I am given the opportunity to buy a used Crosfield Celsis 240 drumscanner. Any thoughts regarding performance, mechanical quality and operating costs?
For the record, I intend to use the machine for 120 film.
Thank you in advance, Marcel
First, join the yahoo group ScanHi-End. Do some searching through the archives. There's have been and still are Crosfield users there.
Things to find out: How big, how heavy -- can your floor take the load? Can you physically get it to where you want it to end up? Electrical requirements -- will it require special electrical service? Some of these old scanners want 3 phase power for example. HVAC requirements -- will it generate so much heat that you'll have special cooling requirements?
Most importantly, software -- what's it take to drive the scanner, including hardware (an old Mac, with MacOS 9.2 or earlier probably). And... will the combination of software / scanner let you make 16 bit file saves? If you are working on negatives, you'll want to be able to do 16 bit file saves. Find out the minimum aperture size it supports (this bears directly on sharpness), and what variety of apertures it has. If you are going to be making big files, what's the maximum file size it supports?
Clearly, in order to find some of this out you'll first have to define your requirements. Because if the scanner won't do what you need it to do, it's no bargain even if it's free.
Speaking of price, don't pay too much. I've seen a number of Crosfields go unsold to the junk pile in the last few years. Basically they are, at this point, only good until they break. Then parts and service become a real problem (you'll have to scrounge for the parts, and you have to be your own service technician).
But if you are willing to take the risks and work on the scanner yourself, they are reputed to be great scanners. Very good reputation, especially for image quality.
