Imacon vs. Drum ... ?

[Bromo33333]

My local lab has a Imacon scanner and shows some great results in scanning negatives for extremem blowups (will do up to 4x5 for a reasonable price). I like that it is touchless, but I wonder how it compares to a drum scan.

My wife used to work as a produciton manager for publications, and said the Imacon gave results that made her think it was the same as the drum scans she got, though her memory of drum scans is from several years ago. Does anyone here know the differences as well?

 

[Jack_Flesher]

A good Drum scan will have better shadow detail than the Imacon can render. This is most noticeable when scanning chrome. However, the advantage if you are scanning color neg dimninishes to the point you probably won't see any difference in a 4x print and very little in an 8x print.

 

[Kai Hamann]

I second Jacks meaning, but the difference is substantial. Let have made an Imacon scan and a drumscan and compare for yourself.

 

[jd callow]

The differrence is most prononced when scanning chromes and at higher resolutions. The imacons tend to really pull the grain out when scanning at or near max res and suffer some in the shadow areas of chromes (but far less than anything other than a drum). An imacon will scan most colour negs without any issue and other than the grain thing are very comparable to drums. I know that Imacon was aware of the grain issue, but I do not know whether it has been addressed or not on the newer scanners.

As mentioned above, for most things an Imacon will do just fine. For chromes or xl - xxl scans a drum scan is going to be noticiably better. The biggest determining factor when getting a scan done is the operator. Someone who knows what s/he is doing makes all the difference in the world.

 

[Baxter Bradford]

For Imacons, the noise issue in deepest shadows is only apparent when trying to open them out on a very underexposed tranny with the FlexColor software. I thihnk that the Open shadow slider in Flexcolor does a much better job than Highlight/Shadow in PhotoshopCS2. There are ways around this using software plug-ins if necessary. Such as the one below. Probably best to use on duplicate layer, although I haven't felt the need to try this technique.

I now use Neat-Image to remove the grain aliasing effect when scanning colour neg film. Prior to discovering this application, I had avoided using this film type simply because the scanned results were so inferior to conventional B+W and colour transparency. I now find myself using lt in increasing volumes.

I have had no problems with my Flextight Precision II, it has been a pleasure to own and use. Inevitably it would be more convenient to have a firewire device, as for speed, the bottleneck is the dust removal and other Photoshop tweaks. The ability of the 949 to produce a 200MB scan in 40 secs is rather academic for me! My scanner still easily beats me and it chugs along at 10MB/min....!

Dust removal using the FlexTouch software isn't very good for the fine detail landscape shots which form the majority of my pictures.

An alternative to Neat-Image is Noise-Ninja, but this was far more expensive. So far, I have only had to use the Neat-Image on Auto setting, the results are fine and can see no reason to start fiddling with the sliders.

 

[Helen B]

I have little experience of drum scans, so this reply is a bit fraudulent. I hire time on a 949 once a week, and have been very pleased with the results from 4x5 and 35 mm. I manage about 11 or 12 scans an hour, at 400 MB per scan. I have Nikon 8000 and 9000 scanners, and don't find the Imacon to be a significant improvement over those for MF negative film. The Nikonscan ICE works better than Flextouch (in my opinion, more effective, much less loss of detail - but neither ICE nor Flextouch is required for clean unscratched negatives) and the Nikons have similar, or slightly better, true resolution with MF film.

The maximum scan resolution for 4x5 is 2040 ppi (spi?), but at 16 bits that's a fair sized file (400 MB). Fuji Pro 160S is effectively grain-free at that resolution.

Scanning 35 mm film at 8000 ppi on the Imacon has been an eye-opener for me. The scans look almost like film and there is no grain aliasing to speak of. There's a full-sized crop from Kodachrome 64 scanned at 8000 ppi in the first gallery linked to in my signature. It might look rough to people used to seeing full-sized (always processed) files from a Canon D5 for example, but it is a tiny part of the frame. It's in the 'Kodachrome 64' portfolio.

Best,
Helen

 

[jd callow]

Helen's experience with the newer scanners is what I've heard, but have no experience with. My post only applies to the flextights.

 

[Ted Harris]

Helen is correct in th eresolution. Additionally, you need to be verey careful to make sure that sharpening is turned off (assuming you want it off) whenusing an Imacon.

You will get better results form most of the drum scanners or high end flatbeds (Screen Cezanne, Kodak/Creo Supreme, etc.)

 

[jd callow]

I've used the Creo Eversmart and it was excellent, but not in the same league as the imacon. How is the Supreme different?

 

[Ted Harris]

The Eversmart is 3-4 generations old for starters. In its day it as the top of the Scitex/Creo line but that day was more than a decade ago an since then it was replaced by sucessive genertions, each with incremental improvements.

Even in its day an Eversmart using the right software and operated by an experienced operator could and usually did outperform an Imacon.

 

[jd callow]

The eversmart I used is now closing in on 10 years old (I believe it was 1998 or 99 vintage). I used it side by side with an Imacon Flextight II which was new at the time (~2001 or 2). I may not be the experienced operator, and the software was Creo suppiled. I would love to know specifics about what made the Eversmart or makes the Supreme better than an Imacon. As a production tool (scanning many negs at once) and especially for those shooting large film the information would be very handy.

 

[Bruce Watson]

My local lab has a Imacon scanner and shows some great results in scanning negatives for extremem blowups (will do up to 4x5 for a reasonable price). I like that it is touchless, but I wonder how it compares to a drum scan.

Like most things, it depends. It depends on your film, your exposure, your image, what you think constitues "extreme" and countless other things. IOW, the only way to really tell what will work for you is to get scans made from the same film both ways, make prints from both scans, and compare the prints. NOTE: comparing scans on a monitor is highly problematic.

For context, I'm a drum scanner operator, so I'm not an unbiased source What I have found is that drum scans give you two things you can't get from other scanners. One is the technical improvements of PMTs over CCDs - the very sharp imaging and huge density range that you can't get any other way (although the professional flatbeds get better every year). The other is the more subjective improvements you get from fluid mounting on a curved drum. I think each of these is worth about the same amount in the final print.

Of course, the smaller the enlargement the less these things matter. It's only after around 8-10x enlargement that drum scans become fairly clearly better than scans from other devices. Even then it depends on the image, the film, the exposure and processing, etc. Even a drum scanner can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

In the end however, how a scan from an Imacon compares to a drum scan is something only you can decide. Why guess when you can so easily know? Do the tests and find out which you like better.