Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/10/14
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Pascal: I was given a good demonstration as to why the Nikon Scanners need this ice option. I was in a photo store and the owner was demonstrating a laser light pointer. He took his plastic lensed glasses off and pointed the laser at them to show a feature of the highly directional laser light source. Every fine scratch was visible. Although we were not discussing scanners at the time, I said " That was a good demonstration why the Nikon scanners with their very directional light source ( LEDs) pick up more defects in film than those that illuminate using diffuse light sources such as florescent tubes". Nikon needs the ICE because it picks up all the backing scratches on most films. My Polaroid that uses a florescent tube only picks up deep scratched or emulsion scratches. For scratches on the backing and those on the emulsion that do not penetrate the dye layers, a touch of nose grease fixes them up for scanning, just like you would do for printing. In my opinion, the most important feature of a SLIDE scanner, is its Dmax range. The scanners with a DMAX of 3 or so will not scan slides and give sufficient shadow detail, particularily slightly dark slides. At 3,5 or more, the Nikon is better than the 3.4 of the Polaroid. Nikon scanner owners always quote the ice feature, but they should be quoting the high Dmax of the LS2000. I guess the ICE is always quoted because the Nikon approach to scanning makes scratches more evident to the user. Another thing never quoted is with the use of ICE, sharpness is reduced. Remember, Dmax is the sign of a great scanner, not ICE. Nikon is the king of good Dmax in the consumer level scanners. Regards, Robert At 10:39 PM 10/14/99 +0200, Pascal wrote: And up to now, >nobody but Nikon has come up with the digital ICE mechanism that removes >dust and scratches. > >Pascal >NO ARCHIVE > >-------------------------------------------------------- >See my photo pages at http://members.xoom.com/cyberplace/ >-------------------------------------------------------- >Sent on the new Mac PowerBook G3 - the fastest laptop on the planet >-------------------------------------------------------- ><<< PGP public key available on request >>> > >