Filmomat: 135 Autocarrier. Automatic 35mm scanning system

[Andreas Thaler]

Say hello to the new Autocarrier, the future of camera scanning!

With the new 135 Autocarrier you can bring your camera scanning setup to the next level. The Autocarrier automatically transports the film with a speed of up to 3fps. Each frame is precisely detected and positioned by a custom made frame sensor. Your camera is triggered automatically. For each exposure, the film is pressed down by a magnetic pressure plate to ensure maximum flatness.

135 Autocarrier. Automatic 35mm scanning system.

Get ready for a new era of film scanning. Experience unmatched speed, precision and ease of use, with the new Autocarrier system. IN STOCK! Features: Impressive speed of up to 3fps (frame per second).* Speed is continuously adjustable down to around 0.8fps. Custom frame sensor, which detects and...

shop.filmomat.eu

For example, it's interesting for scanning archives.

This makes purchasing a DSLR attractive again for me. I actually didn't want to invest in digital anymore

 

[koraks]

Oh yeah, I saw that some time ago. Pretty neat, especially the video of the device. The person who showed it to me told that the guy who made it shares an office/workspace with someone who used to service minilab scanners or something along those lines. Apparently they talked a bit about film transport.
Looks very convenient, although for €1750 I'm prepared to suffer with a DIY kludge for quite some time.

 

[loccdor]

Looks very high quality. I'd could see a cheapened-down version going for $500 being popular for enthusiasts.

The high speed wouldn't work for me while using pixel shift. I think my camera takes about 10 seconds to record an image.

 

[koraks]

I'd could see a cheapened-down version going for $500 being popular for enthusiasts.

That might make sense for a mass produced product, but this is more of a niche application. This means that R&D costs are a major factor, for which reason I don't see a cheap version hit the market very soon. It wouldn't surprise me if the margin on materials & manufacturing is something like €1200 or even more, which may have to pay for the (wild guess) 1500 hours of engineering that went into it. He'd still have to sell 100 units at those numbers to get to a decent hourly rate (taking into account taxes, pension plans, insurance etc.) and I wonder if the market will be able to absorb even that. If he drops the price to €500 (re-engineering part of it in the process, which effectively drives costs up, not down), he might address a somewhat larger market, but will also have to sell a lot more of these to break even.

 

[Lachlan Young]

He'd still have to sell 100 units at those numbers

It's aimed at the market that is largely occupied keeping 1990s minilab scanners staggering along. Hopefully it's successful enough that a 135/120 version makes an appearance for less than 5K.

The high speed wouldn't work for me while using pixel shift.

Not really meant for that at all - more for churning out 24mp files at pace.

 

[loccdor]

Probably right, I guess it saves small labs from having to hire an engineer to build some type of motorized film advance. There must not be a large enough market for a company with mass production capability to get a similar idea.

 

[Lachlan Young]

Probably right, I guess it saves small labs from having to hire an engineer to build some type of motorized film advance. There must not be a large enough market for a company with mass production capability to get a similar idea.

There's a fair few labs with quite a heap of running minilab scanners & parts machines - the difference is that if the critical part for high throughput camera scanning can be built for 1500EUR rather than dealing with a heavy and really quite obsolete chunk of kit that often still costs a multiple of that - and which would need a significant guaranteed sales volume for new integrated scanners to be made, then you can see where the potential lies.

BTW the Frontier scanner is a pixel shifter too. Nothing new under the sun! If Fuji was smart, they'd put colour inversion profiles on their pixel shift cameras...

 

[4season]

I could see this paying for itself quickly for some folks, and the half-frame mask is a nice extra. But maybe not for me: I spent a lot of time doing dawn-to-dusk film scanning during the pandemic, so most of the stuff that I want digitized is already done.

 

[brbo]

BTW the Frontier scanner is a pixel shifter too. Nothing new under the sun! If Fuji was smart, they'd put colour inversion profiles on their pixel shift cameras...

Which would be more or less useless since they are geared towards tri-scan BW CCD sensor system.

Otherwise, yeah, I've been waiting for a digital camera with BW sensor without IR filter for a decade now. Should be the easiest camera to build, m4/3, pixel-shift 12MP is all you need. But I guess the volume just isn't there. I hoped that Ricoh would see the opportunity to sell such a digital camera to every Pentax 17 buyer (since K3 Monochrome is 95% there, or better said, it's 350% there), alas...

 

[koraks]

There's a fair few labs with quite a heap of running minilab scanners & parts machines

That's a good point!