Fernando2
Well-known
Here it is!
A thread dedicated to this fascinating (true PMT) drum scanner.
Let's share knowledge; tips, advices, mods, whatever!
Fernando
A thread dedicated to this fascinating (true PMT) drum scanner.
Let's share knowledge; tips, advices, mods, whatever!
Fernando
Ed Bray
Established
What a great idea
I must admit that buying a Drum Scanner is just the first part of a long journey. The learning curve is very steep and there is so little information on the internet due to the age of both the scanners and the scanning software they use that as much information and experiences that can be passed between interested parties will hopefully give a resource that can be accessed by all for many years to come.
I would like to take the opportunity to thank all those who have given me help and encouragement during the few months I have had my Drum Scanner.
I must admit that buying a Drum Scanner is just the first part of a long journey. The learning curve is very steep and there is so little information on the internet due to the age of both the scanners and the scanning software they use that as much information and experiences that can be passed between interested parties will hopefully give a resource that can be accessed by all for many years to come.
I would like to take the opportunity to thank all those who have given me help and encouragement during the few months I have had my Drum Scanner.
MarinB
Member
Fernando, great idea for a thread.
Ed, you're welcome. Wish I could get my hands on a 11000 for about what you paid for yours.
Fortunately, no need for me to troubleshoot my 3000 - yet. The only "surgery" it was put through in over a year of daily use was the replacement of a couple of bulbs. Done in a pinch. Did, however, perform several long drum polishing sessions with Novus 3-part kits, and it's worth the time. Since the drum is non-removable, you really need to be careful with it. But the detail it gives at "only" 3000 dpi... In fact, the shadow detail I get from underexposed HP5/Fuji Presto/Fomapan 400/TMX400 looks better on my two Eizo (PVA and S-IPS) monitors than a lot of BW scans I've seen from 11000. Is this the Achilles heal of 11000 - whatever the age/board version?
Ed, you're welcome. Wish I could get my hands on a 11000 for about what you paid for yours.
Fortunately, no need for me to troubleshoot my 3000 - yet. The only "surgery" it was put through in over a year of daily use was the replacement of a couple of bulbs. Done in a pinch. Did, however, perform several long drum polishing sessions with Novus 3-part kits, and it's worth the time. Since the drum is non-removable, you really need to be careful with it. But the detail it gives at "only" 3000 dpi... In fact, the shadow detail I get from underexposed HP5/Fuji Presto/Fomapan 400/TMX400 looks better on my two Eizo (PVA and S-IPS) monitors than a lot of BW scans I've seen from 11000. Is this the Achilles heal of 11000 - whatever the age/board version?
Jonathan
Established
Great idea!
Have been looking at purchasing a Scanmate from a neighbour, but don't want to end up with a boat anchor.
This could be exactly what I need.
Have been looking at purchasing a Scanmate from a neighbour, but don't want to end up with a boat anchor.
This could be exactly what I need.
tsiklonaut
Well-known
Hi Marin,
Shadow detail in B&W means highlight (more transparent parts-) scanning from a negative. Highlights are vice versa - less transparent parts of film during scanning. If you see good shadows in your scan then it's good highlight scanning of your negatives. Scanning an underexposed negative B&W film means like scanning an overexposed positive, or a whole lot of highlight scanning since scanning is always in positive-mode by hardware, inversion from negative to positive is always done through software.
I have both 3000 and 11000, what I can tell is that SM11K has better shadow detail (I have the newer version 14bit AD control board with ABC-Scan modification to remove stripes in shadows - that's the true Acheilles heel on it IMO and I removed it) hence I think it renders better highlights on negative scans (or better shadows on positives). On negative-shadows (=highlights on actual film strip) I don't do much difference between the two scanners, I think they're more or less on par. SM11K has overall a bit smoother tonal transition and "smoother" looks (probably because of its 14bit A/D conversion).
I find 3000 is better for faster scanning and actually easier to use in some sense if you do mostly dry-mount work. IMO it has excellent balance between aperture (detail vs noise) and speed. 3000 ppi is sufficent on most cases for anything bigger than 35mm IMHO. In some cases I actually prefer the "character" of slightly rougher-looking scans the 3000 makes vs 11000. I'm still interested to know what are the approximate automatic aperture the 3000 model uses on maximum res, I'm guessing something around 10 micrometers or thereabouts.
On SM11K b&w scans - maybe you've looked too much on my scans - that's all to blame to my personal PP and taste since I love contrasty B&W rather than those over-brushed & -processed "HDR-like" B&Ws that're trendy in digital B&W photography? Remember I'm from the wet-darkroom school of limited DR, so for me the contrast means everything in B&W photography
. 'Less is more' logic. For me there MUST be a completely dark part on a good b&w image - complete darkness is where human mind starts to dream and get the mind going on the picture: "what's there". I find most iconic B&W images I like have this completely dark area somewhere. Personally I'm tired of those HDR-like pushed-out shadow images where overwhelmingly and in a stressed-way every last detail must be visible. It's just a personal taste, hence I'm not a good example for B&W scans in today's photographic trends terms.Margus
Particular
a.k.a. CNNY, disassembler
These scanners pop up on ebay and elsewhere regularly, but it can be hard to find good information to compare the different models, or what would be a reasonable price.
