What's really annoying is that the technology is there to build amazing scanners - a monochrome sensor, RGB (and IR) LED's, a suitable lens, film carriers etc are all extant technology - it just needs someone to put it all together well. Basically I'd like to see Fuji produce a Frontier SP3000 sort of device that can handle up to 8x10 & gives me full control over the file & output. Ideally with USB compatibility. Not going to be cheap, but I suspect the market is there.
What drives the price of scanners up is the whole spiel with elaborate cases, motors and mechanics.
You don’t need any of that if you can make the user move the scanner head (and/or the film).
Registration/orientation is self managing with generous overlap and the right software (and perhaps an establishing low resolution reference shot.
You could simplify (or even eliminate) optics tremendously by putting the carrier and sensor head in scanning fluid.
As well as of course get the rid of scratches and much of the micro dust that crops up on badly stored film.
Imagine something like a simple negative carrier, backlit by diffused RGB(IR) LED (or filtered xenon).
The sensor head with optics, put in a small pantograph mounted head that could be moved freely around and put down anywhere on the film plane.
Whenever the user put down the head and pressed the button, the colour carrier ( in case if colour film of course) would cycle through the LEDs in a split second, giving three (or four) clean peak (as opposed to the dulled colours of the Bayer filter) colour separated exposures, without any spatial difference between them or any interpolation needed.
Such a simple device could be made for $100 in smaller batches (hundred thousand or so for starters) and be sold for 3 - $500.
You would easily be able to make such a device scan at 8000 dpi, which is kind of agreed upon to be a good starting point for most film (though of course there is film stock out there, that warrants far higher resolution).
A device like that would not only make all legacy scanners (even more) redundant in one fell swoop, it would also mean a freeing of the real potential of film, opening the eyes of 90% percent of the naysayers, or people who think it’s a “low fi” “analogue” medium.
And, it would mean a tremendous democratizing of film as a still recording medium in this day and age.
Question is if the powers at be really has an interest in, or a fearful of such a democratization.
And if there is someone out there who has the guts to put their ass on the line for this to happen.
None of the big boys would do it. And the little ones are too chicken.
So it’s the medium size manufacturers and electronics companies who’d have to be convinced to take a small chance.
But considering the amount of utter crap, and hopelessly conceived concepts that is on the market today, I’m surprised no one has actually attempted it.