 
actually helps, and
> if so, with what formats?  I assume it does 4x5?


I believe that you are right when you say Imacon are only 
referring to the curved film mounting when they compare their 
products to drum scanners.  From my experience, the curved 
film mounting really does help.  Not only can you see even 
severely curved film snap into a perfectly flat plane when you 
bend the film holder in your hand, but I am getting edge to edge 
sherpness I wasn't seeing when I did tests with the Polaroid and 
their standard film holders; I have no experience with the glass 
holders.

The Imacon Photo model will do 35mm up to 6x18.  It can do 
4x5, but it takes two passes.  It would take too long to explain 
here exactly how it fits, but a 4x5 will fit in the 6x18 holder and you 
need to run it through the machine twice and stitch it together in 
Photoshop, which is really simple.  All the other Imacon models 
will scan a 4x5 in one pass.

> Do you have to mount each frame individually, as in cut each 
frame out of a
> strip?

Yes, sort of.  If the frame you want to scan is at the end of a strip, 
you can mount that frame in the holder's window and let the rest 
of the strip dangle out of the machine as it does the scan.  It 
really isn't as awkward as it sounds when I describe it.  However 
if you want to scan a neg that is in the middle of a strip, you will 
need to cut it; but only one cut is necessary because it just 
needs to be at the end of a strip, not necessarily an individual 
frame.

Hope that answers your questions,
Justin