Agreed. Digital camera scanning has taken over much of what was already a declining market.No market for them.
That's all there is to it. Not enough demand to justify the r&d investment.No market for them.
the combination was bound to lead to a really, really high price tag.
It depends on volumes. The problem is that for a development like this, the expected volume will be low. That makes marginal costs high. It's really simple economics. There's nothing inherently expensive about the concept as such.
The constituent parts, made to the desired specs, are however likely to be really expensive.
We shall agree to disagree
You can't get drum scanners. I learned about Coolscans just today and they seem to be discontinued. I've used Epson's of all grades and disliked them for film.
Why do scanning companies not produce better scanners instead of always going downhill?
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Because a modern digital camera and a macro lens will do as good a job if not better. The relatively low demand (despite the resurgence of film) is one aspect, but many film photographers also own a digital camera and a simple copy stand setup is all that's needed. If they don't own a camera already think of it another way, you could spend £2500 on a medium format Plustek scanner which has only one use, to scan film, or spend the same amount on a digital camera and you get both a 'scanner' and a camera.
I’m skeptical that there are many film photographers that don’t own all the things you mentioned. But even if that’s true, surely people who don’t own computers don’t need to scan their film?
Most teenagers at the very least have access to a computer. But in any case, people like that (and most other film photographers) just have the lab that develops their film scan it too.
Yeah, that makes sense. I bought an Epson flatbed first (many years ago). The Plustek came later when I wanted something smaller and less fiddly. It does produce very nice results. I eventually went to the camera setup because I wanted to scan 120 and it was appealing to scan a whole roll in one go without cutting into strips.
That said, at least Plustek themselves are still making decent film scanners!
I honestly don't know why people moan about the quality of flatbed scanners
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