lf-photo.org.uk

Hi All
I'm not selling this and I certainly can't afford to buy it but there is a Lanovia for sale on ebay
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Fuji-Film-Lanovia ... _500wt_951
Just dreaming that one of you out there will have the cash, the space and can afford the maintenance for what I think (from very limited knowledge) could be a bargain. Less hassle than a drum, better than an imacon and can batch scan at cracking quality. The dream would be you could buy it and then offer budget priced LF scans (at less than a fiver) which could mean it would pay for itself.
I'm going out to buy some lottery tickets.
Regards
Adrian.

Hi Adrian,

Interesting that you should mention this, have been considering purchasing a high end drum scanner or similar for quite some time primarily to scan my own 10x8 and 5x4 negs and trans but I had a thought about offering cheap quality scans to others for a service to help pay for it.

What sort of market do you think there would be offering this to others, do you think there would be enough interest to make it viable?

Julian

Hi Julian
I am definitely in the market for hi-res LF scans at an affordable price but I am not a representative sample of LF photographers. I am doing it on a very meagre budget when I suspect many of the Ebonyphiliacs on here can well afford to pay top dollar for exhibition quality scans from big name scanner operators.
In the Northeast we have the very wonderful Jack Lowe http://jacklowestudio.co.uk/blog/ who charges £35 to £75 for a scan and one day when I have something good enough I am going to treat myself but I think there is a gap in the market opening. The guy selling the Lanovia has shut his studio and I suspect more will bite the dust or just not offer scanning as a service. At the same time there is a surge in interest in analogue which should generate more budget priced fine art business when people find out the limitations of their Epson V700s. I am biased toward a hi-end flat bed in my dreams because you can use it for other stuff as I mess about with calligraphy and paint too ( another source of income from local artists, I assume you can't wrap an oil painting around a drum) and I fondly believe that they are not quite as expensive to maintain as a drum.
I don't imagine you can make a fortune from a scanner but I think you could break even if you advertised your services. I suspect that those on the forum who have drum scanners have enough work to get on with as they don't seem to shout about their services, Ian Scovell etc... http://www.ianscovell.com/isleofwight/f ... rvice.html but I would ask them what they think!
The main reason for doing it would be to take control of the whole process but I guess that would mean buying a hi-end printer as well and learning all that hard core colour management stuff. Wow, I'm so envious, I'll have to go out and earn so more money and buy some expensive toys too.
Regards
Adrian

Tim Parkin has just started offering exactly this..

http://cheapdrumscanning.com/

Hi
I think I was arguing for cheap scans, £25 for a drum scan by someone who knows what they are doing is an absolute bargain but I think there is also a market for really cheap scans using that generation of flat beds which came out in the early 2000s (Fuji, Agfa, Scitex) that are now being sold off cheapish. Some studios seem to offer "drum quality" scans using these and charge what the market will bear. If someone were to buy and offer (maybe they already do) scans on one of these for less than a fiver I would be delighted. I'm looking for something that comes in between the home V700 like scan for web/10x8 and the tack sharp billboard/ fine art drum scan, so it needs to be a gallery wall sized scan that is pretty damn good. I know PMTs are better than CCDs for digging out shadow detail from Velvia but I think there is a market for straight, raw, unspotted (dust is a bigger problem on flat beds I know) batch scans for finessing at home.
For those amazing photographs that deserve the time, dedication, expertise, expense and general nut cracking hammer of a drum scan OK, but I think there is a place for a second order scan on a 5000 dpi max irn-bru scanner that's good enough and at an affordable price.
Regards
Adrian

If you think there's a Market buy the scanner and go for it. If it is a couple of grand you should make your money back pretty short order so talk to your bank re the start up, he'll you could even put it on a credit card short term.
As a thought though, when you say £5, does that include postage to return the sheet when scanned? What about getting the file back to you? Cd\DVD? At your cost or included in the fiver? What about return postage, who covers that? Is it insured postage or are you happy to let your precious into the hands of the mail service. Point being when you say a scan for a fiver, including postage etc it will be more than that at your end with postage, and if the cd\dvd is to be inclusive makes the fiver fee a lot less attractive to the scanner. With the initial cost of the scanner, pc\mac to run it that's a lot of fivers, then of course there is the time to do the scan, not sure how long to do one scan but my v700 takes a good 10-15 mins if I do a 2300dpi scan, so maybe 4-5 an hour if your lucky.

