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Roger, thank you for your reflexions,
you say that the Pola 120 "it is one of the best
medium format film scanners the average photographer can currently afford" -
indeed there are basically no more than 3 affordable MF scanners at all: The
Nikon, the SS120 and the Minolta Multi Pro. I agree that the Nikon is
uninteresting because of the banding problem, but I just don´t like the idea
that you get reflexions on the scans of a 3000$scanner - this is a problem
not because it is so difficult to avoid, but simply because it is poorly thought
out or constructed. And that would make a 53mm scanner out of a 56mm one - maybe
I am considering it more dramatical than it actually is, but I don´t like basic
problems due to a poor design in expensive machines... Now you say that you never noticed that - which is at least a good sign!
I wait for Barbaras feedback.
My reflexion is simple: So far I have only
heard and read excellent reviews and opinions about the Minolta (unlike the
LS-8000): It is a little bit cheaper than the Polaroid in Germany, has ICE
for Color negs, a higher resolution for 35mm, glass carriers for badly curled
film and is also supported by VueScan. In one respect the Polaroid wins
very clearly: its much more stylish and nice to look at - the minolta is an
horribly ugly plastic box! In other words: My feeling says Polaroid, my
mind says "Minolta" :-)
But I won´t buy before January anyway - warranty
regulations will change in Germany and lead to a much longer warranty from
01/01/2002 on.
greetings Bernhard
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2001 9:51
AM
Subject: Re: filmscanners: SS120:
Reflections on edge of neg
From everything I've read about the Polaroid SprintScan 120, and from
my own experience, it is one of the best medium format film scanners the
average photographer can currently afford. It would be a shame for you
to pass up such a fine scanner based solely on this argument. I've never
noticed any reflections while scanning, but then I would never have a reason
to try to crop that close to the edge of the film for the type of work that I
do (fashion and glamour of people). You have to remember that few medium
format shooters frame as tightly as they would if shooting 35 mm. Don't
bite off your nose to spite your face. If a scanner does a nearly
perfect job of scanning 95 percent of the film frame (which is probably about
the area of coverage you saw in the viewfinder when you took the photograph,
anyway), why would you want a different scanner that might cause banding, has
poor software, causes 60 p! ercent of the image to be out of focus, has noise
in the shadow areas, has less resolution, or has some other major shortcoming.
I don't know anything about the Minolta Pro; it might be a fine scanner.
But the SS120 has a solid reputation and I wouldn't eliminate it from
contention unless you had a more significant reason.
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