by
David Nagel
Executive
Producer
dnagel@digitalmedianet.com
Canon says
it will ship a new high-speed film scanner in the second quarter
of this year. The new model, the CanoScan FS4000US, offers 42-bit,
4,000 DPI resolution; 14-bit A/D conversion; USB and SCSI-2 interfaces;
and scratch and dust removal capabilities. The new scanner accepts
35 mm and Advanced Photo System films, including slide film, and
has a dynamic range is 3.4.
The scanner advances film automatically using both a film holder
advance and film advance housing movement. The 35mm filmstrip
holder or slide mount holder is advanced by meshing the flat gear
on the bottom of either film holder with the feed gears located
on the scanner. The film advance movement, in contrast, moves
the film holder (35 mm filmstrip holder, slide mount holder, or
APS film cartridge holder) that is set in the film advance housing,
providing a secondary scan in the main scan sequence.
The film advance housing is capable of minute movements using
a high-precision feed screw rotated by a stepping motor. This
makes possible high-precision 4,000-dpi secondary scanning that
was impossible with previous gear-driven film advance mechanisms.
The new scanner also includes a built-in autofocus mechanism that
adjusts the focus if the film surface is not at the designed distance
to the scanner. This step is performed before pre-scanning, assuring
the sharpest scans possible. Manual override of the autofocus
is also provided.
Canon's trying to position this model in the high-end consumer
space, with a price point of $1,099. It's compatible with Mac
and Windows and will ship between March and May. For more information,
visit http://www.canon.com.
