On 15 February 2014 19:52, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 15 February 2014 15:23, David Gerard
<dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> On 15 February 2014 15:09, Andy Mabbett <andy(a)pigsonthewing.org.uk> wrote:
> > Change of plan: Thank you, but I've been
offered the use of one of
> > these:
> >
http://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/scanner/scoolscan_4000/
> > by a friend who lives locally.
> Oooooooooooooh you lucky bugger. That's the
level of archival-quality
> piece of kit we could do with for WMUK. Though it would have to live
> in the office.
:-)
Seriously, though: if you want archival quality, the way to go is a
CoolScan. Not only would we be able to scan negatives ourselves
(though it'd be tied to the office, rather than being a loanable
item), we'd be able to make very good friends indeed with GLAMs that
have random piles of unscanned negatives.
It'd be nice if someone with a few hundred quid bought a CoolScan,
scanned their collection, then donated the kit to WMUK when done with
it.
The way it usually goes is: someone buys a CoolScan on eBay, scans
their negative collection, sells it to the next person. WMUK would be
a suitable end point for such a chain.
The main catch is for it to be *someone else's* problem to make sure a
decade-old piece of kit is in usable condition not to be a white
elephant - donating something that turns into a liability is helpy
rather than helpful. CoolScan IV/4000 use FireWire, V/5000 on use USB
... software and supported OS is an interesting question as well ...
III/3000 and earlier do archival-quality scanning, but often have
weird hardware requirements. I think the I and II needed their own ISA
card. This is the sort of white elephant *not* to inflict on a small
charity.
If I had ~£500 to spare I would happily be that person. I'm not though :-)
I'll borrow the Ion (a rather less fragile piece of kit, so
borrowable), but if I had access to a CoolScan I'd happily do 'em
again.
- d.