Any news on the new Plustek 120 scanner?

[Sanders McNew]

Originally Posted by Jamie123

It's only as condescending as you want it to be. I don't see anything bad in the word 'fun'. Personally I wouldn't do photography if it wasn't fun. And I take photography very seriously. I didn't say 'funny' so I don't know why you're talking about Avedon and Penn 'having a giggle'.
What I meant was that it is a specialty that only few people have as a priority and it's not worth sacrificing the scan quality for it.

The fact is that it is a scanner, not a sort of enlarger. It's not the same. If you know how scanners such as the Nikon CS9000 or the Microtek work you know that there's no way how they could have a glassless carrier that holds the neg fllat, lets you scan multiple images in one go and scan the neg edge to edge.
And I'm having trouble understanding what you mean by 'rebate' (I'm not a native English speaker). If you're just talking about having a little bit of the black frame edges in the scan then it will probably let you do that (the Nikon does). If, however, you're talking about scans that include all the edge markings on the film (brand, frame number, etc.) then you're out of luck.

Type 55 wasn't a medium format film. Besides, if you want to go retro (which I'm not trying to belittle) at a certain point you gotta ask yourself if it's not just better to make a darkroom print and then scan that. And if that's not a possibility because you want really big enlargements then you're going to need drum scans anyways.

Well obviously I know how the Microtek scanner worked. As I said,
I owned one. I don't want or need the entire strip, including all frame
and manufacturer's markings. But I do need to scan the entire image
and at least a part of "the black," as you say. The Microtek could not
scan the full frame so I sold it.

It's pointless to tell me how to present my work -- whether it's you
suggesting I scan prints, or clayne suggesting my needs are "trivial,"
and asking whether presenting my work full-frame is "really so
critical to [my] photography." The point is that my vision, my
photography does require it, and I already have a tool that enables
me to do that -- the Epson 4990. That is the standard against which
I measure the new Plustek, and I suspect that my requirements are
not so esoteric as you all suggest.

[clayne]

Originally Posted by Sanders McNew

Well obviously I know how the Microtek scanner worked. As I said,
I owned one. I don't want or need the entire strip, including all frame
and manufacturer's markings. But I need to scan the entire image and
at least a part of "the black," as you put it. The Microtek could not
scan the full frame so I sold it.

Pretty damn sure the Plustek 120 will scan out into some of the frame edges. I don't believe I heard anything about the image itself being cropped. It probably just won't scan all of the rebate.

[SixSeven]

Any updated pricing and / or release date info?

[ChrisLivsey]

Another UK supplier quoting the price as £ 1,999.

http://www.morrisphoto.co.uk/Product...oryid~145.html

[mfogiel]

I think it would be worthwhile to wait and see some reviews of this scanner's output. After all, if you want to use it for both 35mm and MF, a 2500USD price tag does not appear excessive to me, should it be at least as good as the Nikon CS9000. If you think you cannot afford a good scanner, then you are wasting your money on Leica or Zeiss lenses, you might as well shoot with any glass below 100 USD.

[cabbiinc]

Has anyone seen any examples from this scanner or is Plustek (wisely) keeping everything secret?

[kanzlr]

Originally Posted by mfogiel

I think it would be worthwhile to wait and see some reviews of this scanner's output. After all, if you want to use it for both 35mm and MF, a 2500USD price tag does not appear excessive to me, should it be at least as good as the Nikon CS9000. If you think you cannot afford a good scanner, then you are wasting your money on Leica or Zeiss lenses, you might as well shoot with any glass below 100 USD.

+1 that. Maybe we will see some used Coolscans on eBay soon, as they get replaced by Plusteks

[mdruziak]

Originally Posted by cabbiinc

Has anyone seen any examples from this scanner or is Plustek (wisely) keeping everything secret?

It's not that we are keeping secrets. The plan is to make some professionally shot images available when we do the official announcement. I have seen some resolution and dynamic range images and also some snapshots. The snapshots would not be a good representation of the scanner because of the limitations of the equipment used to shoot the film.

[david.elliott]

Originally Posted by mdruziak

It's not that we are keeping secrets. The plan is to make some professionally shot images available when we do the official announcement. I have seen some resolution and dynamic range images and also some snapshots. The snapshots would not be a good representation of the scanner because of the limitations of the equipment used to shoot the film.

Any word on a final US price yet?

[mdruziak]

Originally Posted by david.elliott

Any word on a final US price yet?

No final word on price. I don't want to post anything until it is final and in print because it is really subjet to change. I will tell you that we are listening to what everyone is saying about price. (But no, it won't sell for $100 LOL) We are talking to our retail and on-line partners to get their opinions and we are zeroing in on a price that could make a lot of you happy.

Stick with me for a couple more weeks and we should have something firm.

[david.elliott]

Originally Posted by mdruziak

No final word on price. I don't want to post anything until it is final and in print because it is really subjet to change. I will tell you that we are listening to what everyone is saying about price. (But no, it won't sell for $100 LOL) We are talking to our retail and on-line partners to get their opinions and we are zeroing in on a price that could make a lot of you happy.

