January 2008 Archives

2007 was a good year, and I wrote a number of interesting product reviews.

A recent article I wrote was a list of lens bargains for the Sony Alpha (formerly Minolta Maxxum) lens mount. The article was titled Sony Alpha (Minolta Maxxum mount) lens bargains.

I also wrote a review of my main wide-angle lens, the Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM. And predictably review was titled Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM Review.

A couple years ago I wrote an article called How Ebay profits from software piracy, based on my experiences with one transaction. Those are the most recent articles on my photography blog.

Several years ago I wrote a review of the CompactDrive PSD PD7X. This is a portable hard drive casing that ran off of AAA batteries and allowed you to dump the contents of CompactFlash drive cards on to your portable hard drive in the field. In the days of 16 gig CF cards, it is not terribly useful anymore. It back when he spent $200 for a one gig card, it made a lot more sense.

I also written a review of Genuine Fractals 3.5, were I compared it to Photoshop CS bicubic interpolation, and found Photoshop to upsize better than genuine fractals. The article is titled Genuine Fractals 3.5 Review.

Before that I wrote a review of the Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D. I am still very pleased with the camera, and think that the 7D still takes better pictures than my Sony Alpha 100. Read my review at Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D Review.

My latest article is titled Flatbed scanner comparison: The Canon CanoScan 4400F vs the CanoScan 8600F. in this article I attempt to answer the question, "What is the difference between the Canon CanoScan 4400F and the CanoScan 8600F?

Daniel

In most important ways, the two scanners are the same: same tray size, same resolutions, same light source, internals, scan speeds, and firmware. The points of difference are primarily in build quality, and the extras that the 8600F has that the 4400F does not. Both have programmable buttons which allow for semi-automated scanning.

The first point is the bundled software. The driver is essentially the same for both, but the 8600F comes with Photoshop Elements. This may or may not be important, depending on whether you need Elements, or if you already have a full version of Photoshop.

The next point is that while both will scan 35mm negatives, only the 8600F will scan medium format negatives. This will only affect the few photographers who shot medium format – which is almost none of us amateurs.

While we are on the topic of negatives, the 8600F has digital dust reduction; the 4400F does not. The feature is called FARE (film automatic retouching and enhancement) and automatically removes scratches and dust from negatives. This is actually a very important feature if you plan to scan any real quantity of negatives. Even perfectly stored negatives have minute particles dust on them, and it can take up to 15 minutes per image in Photoshop to remove all the dust if you scan at full resolution and then try to clone stamp out every dust particle.

Another difference is that the 8600F has an on/off switch, while the 4400F does not.

Beyond the additional features is the difference in build quality. The first significant difference is the lid. Both lids are rather heavy and solid (the 8600F more so) which is nice if you scan books or things that need to lie flat. Then there is the difference in hinges. The 8600F has metal hinges that adjust vertically on metal supports so will stay open through 90 degrees of motion. The 4400F has a plastic hinge with a “break-away" articulating hinge to accommodate books or thick materials. When you place a book on the 4400F the lid hinge snaps open to accommodate the item, but will not stay open on its own. Since the hinge on the 4400F is all plastic and has a small piece of plastic that locks the articulating or adjusting part of the hinge, it is not ideally suited to high-volume book scanning. Another thing about the lid construction: the 8600F has a heavy-duty cable to power the light in the lid, while the 4400F provides power to the lid by a thin tape cable that is visible in the hinge, and might not be as durable under heavy use.

So which one is best for you? If you plan to scan mostly photo prints, loose papers, and small sections of books, the 4400F will save you nearly $100. If you will scan only a few 35mm negatives, the 4400F is fine. If you want to scan stacks of books, or large collections of negatives or 35mm slides, then the 8600F will serve you better. If you have medium format negatives or medium format slides, the 8600F is your only choice. Now, if you plan to scan a large collection of negatives or slides, seriously consider a dedicated negative scanner (like the Nikon CoolScan IV). I did several direct comparisons between the CoolScan IV dedicated negative scanner and the CanoScan 8600F (I own both) and found that the dedicated scanner produced significantly better scans (at 4000dpi) than the CanoScan (at 4800dpi). The difference was in the detail and especially in the color contrast. In the end I scanned close to 500 rolls of film in the dedicated film scanner. It is clearly the best way to go.

A final tip. Whatever scanner you get, you will usually get better images if you ignore the provided software and scan with VueScan. VueScan will talk directly to your scanner, produce better scans with less fuss, and makes batch scanning really easy.