So all you have to do is work out the cost of setting up, a reasonable period to defray that outlay at a cost per scan basis, remember to include running costs such as electricity, we will dispense with cost of premises as we can assume it will be done at home. How many scans a week to make it " pay for itself"? If the time involved means that you would have to give up your job then the cost of paying yourself needs to be added to the figures and the number of scans per week will of course increase, if not then will it mean that all your spare time is spent scanning to cover the cost of a scanner you don't have time to use yourself, which is ok as you don't have time to take any pictures any more anyway.
If all this just sounds like someone being negative, and you really think there is a market, then find the cash and get to it. Simples

Hi Gari
I was arguing that there is a generation of very useful flatbeds out there that need to be saved. I get the feeling that people who want to go hi-end concentrate on drum scanners which are massively expensive to run and maintain. The Lanovia and others can batch scan 6 5x4 trannies at one go. The seller of this one helpfully supplied details of how long it takes to mount and scan them ...

"I never scan without fluid just like drum scanning. I flatbed using scanning foil and cleaning fluid as it is better than oil. You get cleaner scans, less dirt and scratches, and when you take the original up it is clean.
So it can take slightly longer to put the images down but you won't spend as much time cleaning the data in photoshop.
Ok so let's say we work my way.
You can put 6 5x4 trans down under foil. Say 5 mins till you get good at it. Then you pre scan the the bed to find your images 2mins. You crop and correct the images say five mins till you get good. Then each scan in the queue would take between 2 and 5 mins. That's it"

So if you had a minimum order principle of 6 trannies at £5 a go, that's £30. It would probable take me an hour of OCD dusting and cleaning for me to clear the whole job, getting faster with practice. If you did 12 trannies a week it would take two hours and generate roughly £3000 a year. Costs you mention are minimal, CD/DVDs cost pennies, postage is up to the customer, I am talking second order trannies but they can courier them if they want. If you found two hours a week was not enough you could probably find an underemployed relative who could use some extra pocket money.
The most important thing to me is saving these flatbeds from the scrap heap and keeping analogue/ hybrid photography affordable in the future and yes I want cheap scans done by people who care and know what they are doing. These scanners are mostly orphans, so it would suit someone with an engineering, cobbling background. There is some support on the scan hi-end forum although it does seem to be sending out porn spam at the moment. There is the guy who is selling this scanner, don't let his skills get wasted.
Most of these scanners come with a G3/4 running OS9 and dongle but I guess it's worth having a backup but old macs can be picked up for diddly squat. These scanners probably wont run for ever, but you could at least scan your back catalogue and if it did die, (buy another), sell parts to keep another alive. These beasts were built for industrial usage
http://www.businessimagegroup.com/equip ... novia.html
and with TLC could keep on going and keep LF alive and viable. Maybe there is something I am missing here, I would love to know what it is?
I guess you were politely saying put up or shut up, but I don't do credit and don't get me started on the banksters. I've just blown the last of my cash on Paul's wonderful Epson 4870 and dark cloth and I certainly can't afford to hire a tail lift truck to bring this precious scanner up to the Northeast but I am looking to save one in the near future if it comes up locally unless someone can give me a good reason for it being a very bad idea.
Regards
Adrian

Just so happens I keep two Fuji lanovia Quattro's alive in my studio. The Quattro is the later four lens version of the Lanovia without the all metal external casing but same chasis. Still weighs over 70kg though. Luckily I was trained by the Fuji Scanner Engineers and service the scanners myself as Fuji costs are £1000 a day call out even before they start to tell you whats wrong and parts. I also own an ICG 360i Drum Scanner and the difference between the two is very close, depending on film stock, the Fuji can kick the ICGs arse when it wants to.

It's also great for negatives as I have all the Fuji, Kodak, Agfa Film profiles.

Hi Matt,
I guess you are probably biased (in that you want to sell your own services) but do you think it is feasible to run a hi-end flatbed on a no budget basis or is it just a rich boys toy. I love the idea of owning a Lanovia ( it must be very heaven owning two ) or are the maintenance costs, spares just so high as to make it an unobtainable dream? Could it be that the costs are pretty much the same as running a drum scanner despite the initial cost being substantially lower.
Have had my eye on this as a possible
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Scanner-Eversmart ... 2079wt_936
Judging by the standard of questions being asked, people don't seem to have much idea about it and it will be played with for a couple of weeks and then scrapped because it is not user friendly enough. I'd take a chance on it but I've just crunched my ankle in a bizarre fell running accident involving gravity, stupidity and lots of sharp pointy rocks, no chance of shifting 70 kgs of scanner.
...seem to remember reading somewhere that a replacement lamp comes in at 550 Euros.
One more question, if you have the time; Is there a model of high-end flat bed that you could recommend as suitable for cottage industry, DIY operation, service, maintenace, callibration etc or are they all such demanding princesses that they require a small army of trained technicians to meet their every whim?
I think you are agreeing that these hi-end scanners are capable of near enough drum scan quality in the right hands, it's just such a shame that they are being virtually thrown away for little or nothing.
Save the scanners!
Regards
Adrian