Message-Id: <199812182143.OAA36274@dns.ccit.arizona.edu> Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1998 15:20:32 -0600 From: Steve Smith <mailto:smith@AMIGOS.ORG> Subject: Re: AGFA Scanners - dust on glass inside To: mailto:IMAGELIB@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Our Agfa Arcus II came out of the box with dust on the inside of the glass - both on the stationary platen & on the glass in the lid used to provide transmitted light for scanning transparencies & negatives. I doubt the dust causes noticeable deterioration in image quality - my gut feeling is that the dust inside the glass is too far from the surface being scanned to be in focus & too small to block light.That being said, I have seen splotches on images scanned from 35mm slides. I'm not certain whether this is being caused by dust on the slides, dust on the outer surface of the glass or dust on the inner surface - if anyone has any opinions on the matter I'd love to hear them.
The frustrating thing with the Arcus is that there appears to be no easy way to clean the inside surfaces of the glass. As our machine is used for instructional purposes, I'm not real bent out of shape about it, but a call to Agfa service is definitely order. If you receive any useful responses off-list, Guenter, please forward to me if you think they wouldn't be of general interest to IMAGELIB folks. Steve
-- Steve Smith AMIGOS Imaging Service Coordinator AMIGOS Bibliographic Council, Inc. 12200 Park Central Dr., Suite 500 Dallas, TX 75251-2104 800/843-8482 or 214/851-8000 214/991-6061 (fax) http://www.amigos.org mailto:smith@amigos.org
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Subject: AGFA Scanners - dust on glass inside
Hi Imagelib Listserv,
at the Berkeley Art Museum, we own three Agfa Scanners: a 2 year old Arcus II, a fairly recent StudioStar and a brand-new Duoscan. When we got the Duoscan, I discovered a thin layer of dust on the inside of the glas which serves as the scan surface. You can not really see the dust by looking straight into the scanner, but once the light-source turns on and you look at the surface from a low angle, it becomes quite apparent. First I thought this might be a singular defect of our new scanner, but it turns out that all the AGFA scanners we have at BAM plus two other Duoscans which I looked at have the same veil of dust coating on the glass. I ran a couple of tests scanning just the black surface on the inside of the cover to see whether the dust shows up on the images; however, at a high resolution it seems almost impossible to tell dust from the micro-structure of the black cover.
Has anybody experienced similiar problems with Agfa or non-Agfa scanners? My more specific questions: (1) Do your scanners have the veil of dust, too? (2) Do you know of any test method which would enable me to ascertain whether that dust shows up on the scans or not? (3) Especially the Duoscan seems to be prone to dustproblems. Particles can enter via the slide tray, and via the hinges of the lid. How do you clean out the inside of the glass without voiding the warranty, i.e. taking the lid off?
For the project I am involved in, we scan original artwork on paper at a resolution of 6ooppi for archival purposes.
Thanks for your feedback!
Guenter Waibel ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Guenter Waibel Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive 2625 Durant Avenue Berkeley, California 94720-2250 CIAO Project Specialist http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/ciao/ mailto:guenter@uclink4.berkeley.edu Phone 510-643-8655 Fax 510-642-4889 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~