Perhaps someone could give a brief overview of the different models, their key specs, plusses and minuses etc. Thanks.
Perhaps someone could give a brief overview of the different models, their key specs, plusses and minuses etc. Thanks.
MarinB
Member
Margus, your BW scans actually look absolutely fine to my eyes, there are a couple of other people using 11000 for BW scanning and probably doing a bit too much post in PS. Guess it's too hard to judge from compressed jpegs. About slide scanning, I simply do the "alt" button trick in CQ 5 to get RAW 8-bit TIFFs and double the res and conv to 16-bit RGB. A whole heap of details in both shadows and highlights.
Fernando2
Well-known
My 2 cents about the ScanMate 11000.
Foreword: I have other scanners; Dainippon-Screen DTS-1030 AI (an earlier, cheaper drum scanner), Nikon SuperCoolscan 8000ED, Epson V700, Minolta ScanElite 5400; this is to put my observations in context.
General.
Among all the ScanMate models, the 11000 was the latest and most advanced.
It can scan 8x10", has 16 bit/channel output, has a max output resolution of 11000 x 11000 ppi, can be driven from Mac OS 9, Mac OS X (I use 10.2.8), Windows XP 32 bit.
It is a SCSI scanner: it needs a Fast-SCSI2 interface. I use a 50 pin HD to 50 pin cable, with an Adaptec 2906 SCSI card (Mac). Works perfectly.
It has removable drums; each drum has a barcode ID so the software can remember the drum: for multi-user and multi-drum scan jobs and for focus calibration.
Actual resolving power is about 180 lp/mm x 125 lp/mm (dry mount, 11000 ppi). It declines steadily if you lower the scan resolution; that is, if you set 5500 ppi you get about 90 lp/mm x 60 lp/mm (I know, unfortunate).
Hardware limitations.
The scanner has a 64 KB line buffer. So a scanned line can only be smaller than 64 KB.
At 16 bits/channel RGB (48 bit total), this translates in about 10500 pixels per line. so at 11000 ppi, you can only scan about 24mm "vertically". After that, you get strange messed up scans (with no warnings!!! At least in ColorQuartet).
My solution is scanning in 10400 pixels-wide stripes, with a bit of overlapping, and then stitching in Photoshop.
Another limitation is 2 GB maximum scan job. CQ has a bug in that when scanning in 16 bits/channel, it reports the wrong size (half the real size) so you may end up with an error because you are beyond 2 GB but the software did not tell you.
Again, segmenting in more scans and stitching is my answer.
Focus.
The scanner has various means of focusing, unfortunately none is interactive (no immediate visual feedback).
You can calibrate focus with an appropriate target (included) and then use that focus value for all scans with that drum; you can type in a "focus offset value" applied to the calibrated value to compensate for different film thickness; you can rely on auto-focusing, specifying where to focus (about 1x1cm area).
Exposure.
The scanner has no real "exposure control" as in (some) CCD scanners.
But, you can "calibrate white" on the clear part of the film to better exploit the dynamic range.
For underexposed slides, I developed a little trick: I once shot a full roll of slides of a white surface with various exposure values (incident measure): from -3 EV to 3 EV at 0.5 EV steps.
So now I have a full set of darker and lighter "whites" to calibrate on, depending on the slide I have to scan. This proved very useful on occasion.
I did not try negatives yet. I think it will do just fine; but I don't know if it's possible to calibrate white on the negative mask (it may be useful to fully exploit the dynamic range, or it may be overkill. I did not try).
Software.
You have a choice of 2 scan softwares, for both Mac and Windows. Both are from ABC-Scan.
Color Trio: the simpler one. It used to be a free download, but now it's gone, it seems.
No Mac OS X version, only Mac OS 9 and Windows.
Slightly different between Mac and Windows.
On Mac, no 16 bit/channel output (on my version, at least) and no "raw" output.
Color Quartet: the most sophisticated. About $400 I think. Requires a USB dongle to operate. Dongles are different between Mac and Windows.
Supports Color Management; can accept an ICC input profile and can output for example in ProPhotoRGB.
Has various bugs. For example, raw output is only 8 bits/channel (even if you select 16 bits/channel).
Fernando
Foreword: I have other scanners; Dainippon-Screen DTS-1030 AI (an earlier, cheaper drum scanner), Nikon SuperCoolscan 8000ED, Epson V700, Minolta ScanElite 5400; this is to put my observations in context.
General.
Among all the ScanMate models, the 11000 was the latest and most advanced.
