[LargeFormat] The dry darkroom

[Brock Nanson]

I have to admit I'm becoming more and more interested in digital processing.
Partly due to Clive's friendly prodding (we all receive it don't we!) to get
some images onto the f32 site, I broke down and bought the Epson Perfection
2450 Photo flatbed scanner.

Wow.

That's all I can say without taking another breath.  I bought it on spec,
with a 15 day grace period to try it out.  I think it's safe to say I won't
be fighting with the packing materials.  The quality, even with 35mm slides,
is comparable to many dedicated film scanners.  I wouldn't expect it to be
much danger to the better film scanners, but for the price point it really
is fantastic.  I've been using a first generation Photosmart scanner by HP,
but really have never been happy with the results, especially from
transparencies.  The Epson puts the HP to shame.  Hang-your-head,
jump-off-the-bridge shame.

It will do 4x5's as well as 35mm and medium format.  The highest resolution
35mm scan is in the mid 20MB range... extrapolate that to 4x5 and you have a
file that's too large to work with on even the better home computers sold
these days.

I see Clive has posted my images on the Photographer's pages area, but I
think the resolution is really too low to appreciate what this scanner can
do.

Haven't used a single litre of water in the processing yet either...
although a half bottle of wine was required to complete the scanning
process... that's thirsty work no matter what the weather.

R Brock Nanson, P.Eng.
Kamloops BC
Canada