IMACON 545 - SLIDES TO DIGITAL - Top QUALITY

[benjaminpendleton]

Hi Everyone (are you there, Helen?), I found a local guy with an Imacon 545. He charges $25 and up per transparency for scanning; he was recommended by a commercial photographer. The Imacon guy said that it's really not the machine as much as it is the operator... Does this sound like the place I have been looking for?

The Imacon guy also said that he could point me towards someone who does drum scanning; apparantly well over a hundred dollars a pop, I forget how much he said exactly, it might have been $160. It was a lot.


I'm looking for 5,000 x 7,100 pixels and for now am planning to go with the Imacon, maybe do 1 or 2 of my best transparencies with the drum at a later date. Am I talking sense? Thanks again for your help!

 

[Helen B]

Have a look at Nancyscans for Tango drum scan prices: http://www.nancyscans.com/price.html I guess that you are looking for 100 MB scans (about 35 megapixels times 3 bytes per pixel)

I know nothing of the Imacon 545, but I can say that an 848 is typically about $40 an hour to rent and a 949/X5 is about $50. A good operator can do a 35 mm 8000 ppi 48-bit-per-pixel scan (ie about 90 megapixels, or over 500 MB per scan) in five or six minutes with the 949.

An Imacon will require the slides to be unmounted.

How many slides were you going to have scanned with the Imacon?

At those prices I wonder if it would be worth getting hold of a Minolta Elite 5400 scanner (about $300 to $350 used) and trying some for yourself.

Good luck,
Helen

 

[benjaminpendleton]

Thanks once again, Helen. I'm considering scanning maybe 8 transparencies...