[MacDV] Re: Film Scanners

[Mark M. Florida]

Yeah... what he said...  Nikon and Canon even make slide copy adapters 
for their "prosumer" lines of digital cameras.  Considering that these 
cameras are in the 4 megapixel range now, this would give you enough 
quality to make a decent 8x10 print from these copies, and way more 
resolution than you'd ever need for video.

Just my 2 cents.

- Mark

On Tuesday, December 31, 2002, at 01:39  AM, Richard Brown wrote:

> I have been reading this string for a while. As someone with something 
> like a million frames, when I include transparencies, negatives, and 
> digital stills shot over the past 25+ years, I have pondered this same 
> question.
>
> The need for mass scanning is really about cataloging, not about 
> making thousands upon thousands of prepress or print-ready images. As 
> such, I would suggest no scanner would suffice. In my work in stills 
> photography, I had a job once to duplicate a series of slide shows 
> concerning plastic surgery techniques. There would be 50-150 slides or 
> so, per set, and they had to be duplicated very quickly, no more than 
> 30-60 minutes per set of slides, and when one was done, the next would 
> be on the table for duping.
>
> This was back in the days before CCD's, before even the desktop 
> scanner, let alone Coolscans or Sprintscans. We had to dupe original 
> slide to dupe slide, on slide duping film. We simply established a 
> population color balance for the dupe media using a Nikon slide 
> duplicator in front of a darkroom dichroic color head, and used 
> moderate exposure bracketing, based on the condition of the given 
> original, all based on settings determined for normal, underexposed, 
> and overexposed sample images. Having had a bunch of experience with 
> slide duping, we even added some improvements to some of the originals 
> when possible. We found we could dupe these shows with time to spare. 
> There was no second chance, as the slides left with the doctors, same 
> day. The "operation was a success" and was completed without breaking 
> a sweat.
>
> Today, with a 35mm CCD camera, a slide duping adapter, and either a 
> strobe or color head based light source, and with computer or LCD 
> confirmation, I would think to digitize 35mm slides could  be 
> accomplished at the rate of 200-400 per hour (maybe even more for 
> large numbers of slides with the same characteristics), at, say, 6 
> megapixels with moderate compression. This would engulf 10,000 slides 
> in a long weekend. But it would be done. The trick would be in the 
> physical ordering of the slides plus intelligent bulk renaming of the 
> digital records of same. With a bit of cleverness, the entire process 
> could be made quite smooth, with the digital record useful in 
> identifying a given image which might later be scanned properly for 
> printing or other purpose. Properly executed, however, the images 
> certainly could be of enough quality to use in a DVD title. You must 
> keep in mind that non-High Def television is of astonishingly low 
> resolution. The dupe process I speak of will be far in excess of TV 
> resolution, and with good down sizing and prep for TV, should be fine 
> for this purposing. Using the high res files would allow panning, 
> zooming, and other effects were a fancier slide show on DVD required.
>
> The caveat I might see in this process would be if the originals 
> varied wildly. The real difference between professional photography 
> and snap shooting is in the control of exposure and the predictable, 
> repeatable, surprise-free outcome when the film is processed. Still, 
> even with wild variation, this system would record an image, and if 
> using a continuous light source, the variation may well be tamed 
> through automatic exposure on the camera.
>
> Richard Brown