[sbszllr]

As someone who has a mirrorless scanning setup for my film, and pondered getting a dedicated scanner... the price of this is quite steep given how inflexible of a tool it is.

A second hand DSLR setup is going to be roughly the same price or less. I'm also not sure what kind of workflow improvements it actually offers. If you want fancy and experimental, filmomat has arguably a more interesting but pricier offering.

But naysaying aside, I hope they manage to find a niche that allows them to survive as a company, and keep the analog photography revival alive.

[KaiserPro]

I bought some time on a hasselblad medium format scanner (took fucking ages)

The results are good, as you'd expect. However can I tell the difference between that and me putting the negatives on a decent softbox and using a fancy camera to take a picture? yes, but not by much.

I think the main issue is film registration, that is getting the film to be flat and "co-planar" to the lens so the whole frame is sharp.

My negatives are slightly warped, so they really need a frame to make sure they are perfectly flat. But for instagram, they are close enough.

However scanning more than a few pictures is a massive pain in the arse. If I was scanning film regularly, then this is what I'd want, and its cheaper than the competition.

Assuming that its actually any good, I haven't seen any scans yet.

[atomicthumbs]

It'd be nice if they were able to adapt the Hasselblad/Imacon "virtual drum" concept and curve the film underneath the sensor for side-to-side flatness. I wonder if that's feasible with a 2D sensor.

[deinonychus]

I almost missed the price. Wow you're right that's a lot! And the final retail price is 1599 euros. I have a good Plustek that cost me $300 or $400. Automated transport and unantiquated software sounds nice, but those features are not worth an extra $600-1,100 to me.

Am I missing something or is this supposed to be in another tier of image quality?

[ZeWaka]

It's actually a lower DPI and no IR sensor.

[jaffa2]

I wondered what the price was. 1599 seems pretty decent.I was expecting about 4k This is about the price of a venerable Nikon 5000. Some of the setups use film mounts that cost as much as this whole unit.

Are there any sample images

[spott]

Dynamic range is much better (120dB is ~20 stops, your plustek is ~12 stops.

If that matters, I’m not sure.

[zimpenfish]

> A second hand DSLR setup is going to be roughly the same price or less.

And if you get one with Pixel Shift, you can get way higher resolutions than the 22MP they're offering (e.g. my cheapo Olympus gets 40MP JPEG or 64MP RAW from a 16MP sensor.)

[snowwrestler]

You’re for sure exceeding the linear resolving power of 35mm film at 40MP or 64MP.

However, a Bayer-filtered sensor has lower color resolution, since each pixel only sees one color. So the pixel shift really helps quite a bit here since the sensor (and Bayer array) are shifting relative to the film multiple times per exposure.

High-quality film scanners maintain color resolution by using linear sensors without Bayer filtering. But they’re slow and expensive.

[jeffbee]

The Olympus pixel shift bodies are underappreciated stand cameras. The quality is just bananas.

[joshvm]

Filmomat looks fun. Many money. Love the hipster flex with the Weber HG-1 in background of the demonstration video. I do own an Intrepid enlarger (sort of experimental?), and I used to live near Ars Imago in Zurich who sell a "lab in a box", similar to Filmomat's Light system. The independent dev scene is pretty great, though none of it is particularly cheap and is rarely open source, which is disappointing.

> I'm also not sure what kind of workflow improvements it actually offers.

The obvious one is auto-feeding and portability, but without using it who knows. It doesn't offer IR, but even Filmomat's system needs a modified camera. You get that with most flatbed and Plustek-style scanners. I have a V850 Pro which wasn't cheap either, but it'll do a full roll in one go and I can walk away. Even if I shot a roll a day it would be more than fast enough. It has occasional focus issues, and you need to be scrupulous about dusting, but it works well enough. I've never been a huge fan of the setup required for copy-stand scanning and it's tricky getting the negatives perfectly flat in/frame. The good carriers are also not cheap, look at Negative Supply for example.

Frankly it also looks great, like the Filmomat. I think some of the appeal is a chunk of modern looking hardware and also the hope that it's maintained? My Epson works well, but I ended up paying for VueScan because the OEM software is temperamental.