I have a PowerLook III and use it for (among other things) doing contact sheets of 35mm filmstrips. It is fine for that job because you will not be enlarging the images very much nor will you be trying to get every last bit of shadow detail (if you were, you'd not be leaving the filmstrips in the Printfile sheets).
Like any flatbed with transparency head, the PowerLook has the following problems: 1. Lots of surfaces to keep clean (both sides of the glass in the head, both sides of the glass in the platen, as well as the light tubes, the reflectors, and the calibration strips). 2. Since the light source in the head is not mechanically linked to the sensor in the bed they do get slightly out of alignment as they move. The alignment error is cyclical and causes very faint (but sometimes important) banding along the direction of travel. There are several sources for this error: slight eccentricity of the gears, and vibration of the belts driving the light and sensor. This banding is much more noticeable on long scans than short ones, so for 35mm filmstrips each frame will show little banding. Overall, I like the scanner a lot, but do remember it is not really a high-end filmscanner. I do use it to scan large negatives (100 year-old 3.5" x 5.5" black & whites as well as the occasional 8x10) and it does just fine for them -- the negatives themselves have enough problems from improper exposure, washing, and storage that the scanners foibles are not significant. I live in Santa Barbara, California. If you would like to send me some 645 or 6x6 negs and chromes to scan I can do that and return them and a CD to you. Then you can decide whether the scanner is adequate to your needs. Please email me off-list if you want to do this. HTH, --Dana ---------- From: Lloyd O'Daniel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [filmscanners] Flatbed for contact sheets? Date: Sunday, January 06, 2002 2:46 AM I'm thinking of upgrading my flatbed scanner to one that has a page-size tranny adapter so that I can do digital contact sheets. (I sure wish Epson had thought of that when designing the 2450. :-( ) The idea is to be able to make low-res scans of negatives, preferably while they are still in the Printfile sheets. Is anyone out there successfully doing this? I'd hate to spring for the scanner only to find out that this won't work. The scanner would also be used for finish scanning of 645 and 6x6 negs and chromes, since I can't justify a Sprintscan 120 right now. I am thinking of a Umax Powerlook III or 1100, or a used Epson Expression 1600. I'm a little scared of the 1200x2400 dpi resolution of the Umax as being insufficient. Primary output would be on Epson 13x19" printers. I'd appreciate hearing any positive or negative feedback on these units, or of the concept in general. Lloyd ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------- Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body ---------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