Stick with me for a couple more weeks and we should have something firm.

Sounds good.

Thanks for being such an active forum participant and thank you for keeping us up to date on all of the developments related to this scanner.

Even if it turns out that this particular product is out of my personal price range, I'm still happy to see a new 120 film scanner enter the market!

[david.elliott]

Oh, and can the scanner handle xpan negatives?

[ColSebastianMoran]

@mdruziak, thanks for the participation here.

[mdruziak]

One other thing. There is a quote above about from someone at Plustek stating the price to be in the $300-$500 range. I don't want to mislead anyone. The price of the OpticFilm 120 WILL NOT be in that price range.

[mdruziak]

Regarding XPan... We will not have an Xpan holder, but it may be possible to create a mask for the 6x9 film holder. There was some discussion on the topic on our Facebook page.

[david.elliott]

Originally Posted by mdruziak

Regarding XPan... We will not have an Xpan holder, but it may be possible to create a mask for the 6x9 film holder. There was some discussion on the topic on our Facebook page.

Thank you.

[Sanders McNew]

Originally Posted by Sanders McNew

Well obviously I know how the Microtek scanner worked. As I said,
I owned one. I don't want or need the entire strip, including all frame
and manufacturer's markings. But I do need to scan the entire image
and at least a part of "the black," as you say.

Originally Posted by clayne

Pretty damn sure the Plustek 120 will scan out into some of the frame edges.
I don't believe I heard anything about the image itself being cropped.
It probably just won't scan all of the rebate.

Originally Posted by mdruziak

Regarding XPan... We will not have an Xpan holder, but it may be
possible to create a mask for the 6x9 film holder. There was some
discussion on the topic on our Facebook page.

Since we're back to holder design, can you comment on the scanner's
ability to scan out to the rebates with the current holder design? Are
the holders designed in such a way, as you suggest, to permit user
modifications to increase the scan area?

[vitaly66]

Hey guys, any thoughts on this new Microtek ArtixScan M2:

http://store2.microtek.com/shop/prod...roducts_id=180

Good specs on paper, covers medium format strips to 22mm, competitive price.

A big plus for me is that it will be supported by vuescan on Linux (where there seems to be no hope for the Plustek products).

[curmudgeon]

I've been following the discussion of the Plustek 120 because I have not been happy with the results from my V700. The main issues have been film flatness and the resulting uneven sharpness across the image. But two changes I've made recently have significantly improved my film flatness and scan sharpness.

First, I switched from Kodak to Ilford film. The Ilford film has much less curl. I also re-scanned some old Fuji MF negatives and the Ilford is the flattest of the bunch.

The second change made at least as great a difference. I started cutting my film into strips of four, rather then three, 6x6 frames. With one end of the film captured at the top of the standard Epson MF carrier, and the other end passing out through the bottom, the film is held amazingly flat. (I can see the flatness by holding up the carrier to look at a reflection of the window frame. If the reflection is straight the film is flat.) I attribute the increased flatness to the slight lengthwise curl introduced by the carrier cancelling out the inherent crosswise curl of the film.

I scan the first three frames of the strip as usual and then turn the strip end for end to scan the fourth frame. I'd still like to see some scan samples from the Plustek 120 but the scans I am now getting with the V700 have raised the bar considerably for me.

[XFer]

Originally Posted by vitaly66

Hey guys, any thoughts on this new Microtek ArtixScan M2:

The older model (F1/M1) was a disappointment: image quality was nothing to write home about, not better than the V700, with about 2000 ppi actual resolving power

http://www.filmscanner.info/en/MicrotekArtixScanF1.html

(scroll down to Image Quality to see resolution chart scans)

[nanthor]

I've been reading the limited info regarding the Microtek Artixscan M2 (and M2 Pro with silverfast ai studio 8) and for $875 and $1000 it looks like a great alternative to a normal flatbed. LED lights, no glass between the scanner and film, auto-focus!, scanning up to 8x10", it all sounds pretty good. Now to just wait for the USA price on the Plustek to make a decision.

[cabbiinc]

I had a very used Microtek Scanmaker 5. The software that came with it was limiting (previewing was something like 25 dpi so for 35mm you couldn't even tell what the image was) but with Vuescan it was decent for a 1000 dpi scanner. It didn't have IR dust removal but the glassless carrier was far better than the flatbed I replaced it with that did have IR dust removal. It also scanned larger sizes than most flatbeds, four 4x5 negatives had room to spare. It eventually developed problems and found that Microtek doesn't do anything in the United States anymore. My wife even works at a place that does nothing but service copiers, printers, and scanners and they couldn't get parts to fix it.

[MSUSpartan]

Let's say it's announced at Photokina, any idea on when we can actually buy one?

[mdruziak]

Originally Posted by MSUSpartan

Let's say it's announced at Photokina, any idea on when we can actually buy one?

Right now the target is the end of September.

[MSUSpartan]

Thanks Mark. Do you have any samples yet from the Plustek 120? I really want to know how it compares to the Nikon 9000 ED...