Lumière d’Argent

I have just tried to see  if I could buy a Kodak ISQmart 1. Kodak/Creo scanners are really high end, about the best one can get. Well, it is almost impossible to buy one in large parts of Western Europe.

I live in Luxembourg. The nearest dealer that Kodak put me in contact with is located in England! Really easy to arrange for a demo!

According to the dealer, Kodak does not make the scanners anymore. The Creo factory in Israel is stopped and only the IQSmart3 is still presented as a current model. Some stock remains. I was offered an ex-demo IQSmart1 at a decent price, it would have been tempting.

But the problems just pile up. After you get over the extremely scarce distribution network and the idea to spend so much on an outdated line of scanners, there is the system requirements. The software requires a MacPro. The Mac OS X version has to be the one provided on DVD with the machine, with no update whatsoever. This means I'd have to dedicate a MacPro as a scanning station! The only other Mac models supported are ancient G3 and G4 machines. A Windows version exists, but with reduced functionalities.

When you add the shipping and installation costs (900€), the deal gets more and more crazy.

So I declined the offer.

The only remaining alternative is the Nikon CoolScan LS 9000. Much less expensive, but not exactly the deal of the year either. The model will be discontinued starting this month. The software is already not updated anymore for quite a time and support can not be expected to last long. Kodak, at least, promises support and repairs for at least 6 years.

So, ok, my Epson V750 and Plustek 7500i will have to do. But seeing all the really good scanners disappearing from the market makes one wonder what will happen when the Epson stops working.

Stephane :: Feb.18.2010 :: Gear, Scanning, Software :: 3 Comments »

After about two years and a half doing 99.9% of my photos with digital cameras, I am left with mixed feelings. Mostly, it is great. I did get what I missed when I was using solely the Rollei SL66 and later the Arca-Swiss 6×9. However, as I should have foreseen, I also lost a few things:

• Ability to cope with specular highlight in an aesthetic way
• Dynamic range
• Production of a tangible, durable object
• The large viewfinder
• Flexible depth of field management

I won’t go back to everything this or that. But I started last summer to use my Leica again, with great joy and nice results too.

For Christmas I received a beautiful present: an old Mamiya RZ67 with a standard 110mm lens. It is big, heavy, slower to use than the E-3, but the large negatives are a pleasure to work with. And now that I found again a proper development procedure, I get instant quasi-HDR on every negative.

Stephane :: Jan.06.2009 :: Film, Gear, Scanning :: 1 Comment »

Last year, Colin Jago talked on his blog of an interesting software for negative scanners: Colorneg.

I downloaded the trial version and gave it a go. It did indeed produce fine results but at that stage I was reluctant to add yet another software. Moreover, at the time, I was not really using film all that much.

Since then I have started again to use my Leica and so the question of B&W film scanning and processing became current for me too.

For digital processing, depending on my inconsistency among other things, I currently use Aperture, Photoshop CS3, Bibble Pro, QuadtoneRIP and some nice PhotoShop plugins.  Still reluctant to add yet another software piece, I tried different things. Clearly, VueScan is best at driving my Epson scanner. Its B&W output is adequate but not exactly great and the control it offers does not suit me. Besides, I like the idea of scanning to RAW. I find the curves to apply to VueScan RAW files quite steep and I produced unwanted effects that way.

I then noticed the DNG option in VueScan. It produces a DNG raw file, just ready for Adobe Camera Raw. That software was designed precisely to do what I need: correctly map a gamma 1 file to the more useful gamma 2.2 or 1.8 or whatever is in QTR Lab space. It works beautifully. The trick to invert the picture in ACR is to use the point curve, select the Linear setting and invert its slope. The controls in ACR allow to produce a very good starting point for further finishing in PhotoShop.

Stephane :: Oct.19.2008 :: Film, Scanning, Software :: No Comments »

Many things going on photographically:

• got an Olympus E-3 with its seemingly obligatory 12-60mm zoom. Works amazingly well.
• went through a printing session that made me want to shoot some film again (above is HP5+)
• ordered chemicals, film and the few items I needed to develop
• shot very little recently but still have a backlog of the Spring shootings to process

Stephane :: Aug.09.2008 :: Film, Gear, Lens, Photography, Random Thoughts, Scanning, Software :: No Comments »

Among comments I got in different forums after the previous article, some pointed out I could have got even better results had I used a higher resolution. Others said 3200dpi was way above the Epson true resolution.

Well, I must admit I had chosen the 3200dpi resolution because I knew 6400dpi was ridiculous and 3200dpi gave still a manageable file size from a 35mm negative.

So I made some more tests.

I started at 6400dpi and that produces a huge file that shows big square pixels when sharpened. It looks like a the 3200dpi file at 200% on screen. Useless.

4800dpi has the same problem.

2400dpi, when enlarged to 3200dpi shows no detectable difference at 100% Needless to say, it would show absolutely none on print. So, 3200dpi was indeed too much.

1800dpi, when enlarged to 3200dpi shows a loss.

It appears the optimum is 2400dpi with this scanner. Still respectable considering the price and its multi-format capabilities.

Stephane :: Dec.27.2007 :: Printing, Scanning :: No Comments »