I have a slightly contrary view about the 'essentiality' of ICE..
Note that my only bias is that I can't afford a scanner with IR (have you
seen Australia's lousy exchange rate?). I don't work for the ICE people
like Jack.. ;-)
I have spent a fair bit of time experimenting on various ways to clean film
safely (both negatives and slides). My cleaning method is very simple - I
have discovered that some of these new acrylic antistatic cloths sold for
household dusting ('Amazing Wipes' - sigh..) are great. The ones I am
using have no impregnated oils (some do!), are incredibly soft and really
do pull the dust off (unlike some photo-cloths I have tried). Naturally I
use the cloth very lightly, and used this way they do not result in any
damage to my film. However, do this ENTIRELY at your own risk - I strongly
recommend testing on junk film to get the hang of it, and remember
negatives tend to be more delicate than transparencies.
Now I rarely spend more than a few minutes de-specking.. Compared to the
rest of the time I will spend playing with an image, that isn't much...
I agree that ICE (or similar) might be very useful if you have limited
time-per-image, or lots of really dusty, scratched, or mould-damaged film -
but I haven't, and I don't find myself wishing for ICE..
Regards, Mark T.
>From: Jack Phipps <JPhipps@asf.com>
>To: "'filmscanners@halftone.co.uk'" <filmscanners@halftone.co.uk>
>Subject: RE: filmscanners: Nikon 8000 ED or Polaroid Sprintscan 120 ??
>Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 10:53:35 -0600
>
>I wouldn't consider a scanner that didn't have Digital ICE. Not only that,
<snip>
==========================================
Mark Thomas markthom@camtech.net.au
PO Box 1813 Pt Lincoln SA Australia 5606
Phn (08) 8685 2116 Mob 0428 82 6960
Int +618 8685 2116
