Not an expert, but I'd like to answer that the LS-30 does have a couple
of things going for it, vis-a-vis the Canon and Minolta. Digital Ice
requires a 4th channel, infrared, for it to function effectively. Both
Nikon scanners have this, as does the Minolta Elite. The IR channel also
serves the cleaning function in Vuescan. The 'clean' mode is a MAJOR
asset, unless the user is unusually successful in keeping dust and
scratches off the film.
Another advantage of the Nikons is the LED light source. If nothing else,
one would expect an LED to have a much longer life span than the other
scanners' lights, and since these are 'proprietary' elements, for which
the company can freely charge almost anything they want, one might expect
that the first lamp failure will eat up a good deal of the cost
difference.
Hersch
At 09:30 AM 02/12/2001 -0500, you wrote:
In a message dated 02/11/2001 10:22:30 PM
Eastern Standard Time,
artistic@ampsc.com writes:
<< Vuescan only costs $40 US. The LS-30 is
selling in a refurbished model for $500 US right now, as Nikon is
about
to release a new series of scanners. The only problem
reported in any
regularity with the Nikon scanners is stepper motor failures and
jagged
edges when using Nikons software. The advantage is the ICE
system which
does a good job of cleaning up dust, dirt and scratches, which can
take
a lot of time to fix by hand in Photoshop.
The other two scanners with ICE features are the Minolta Elite
(also out
of the budget) and the new Acer 2740, which is within that budget,
but
still getting some bugs worked out. All these are SCSI
interfaced scanners.
Also in this price range are the Canon FS 2710 (NOT the FS 2700),
also
SCSI, but lacking the digital ICE dust and scratch cleaner, and the
Minolta Dimage Scan Dual II, which also doesn't have digital ICE,
and
used the USB interface, but has otherwise been reported to be
excellent
and has had a price drop placing it at about $400 US. I
consider it a
"best value" in today's current market due to its
resolution (over 2800
dpi) and reasonable dynamic range, motorized feed, and ability to
work
with multi-scan in Vuescan. >>
If the Nikon LS30 price drops (due to newer models) near the range of the
Minolta Scan Dual II or Canon 2710 is it the general consensus of this
list
that the LS30 is the better scanner? And if so, is the reason
solely the ICE
feature?
