Has anyone tested the Wolverine F2D film scanner?
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From: Nigel Feltham on 4 May 2010 19:47 Barry Watzman wrote: > That said, you can't judge ANY scanning solution by printed specs of the > scanner. My main document scanner is an HP 5470C/5490C. It is great, > fantastic, "there is no better flatbed document scanner" product. I > sing it's praises from the highest hilltop. > > And it has an XPA (transparency adapter) and it can scan slides and > negatives at 2,400 dpi (true, real hardware resolution). > > And it's scans of slides and negatives just plain SUCKS. > > Do your friend a favor: Take one of his slides or negatives, do a top > quality scan on a Nikon LS-2000 scanner with Digital ICE at full > resolution. > > Let HIM compare his scan of the same slide on any other hardware that he > is considering to the Nikon. That will be the end of the argument. He's now tried scanning his slides on an old flatbed (Epson 1260) with light reflector on top and as expected the results truly suck with shockingly bad contrast and odd white patches that look like holes in the film that I know aren't there from holding the slides up to the light (probably makes your HP look like a great film scanner in comparison). As he's not really willing to either fit a SCSI card or lend me the slides and I don't really want to lend out either of my good Nikon scanners as getting hard to replace now (and I'm not finished scanning my own slides yet) we're going to try a compromise at the moment and I'm going to fit my old LS-20 to an old PC at work for him to bring the slides in for lunch time scanning and see how well that works. I know this means the results won't be up to LS-2000 quality and there's no Digital ICE to help but should still be better than any of the affordable solutions he's found (I know I did have acceptable results with scanning my parent's old slides with the LS-20 until I had the LS-30 and LS-2000 to compare it with unlike the poor results Dad had on his Epson equivalent of your HP). That's what I find amusing - how many good reviews some of the flatbed or 5m camera type film scanners there are where the examples are a lot worse than even the LS-10 could do (I've still got one of these but at 6 minutes per scan, fiddly manual focus, and only working properly on ISA SCSI cards I don't think I can lend that out).
From: Barry Watzman on 4 May 2010 19:51 Just get him to lend you ONE slide so that he can understand what the situation is. The "light source reflection devices" (light reflector) are a bad joke. But part of the problem is that a lot of people do not know how to even use them. They have to be laid out horizontally. If they are laid out in any other orientation, they don't work. The exact orientation is critical. BTW, the HP that I have has an "XPA", a "real", powered light source accessory. I'm not familiar with the LS-20, but a lot of the pre LS-2000 Nikons have the same resolution as the LS-2000, but lack Digital ICE. A more critical factor is that they are chronologically old and therefore likely DIRTY (dusty optics). And, on top of that, their software sucks, and is often incompatible even with Windows XP. I guess I should point out (although I suspect that you know this) that Ratoc makes both SCSI to Firewire and SCSI to USB converters that do work with the LS-2000 and LS-30. Thus, no SCSI card required. However, the converters are $100 (give or take), and you have to use Hamrick Vuescan software instead of Nikon Scan. Other than that, they are completely viable solutions. [And, in particular, they fully support use with Vista and Windows 7 and all version of the Mac OS. AND they fully support 64-bit Vista and 64-bit Windows 7.] [I think that these work with LS-1000's also, and you can pick up LS-1000's for as little as $10-$25; the resolution and basic quality of an LS-1000 (with clean optics) is the same as an LS-2000, however there is no digital ICE.] Nigel Feltham wrote: > > He's now tried scanning his slides on an old flatbed (Epson 1260) with light > reflector on top and as expected the results truly suck with shockingly bad > contrast and odd white patches that look like holes in the film that I know > aren't there from holding the slides up to the light (probably makes your HP > look like a great film scanner in comparison). > > As he's not really willing to either fit a SCSI card or lend me the slides > and I don't really want to lend out either of my good Nikon scanners as > getting hard to replace now (and I'm not finished scanning my own slides > yet) we're going to try a compromise at the moment and I'm going to fit my > old LS-20 to an old PC at work for him to bring the slides in for lunch time > scanning and see how well that works. > > I know this means the results won't be up to LS-2000 quality and there's no > Digital ICE to help but should still be better than any of the affordable > solutions he's found (I know I did have acceptable results with scanning my > parent's old slides with the LS-20 until I had the LS-30 and LS-2000 to > compare it with unlike the poor results Dad had on his Epson equivalent of > your HP). > > That's what I find amusing - how many good reviews some of the flatbed or 5m > camera type film scanners there are where the examples are a lot worse than > even the LS-10 could do (I've still got one of these but at 6 minutes per > scan, fiddly manual focus, and only working properly on ISA SCSI cards I > don't think I can lend that out).
