RE: [APML] Minolta Scan Dual IV review

[Craig McIntyre <craigmcintyre@optushome.com.au>]

Hi Richard,

I guess the reason I commented on the multiple physical passes was
because I had come to expect that when using my old scanner with
Vuescan.

I can't see the curly pattern on the print from the negative at all. But
saying that, I also can't see all the scratches and dust! I think the
pattern will be more easily seen on images with a plain day/twilight sky
background and I do have some images of the crescent moon with a
background like this (though with a different lens), so I'll scan these
and see if it's visible here as well. It's certainly not visible on an
image of Scorpius I took.

Craig.

On Wed, 2004-09-15 at 06:47, Richard Sewards wrote:
> Hi Craig,
> 
> Yes, this is very helpful. A very nice review.
> 
> About multisampling and the number of physical passes: I would expect
> one physical pass in order to ensure multiple samples of the exact same
> place on the film.  If the scanner did several physical passes then I
> would expect there to be some sample alignment errors.  I believe I saw
> something like this on the Dual II with VueScan - some bright stars had
> arced haloes which I attributed to misalignment of passes, but I am not
> really sure of this (I don't recall if the Dual II supported
> multi-sampling).
> 
> Does the curly pattern show up in a photo lab print form the negative?
> Perhaps a scan of a print could be enhanced to see if it's still there.
> This might eliminate the effect as a scanner artifact.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> --
> Richard Sewards
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Craig McIntyre [mailto:craigmcintyre@optushome.com.au] 
> Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2004 9:45 AM
> To: astro-photo@seds.org
> Subject: [APML] Minolta Scan Dual IV review
> 
> Hi Richard,
> 
> I've been meaning to get to this for a while, but as usual something
> tends to get in the way (usually that habit called work...). 
> 
> Anyway, I've had my Minolta Scan Dual IV for about a week now and have
> only had enough time to do about a half dozen scans, so this is really a
> first impressions review.
> 
> Overall, I have found the unit to be good value for money. The scanning
> quality seems to be good (though there is one artifact that I need to
> determine it's source) and the software supplied does the job, though
> there are always quirks and annoyances where you wish they could have
> done something better. I have uploaded a few (scaled down) scanned
> images to a webserver to have a look at too.
> 
> Setup:
> ~~~~~~
> * The scanner comes with a bulky plugpack that takes up more than one
> powerpoint. An internal transformer and a 240V lead would have been a
> better idea.
> 
> * There is a big notice on the scanner that says that you __must__
> install the drivers prior to connecting the scanner for the first time.
> No, I didn't try the "what if" scenario... <g>
> 
> * The unit is narrower but a tad longer than I anticipated, though I
> never looked at its dimensions. Power and USB cables stick out the back,
> but not too far.
> 
> * Overall the manual is pretty good. It explains most of the functions
> and tries to educate the user about the importance of understanding the
> histogram of an image to get the most out of it.
> 
> 
> Operation:
> ~~~~~~~~~~
> * The scanner only comes with one negative and one mounted slide holder.
> Perhaps I'm spoiled because my old SS35+ had three film holders which
> was much more convenient. That said, the film holders seem to be quite
> sturdy and are better at keeping a curled negative in place as it locks
> together than what my old ones did.
> 
> * The manual makes a point out of telling you not to open the front door
> of the scanner until the front LED stops blinking. This LED stops
> blinking when you load up the scanning software. At this point you can
> load the film. I haven't tried it in Vuescan to see what happens yet.
> 
> * The scanner makes more noise than I anticipated. It is definately
> louder than the SS35+. The motors make a variety of sounds when slewing
> the film holder in and out. In my opinion, I wouldn't class some of
> these sounds as particularly reassuring, but it's probably a matter of
> getting familiar to.
> 
> * When scanning in multipass mode (of which you can set 2x, 4x, 8x, or
> 16x), the film only makes one physical pass through the scanner. I would
> have expected it to make multiple physical passes rather than just one.
> Again, perhaps Vuescan may do something different here.
> 
> 
> Supplied Software:
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> * Two main applications come with the scanner. One is a tool to do quick
> and dirty scans, and the other gives you much more control. Overall it
> does a good job, but as I said earlier, it has it's quirks.
> 
> * The software allows you to do an index scan of all 6 frames on the
> film so you can then select one of them for a prescan or a final scan.
> 
> * The prescan is simply a larger index scan, though it is way too small
> in resolution to be of much use. You can try to control this in the
> settings, but it only allows you to set a "small" or "large" prescan. It
> appears that the main use of the prescan is to control things like the
> manual exposure, or image correction options. It is probably just
> adequate for this.
> 
> * You can select between automatic exposure and manual exposure for your
> shots. Obviously manual exposure allows you to truely see the difference
> in your bracketting.
> 
> * There is a software focus tool whereby you can either tell the
> software to focus automagically on a particular spot (based off the
> prescanned image), or you can control it yourself by clicking up/down
> arrows whilst viewing a zoomed in part of the prescanned image (which
> has too little resolution to be of any real use).
> 
> * The software will show you a histogram of each channel when adjusting
> the exposure control, or the image correction (curves, essentially). It
> also has options similar to the following features in photoshop: Curves,
> Brightness, Contrast, Hue/Saturation/Lightness, Variation (colour
> balance, brightness and contrast, saturation), Selective colour
> correction, Unsharp Mask.
> 
> * There is also a "digital grain dissolver" (useless), an "Auto Dust
> Brush" (also useless), and a tool called "Pixel Polish". I'm not sure
> what this last one really does, but the manual says that it doesn't work
> on 16 bit images anyway (so therefore, useless).
> 
> * Just out of interest, scanning a 35mm neg at full resolution in 16 bit
> mode takes ~2 minutes. With 2x multisampling it takes 3min 30sec, and
> with 16x multisampling it takes 24min 13sec.
> 
> 
> Scanned Images:
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> Due to lack of time, I only scanned one of the first pictures at hand -
> a shot of a crescent Moon with nearby Venus in the setting twilight.
> (Quite an amazing sight - something that pictures just can't capture
> adequately). This was taken with Supra 400 and a 58mm lens on a Minolta
> SRT-101 at the Mudgee Star Party in May this year. The first two shots
> are raw images from the scanner, with only adjustments for exposure.
> They scanner certainly brought up all the scratches and marks on the
> film, leaving a lot of processing work to be done!
> 
> This shot has 2x multisampling:
> http://members.optushome.com.au/~craigmcintyre/image01.jpg (417kB)
> 
> This shot has 16 x multisampling:
> http://members.optushome.com.au/~craigmcintyre/image02.jpg (387kB)
> 
> 
> A scanning artifact??
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> If you look carefully in both the above images, you'll see a weird curly
> pattern running top to bottom through the centre of the image. I'm not
> sure what this is...perhaps some people out there can recognise this and
> tell me if it is a scanner artifact. Anyway, I ran it through
> photoshop's Equalize function to help bring it out. You can see it
> better in these images below:
> 
> http://members.optushome.com.au/~craigmcintyre/image01-equalised.jpg
> (661kB)
> http://members.optushome.com.au/~craigmcintyre/image02-equalised.jpg
> (584kB)
> 
> 
> Anyway, my fingers are getting sore so I'll stop now! <g> 
> Feel free to ask questions. I hope this helps you in your decision.
> 
> Cheers,
> Craig.
> 
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