Drum scanner for amateur/enthusiast?

[Erik Ehrling]

Hi!

I have so far been shooting 35mm, scanning with a Minolta Dimage Scan 5400 and been very happy with the results. Especially considering the natural limitations of the 35mm format. Now, however, I'm about to move up to medium format and therefore look for a suitable scanner for it. The Nikon Coolscan 9000 is one option, an old Imacon Flextight could be another and of course a drum scanner would be the option for ultimate quality.

I expect a Nikon Coolscan 9000 to behave very much like the Minolta 5400. What makes me a little bit hesitant about the Flextight is the lack of dust removal (ICE), at least on the models I have been looking at.

But the option I'm really curious about is the drum scanner option. Is there a reliable drum scanner, say in the $1.5k-3k range? What brands/models do you recommend? If I buy an old drum scanner, can I get service and spare parts for it? What is a good place to buy them from? And last, but not least, how hard is it to get one up and running for a 'drum scanner newbie'?

Your advice/comments would be highly appreciated!

Regards,
Erik Ehrling (Sweden)

 

[nsouto]

Hmmmmm, I think you'd be better served with a 9000. There used to be a Minolta for medium format, but the model number escapes me.

Flexscans are incredibly expensive even 2nd-hand and I'm not yet convinced they can do much better than a 9000 used to its limits. In particular, the lack of Ice is a bummer for anything non-b&w.
But of course, I'm open to different opinions: I don't own a Flexscan so can't talk from hands-on experience.

I do however own - and use a lot - a 9000 and it's simply stunning for medium format. Having said that, I do strongly recommend you look at the glass carrier, or at getting an after-market plate of AN glass and modifying the strandard carrier to use it.
You MUST keep the film completely flat to get the best of any of the coolscan scanners, and the 9000 is no exception.

Unless you have very flat film, the standard holder will cause you problems with focusing. A bit of a letdown given that this was already an issue with the 8000 and Nikon has done nothing to fix it with the 9000. But I suppose no one is perfect?

A drum scanner might be a very large jump from your current situation and will involve a very large learning curve. The workflow is also completely different with most scans being "wet" and involving a lot of cleaning. Not a single doubt in my mind they achieve the best results, but there is a lot of work involved.

You might be lucky and grab a second hand drum scanner in the price range you mentioned, but I suspect a 9000 might be a better chance at that price range.

I'm also told the Microtek Artixscan 120tf is also very good for MF, but I've also heard bad reports on their support, so tread carefully there...

 

[lenny]

It depends on your luck. There are plenty of drum scanners around in that range. It just depends on who is selling on this month, etc.

I don't share the concern about the difficulty of drum scanning. One has to learn how to mount a piece of film, but its no more difficult than figuring out how to flatten the same with neg carrier on a film scanner.

There are a one or two more options in the software than there might be for a flatbed, aperture, etc. But that's it. There is nothing difficult about drum scanning.

That said, the extra capabilities make for some good options and it does take some time to learn what is possible. How does one track back from what kind of print one wants to make to what kind of scan is required? This takes some knowledge and experience. But this idea that drum scanning is somehow difficult that seems to be circulating around some of the forums is patently false.

Lenny

 

[Erik Ehrling]

Thanks a lot. That's the kind of encouraging answer that I was hoping for. Film is very much out of fashion here in Sweden, so I might be lucky if someone clears out all film related stuff. But I still need to know which brands/models that it's possible to get a service and spare parts for - there's actually very little updated information out there for the current situation 2008...

Regards,
Erik Ehrling (Sweden)

 

[clay]

I'll pop in here with some personal experience. I have been using a Nikon 8000 for the last 4 years, and it is a fine scanner. I agree with the other posters that the glass carrier is a necessity, and the liquid mount carrier is another beneficial step beyond that for this scanner.

But recently, I got the opportunity to pick up a just-overhauled Howtek HR8000 drum scanner for a very good price. I bit the bullet and bought the DPL pro scanner software to drive it, along with a mounting station and supplies.

I had previously wet mounted my negatives on the Nikon 8000, so I understood the basic idea behind wet mounting. I downloaded the excellent mounting video from the Aztek website, and after a few sort of pathetic first attempts, I got the hang of mounting the negatives on the drum. Total time invested: about 2 hours.

I mounted the drum and went through the process of learning how the software works. It is both very simple and very powerful. I made some scans, and I must say that while I was very satisfied with the Nikon scans, after seeing the drum scans, their quality simply blew away the Nikon's. There is no doubt that the resolution and ability to resolve detail in dense areas of the negative is superior to the Nikon. This should really be no surprise, since the resolution of the Howtek is 8000 spi versus the nominal 4000 spi of the Nikon 8000 (in practice, the Nikon 8000 has more like 3000 spi effective resolution).

Is it more of a pain in the ass to use? Sure, it takes more time than simply throwing a negative in the Nikon 8000 to see what I have. But here is the cool part: you can load up a pile of smaller negatives on the drum scanner, tweak each negative for dynamic range, contrast, and scanning resolution, and then set up a batch job, and then leave it alone for a few hours. When you come back, you will have a computer full of really good scans. This ability to batch up a bunch of negatives and then let the scanner run unattended is a huge time saver. With the Nikon, if you decide to carefully scan a dozen 6x9 negatives, you better be prepared to sit in front of your computer for a while. The tradeoff with the drum scanner is at the front end of the process, where it is a little more time consuming.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Erik Ehrling]

I saw a claim here

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51473

that Aztek and ICG are the only manufacturers of drum scanners left. Maybe I should look in the ICG direction as they are Europe based. However, at 3500 GBP + VAT for a second hand but serviced ICG 355 they are almost double the price range I would be looking at. Hmm... maybe the Coolscan 9000 is not such a bad option after all.

Regards,
Erik Ehrling (Sweden)

 

[nsouto]

I saw a claim here
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51473

Far from me to dissuade you from getting a drum scanner: what Lenny said is very correct and clay mentioned the relevance of batch processing.

That thread on rangefinderforum mentions AN glass from Focalpoint. I can second the use of these. Got one for the 9000, I just put it on top of the film in the standard MF carrier or sometimes under the film, depending which way it is curling or the best result can be achieved. A lot cheaper than the Nikon glass carrier, and it helps keep the film within around 5 focus units in the 9000: enough for very sharp results over the whole frame.

The standard MF carrier locks will cope with the thickness of the film and the glass plate, so no need for custom hold downs. I've also used two of these AN glass pieces for the 35mm carrier in the 9000, but in that case I had to fabricate a custom holddown out of brass tube and rod. It works a treat, but it was a lot more work than simply getting a coolscan V for 35mm and those keep that film flat a lot easier.

One hint should you decide to go this way: get more than one piece of AN glass from Focalpoint: they are flimsy and can break easy. Not that expensive that it's not worth keeping a few spares.

If there is a weak point of the 9000/8000 it's the film carriers, so be prepared to invest some time on them to get the scanner to hum. Worth the effort in my case, others might not be so happy with that.