From: Nigel Feltham on 8 May 2010 08:01 Barry Watzman wrote: > I'm not familiar with the LS-20, but a lot of the pre LS-2000 Nikons > have the same resolution as the LS-2000, but lack Digital ICE. A more > critical factor is that they are chronologically old and therefore > likely DIRTY (dusty optics). And, on top of that, their software sucks, > and is often incompatible even with Windows XP. > > I guess I should point out (although I suspect that you know this) that > Ratoc makes both SCSI to Firewire and SCSI to USB converters that do > work with the LS-2000 and LS-30. Thus, no SCSI card required. However, > the converters are $100 (give or take), and you have to use Hamrick > Vuescan software instead of Nikon Scan. Other than that, they are > completely viable solutions. [And, in particular, they fully support > use with Vista and Windows 7 and all version of the Mac OS. AND they > fully support 64-bit Vista and 64-bit Windows 7.] > > [I think that these work with LS-1000's also, and you can pick up > LS-1000's for as little as $10-$25; the resolution and basic quality of > an LS-1000 (with clean optics) is the same as an LS-2000, however there > is no digital ICE.] I took my LS-20 to work Thursday last week and my friend has scanned a small sample of his slides (about 15) and is very happy with the results - even slides that came out muddy brown with almost no image detail on the flatbed with light reflector came out with impressive quality (other than a lot of CCD noise in the darker areas). The LS-20 was the consumer version of the LS-1000 (comparing the 2 is almost the same as comparing LS-30 and LS-2000, I have all 4 models but didn't want to lend out my LS-30 or LS-2000 and my LS-1000 has a focussing fault). Apart from missing ICE these old models also can't do multi-pass very well (Viewscan will let you do it but as they move the film not the sensor it slips between passes and causes ghosting). I've shown him comparison scans done on both the LS-20 and the LS-2000 and he noticed there is a huge improvement on the newer models but as he's only scanning them to give his 80 year old dad a chance to view them on an old laptop and not for printing the old scanner is good enough for him As for lack of digital ICE that's been helped by giving him a copy of Polaroid's old free Dust & Scratch removal tool - which seemed to have removed just as much dust as ICE does but goes too far sometimes (small details in the distance are removed with the dust - like distant buildings losing their windows).
From: Barry Watzman on 8 May 2010 10:43 I'm curious as to the differences between the LS-10, LS-20 and LS-1000. Apparently the LS-1000 DOES have an infra-red channel, and with VueScan this can be used to, effectively, implement "Digital ICE" (or, more correctly, a "Digital ICE-like" cleaning). This is fairly significant, because VueScan also supports XP, Vista, Windows 7, in both 32-bit and 64-bit, and the Ratoc SCSI to {Firewire and USB} converters (2 different converters). This could "revive" the viability of the LS-1000 especially, given that it's resolution is the same (2,700 dpi) as that of the LS-30 and LS-2000. 2,700 dpi is fine (it's 10 megapixels). The remaining issue would be how clean the optics would be in a 15-year old device. But the prices of other scanners have gotten SO high that it may again make these scanners viable. It would be nice to figure out how to take these apart and clean the optics, but I did open one up once and I can tell you that they were not meant to be taken apart. I never did figure out how to do it, and quit since I was dealing with a perfectly good working scanner. Back to my question about the differences, the LS-10 and LS-20 do not have an infra-red channel, but the LS-1000 apparently does although Nikon never used it (e.g. the Nikon software does not implement "Digital ICE" or any equivalent thereof). Presumably there are some other differences? Nigel Feltham wrote: > > I took my LS-20 to work Thursday last week and my friend has scanned a small > sample of his slides (about 15) and is very happy with the results - even > slides that came out muddy brown with almost no image detail on the flatbed > with light reflector came out with impressive quality (other than a lot of > CCD noise in the darker areas). > > The LS-20 was the consumer version of the LS-1000 (comparing the 2 is almost > the same as comparing LS-30 and LS-2000, I have all 4 models but didn't want > to lend out my LS-30 or LS-2000 and my LS-1000 has a focussing fault). Apart > from missing ICE these old models also can't do multi-pass very well > (Viewscan will let you do it but as they move the film not the sensor it > slips between passes and causes ghosting). > > I've shown him comparison scans done on both the LS-20 and the LS-2000 and > he noticed there is a huge improvement on the newer models but as he's only > scanning them to give his 80 year old dad a chance to view them on an old > laptop and not for printing the old scanner is good enough for him > > As for lack of digital ICE that's been helped by giving him a copy of > Polaroid's old free Dust & Scratch removal tool - which seemed to have > removed just as much dust as ICE does but goes too far sometimes (small > details in the distance are removed with the dust - like distant buildings > losing their windows). > > >
From: Nigel Feltham on 13 May 2010 03:03
Barry Watzman wrote: > I'm curious as to the differences between the LS-10, LS-20 and LS-1000. > > Apparently the LS-1000 DOES have an infra-red channel, and with VueScan > this can be used to, effectively, implement "Digital ICE" (or, more > correctly, a "Digital ICE-like" cleaning). > > This is fairly significant, because VueScan also supports XP, Vista, > Windows 7, in both 32-bit and 64-bit, and the Ratoc SCSI to {Firewire > and USB} converters (2 different converters). > > This could "revive" the viability of the LS-1000 especially, given that > it's resolution is the same (2,700 dpi) as that of the LS-30 and > LS-2000. 2,700 dpi is fine (it's 10 megapixels). The remaining issue > would be how clean the optics would be in a 15-year old device. > > But the prices of other scanners have gotten SO high that it may again > make these scanners viable. > > It would be nice to figure out how to take these apart and clean the > optics, but I did open one up once and I can tell you that they were not > meant to be taken apart. I never did figure out how to do it, and quit > since I was dealing with a perfectly good working scanner. > > Back to my question about the differences, the LS-10 and LS-20 do not > have an infra-red channel, but the LS-1000 apparently does although > Nikon never used it (e.g. the Nikon software does not implement "Digital > ICE" or any equivalent thereof). Presumably there are some other > differences? > The LS-10 only used normal LED's instead of the high brightness ones on the later models and lacks the autofocus motor (the nikon driver has an option where you can display the contrast and manually focus until it's at the peak). Due to lower brightness in the illumination it takes around 9 minutes to do a full resolution scan. The only differences I've seen between the LS-20 and LS-1000 are lower colour depth in the cheaper model, 8 bits vs 12, the mechanisms look very similar (although I can't be completely sure as my LS-20 is the internal drive bay version and the LS-1000 is external and it appears nikon made the internal electronics different in the internal and external versions of both models). I've never seen an infrared cleaning option in vuescan when using my LS-1000 (if I did I'd have probably never bought my LS-30 or LS-2000 to upgrade) so that news is a mystery to me. |