high end drum scanning
high end drum scanning
- Subject: high end drum scanning
- From: Jack Bingham <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 01 Sep 2001 18:41:07 -0400
- Organization: Jack Bingham Studio
In my opinion, it is not the manner in which the film
is supported for scanning that distinguishes a drum
scanner from a flatbed.
Actually the film mounting system is a major advantage of a drum. By bending the film in one direction, around a cylinder it becomes perfectly flat. The distance from any point on the film to the center of the cylinder is exactly the same. You might recall all the problems with film flatness in enlargers, which would be the same problem with a flatbed scanner or all other ccd scanners. The brilliance of the flextight is by using that flexible carrier they created the convenience of a flatbed with the sharpness of a drum. No gels, no newton rings, no cleanup, no small feat.
Whoa...... some of you guys need to get some rest, cut back on the caffeine and or steroids. My primary point here is that bending a piece of acetate in one direction makes it rigid in the other, something a drum(point made above) does very well. The Flextight is unique in that it both bends the film and has no glass between the ccd and light source to hold the film flat. Are there other advantages to a drum, of course. But you guys better start telling the world, cause based on my little corner of the planet they are going woefully underused. I wonder why that is. Could it be that the gain in quality is not significant enough to warrant the expense. Could it be that clients rushing madly to print on ever cheaper paper in ever longer web runs makes this whole discussion moot. Or is it that our quality standards have slipped so far we just don't know what we're missing.
In this context the FlexTight is much more akin to a flat bed scanner than a
true drum scanner. The 'drum' claim is just marketing. If you must
categorize it by the shape of the original, I would call the FlexTight a
'bent-bed' scanner, but it is still a 'line-at-a-time', not a 'flying-spot'
scanner.
As far as this goes, Imacon seems to be doing fairly well with this "marketing claim" A guy could support a family pretty well on an idea like that. Since I don't see anyone else solving the flatness problem I think they deserve a "cool idea" award.