It can scan 8x10", has 16 bit/channel output, has a max output resolution of 11000 x 11000 ppi, can be driven from Mac OS 9, Mac OS X (I use 10.2.8), Windows XP 32 bit.
It is a SCSI scanner: it needs a Fast-SCSI2 interface. I use a 50 pin HD to 50 pin cable, with an Adaptec 2906 SCSI card (Mac). Works perfectly.
It has removable drums; each drum has a barcode ID so the software can remember the drum: for multi-user and multi-drum scan jobs and for focus calibration.
Actual resolving power is about 180 lp/mm x 125 lp/mm (dry mount, 11000 ppi). It declines steadily if you lower the scan resolution; that is, if you set 5500 ppi you get about 90 lp/mm x 60 lp/mm (I know, unfortunate).
Hardware limitations.
The scanner has a 64 KB line buffer. So a scanned line can only be smaller than 64 KB.
At 16 bits/channel RGB (48 bit total), this translates in about 10500 pixels per line. so at 11000 ppi, you can only scan about 24mm "vertically". After that, you get strange messed up scans (with no warnings!!! At least in ColorQuartet).
My solution is scanning in 10400 pixels-wide stripes, with a bit of overlapping, and then stitching in Photoshop.
Another limitation is 2 GB maximum scan job. CQ has a bug in that when scanning in 16 bits/channel, it reports the wrong size (half the real size) so you may end up with an error because you are beyond 2 GB but the software did not tell you.
Again, segmenting in more scans and stitching is my answer.
Focus.
The scanner has various means of focusing, unfortunately none is interactive (no immediate visual feedback).
You can calibrate focus with an appropriate target (included) and then use that focus value for all scans with that drum; you can type in a "focus offset value" applied to the calibrated value to compensate for different film thickness; you can rely on auto-focusing, specifying where to focus (about 1x1cm area).
Exposure.
The scanner has no real "exposure control" as in (some) CCD scanners.
But, you can "calibrate white" on the clear part of the film to better exploit the dynamic range.
For underexposed slides, I developed a little trick: I once shot a full roll of slides of a white surface with various exposure values (incident measure): from -3 EV to 3 EV at 0.5 EV steps.
So now I have a full set of darker and lighter "whites" to calibrate on, depending on the slide I have to scan. This proved very useful on occasion.
I did not try negatives yet. I think it will do just fine; but I don't know if it's possible to calibrate white on the negative mask (it may be useful to fully exploit the dynamic range, or it may be overkill. I did not try).
Software.
You have a choice of 2 scan softwares, for both Mac and Windows. Both are from ABC-Scan.
Color Trio: the simpler one. It used to be a free download, but now it's gone, it seems.
No Mac OS X version, only Mac OS 9 and Windows.
Slightly different between Mac and Windows.
On Mac, no 16 bit/channel output (on my version, at least) and no "raw" output.
Color Quartet: the most sophisticated. About $400 I think. Requires a USB dongle to operate. Dongles are different between Mac and Windows.
Supports Color Management; can accept an ICC input profile and can output for example in ProPhotoRGB.
Has various bugs. For example, raw output is only 8 bits/channel (even if you select 16 bits/channel).
Fernando
Ed Bray
Established
I am looking for a copy of Color Trio V2.0 that will work on Windows XP if anyone has a copy or knows of where I can download such please.
I have ordered a PCMCIA SCSI card for my old Windows XP Laptop I had forgotten about, I am also going to use it with the lead Jack has shown for communication with the scanner.
I have ordered a PCMCIA SCSI card for my old Windows XP Laptop I had forgotten about, I am also going to use it with the lead Jack has shown for communication with the scanner.
Fernando2
Well-known
This should be ColorTrio v2.00 for Windows; but I didn't try it.
I don't know if there's a newer version.
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share?s=_65miWn2ROkjJCqGnBFECA
Fernando
I don't know if there's a newer version.
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share?s=_65miWn2ROkjJCqGnBFECA
Fernando
jzagaja
Well-known
Ed Bray
Established
Thank you both very much. I really appreciate it.
Very Best Wishes for the New Year to you all.
Very Best Wishes for the New Year to you all.
jzagaja
Well-known
jzagaja
Well-known
Information regarding AD converter:
jzagaja
Well-known
Scanmate 11000 is recognized by CQ with Adaptec 1480 family PCMCIA-SCSI adapters.
jzagaja
Well-known
3x Cree XM-L T6 (3600 lumens) attached to fiber optics. Interesting strips - LED is battery driven and blinks. This means PWM driver cannot be used only linear driver.
We need this LED:
http://www.ledengin.com/files/products/LZC/LZC-00GW00.pdf
and proper driver that I'm working on.
We need this LED:
http://www.ledengin.com/files/products/LZC/LZC-00GW00.pdf
and proper driver that I'm working on.
Attachments
jzagaja
Well-known
I always had this vertical stripes on negatives and pepper noise. To some extent this is aperture but here we have 2000 dpi scan so CQ shouldn't set min. aperture.
