Topic: experience using a flextight?

[jojonas~]

since moving I notice one of the printmakers in town has a imacon flextight that they rent out for 200 SEK per hour. I'm thinking of getting myself a christmas present with some prepaid time with that
but I wonder how long I would need? would getting just one hour not result in anything and just be a waste? maybe two or three atleast for a session? I've never even seen a beast like this and much less have any idea on how they handle.
I'd love to hear if anyone here has used one

this is the image they show of it:

[Francois]

I know they can be brilliant but I read that with large negatives they don't do much better than a good flatbed.
These are a bit of a strange thing... not quite a drum scanner, as good as a good film scanner on 35mm, great on 120, not much better than a flatbed on 4x5 to 8x10...

Personally, I'm quite sitting in between chairs on voicing an opinion about it. On one hand, I know it's made by Hasselblad and that they don't make junk. But on the other hand I wonder if the rental price will give you that much more in a scan.

At around 31$ an hour, I think you might just end up a bit disappointed by its results.

[thil]

hi Jonas

I've used a Flextight X5 recently for the first time. The quality of the output is incredible. Once the software was setup and I got used to the workflow I was doing 10-12 frames per hour. I don't know the technical details but due the way the optics are setup scanning times are very very fast (check details here: http://www.calphoto.co.uk/product/hasselblad-flextight-x5-scanner/339-020T/).

The Flexcolor software also has a massive list of film profiles to choose from. I scanned and saved in raw (3F) format. That captures everything on the film and for a 35mm frame generates a 300mb file. The 3F scan may look too dark and colour casted at first but it can be quickly optimised in Flexcolor software. You can download Flexcolor from Hasselblad. Its a bit clunky in terms of user interface but does everything you need for curve adjustment and colour balance. From there you can save a tiff to spot out dust, sharpen etc. I'm not sure how well it performs with 5x4 film though.

I have more info and tutorials on how to use - I can send if you need.

Thil

[jojonas~]

oh, that'd be great Thil! please send me some
and your experience seems good too. I'm thinking of doing maybe some 35mm slide, 120 color negative and maybe one 4x5 bw to test it out.

oh, and I did download flexcolor a while back to try out if it ran smoother than lightroom on my computer. I could start and fiddle with that before I get to the actual scanning bit, whenever that happens

[Darnley]

I've owned three Imacons that I have used for commercial and personal work. Probably done a couple hundred thousand scans. (Yup). You should be able to do 20-30 scans per hour with one of the newer models. Make sure someone gives you the proper rundown on how to achieve a proper "raw" scan before you hand over your money. Do all your scanning post production later on your own time. Good luck!

[Darnley]

BTW, that image that they are showing is an older Flextight II or III scanner.Much slower than the later 848 or 949 scanners or the latest Hasselblad models.
That would slow you down significantly.

[mcduff]

Probably done a couple hundred thousand scans. (Yup).

I will say that deserves a "yup"!!! That is a crazy amount of scans, even for here in FW ;-)

[jojonas~]

I've owned three Imacons that I have used for commercial and personal work. Probably done a couple hundred thousand scans. (Yup). You should be able to do 20-30 scans per hour with one of the newer models. Make sure someone gives you the proper rundown on how to achieve a proper "raw" scan before you hand over your money. Do all your scanning post production later on your own time. Good luck!

that sounds good. I'll see if they offer that service.

BTW, that image that they are showing is an older Flextight II or III scanner.Much slower than the later 848 or 949 scanners or the latest Hasselblad models.
That would slow you down significantly.

might be that they're using that one. not sure. how significantly would you say though?

[Darnley]

I believe the high end later scanners will do about 200mb per minute. The earliest models were maybe half that speed.

BTW, the vast majority of the thousands of scans that I have done were for commercial clients and I had a couple of very good people help me with that task in the past. I don't even want to think about how long it would take for one person to scan (and clean up) that many scans. And the Imacons have a service mode that you can access through software that tells you the number of scans that the scanner has done. My 848 is at about 73,000 right now. I sold my two previous scanners at about 60,000 scans each.