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From: Don Kirkman on 12 Mar 2010 14:20
On Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:42:46 +0100, "il barbi"
<angeieri.barboggi(a)ngi.it> wrote:

>"il barbi" <angeieri.barboggi(a)ngi.it> ha scritto nel messaggio
>news:hn2vja$pkv$1(a)nnrp.ngi.it...
>>I see at present some cheap offers for "slide scanners" acting in the
>>reality as cameras, for instance:

>Thanks to all for your valuable answers, actually I asked the question but I
>already knew the answer...:-)
>Anyway the reason for these devices is quite strong, that is the time of
>performance being as short as few seconds. Indeed many people, like me,
>don't want to pass the rest of their life in scanning the thousands of
>slides & negative shooted in the past years... Do you think there will ever
>be a substantial improvement in time performance with todays scanner
>technology?
>il barbi

I bought one of those scanners (they seem to be basically identical,
no matter which company is selling them) but could never get it to
function--as I recall, I couldn't get my system to recognize the
hardware or the installation software. The vendor (one of those shops
that specialize in gadgetry and miracle products) referred me to the
manufacturer, who traded me a new one for the first one, but the
results were the same. At the time, I was running Windows XP SP3 on a
dual-core Pentium system.
--
Don Kirkman
donsno2(a)charter.net
From: Noons on 12 Mar 2010 20:19
Ivan wrote,on my timestamp of 13/03/2010 3:05 AM:


> The reason the cheap scanners are so fast is that they don't scan,
> near as I can tell, but simply photograph the slide or neg with a
> camera-type sensor. Since high-resolution (10-15 MP) sensors are
> already in relatively inexpensive cameras, and 20-MP or higher sensors
> are available, I think higher resolution for these one-snap scanners
> is bound to come.

I sincerely hope so. But there is a bit more about scanning than just upping the
rez of the scanner. Correct focus and keeping the film flat become more and
more important as the rez goes up. Most of these cheap scanners don't even have
any focus facility and rely on flimsy mounts to keep frames flat.



> good electronics and good optics, but digital electronics keep coming
> down in price and, though flat-field optics aren't cheap, at least the


Aren't cheap? Have you seen the prices enlarger lenses go at the moment? I've
seen them flogged in ebay for less than $20! Any of those mounted on a bellows
makes an ideal macro setup for ANY camera, digital or not! It only shows the
idiotic bias of the market against anything that involves the term "film"...
:)

> designers of scanner lenses don't have to worry about zoom or
> maintaining focus over a wide range of distances. And one could keep
> the cost down by using lenses with known aberrations that could be
> corrected digitally. I don't know, however, what useful extras like
> Digital ICE would contribute to the cost.

Agree entirely with your points. Don't know if DIce can be included in a
camera-sensor based scanner, though. I think it involves IR light and that is a
problem with a lot of sensors. Still, it should be possible in principle. But a
soft light source can do wonders without need for a DIce facility. Problem is
making one that is reliable and repeatable. LEDs are too harsh.

But quite frankly, almost anything would be better than the current crop of
"fast" scanners.
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