Digital BW, The Print

From: "John Labovitz" <johnl@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 12:17 AM
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] A conundrum


> On 1/2/03 11:22 PM, "Martin Wesley" <mwesley250@...> wrote:
>
> > You can pick up used
> > densitometers such as the X-Rite 810 on eBay in the $200 to $300 range.
>
> Boy, you aren't kidding -- there are more than a dozen densitometers and
> colorimeters and spectrophotometers!
>
> Now if only I knew what the difference between them all was.  I guess it's
> time to go peruse X-Rite's site.
>
> Besides the 810, are there other ones that would be good for basic step
> wedge scanning?
>
John,

There is a very confusing array of models and I am not really up on all of
them. I suspect most of them may not be useful for our purposes so some
research on the X-Rite site is in order. The Gretag and MacBeth sites as
well. I wound up with a X-Rite 811 which is a minor variant of the 810.

I would recommend a model that has both reflective and transmissive
capabilities so that you can measure film as well as prints. Another thing
to watch out for is that a lot of these units no longer have their
calibrations plaques which you must have. Replacing them from X-Rite can add
another $100+ to the cost. (I learned this the hard way!) Still I got a
$4,500 model 811 and new plaques for about $400 total.

Martin Wesley