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« Last post by Target on July 14, 2013, 08:32 PM »
lot's of interesting opinions, led me to do a little (!!) bit of research on flatbed scanners...
interesting thing is that for all intents and purposes they are the same as a digital camera!
I'm aware that I'm generalising, but they both use a CCD, the real difference appears to be that scanners are designed to operate under closely controlled circumstances (fixed light source, fixed focal length, etc) whereas a camera is quite the opposite (ambient lighting, variable focal length, etc). Scanners use a series of mirror's to direct the scan to the CCD, whereas cameras have high quality lenses and sophisticated control mechanisms
Given that, and the fact that a slide is a very small image, I'm wondering why flatbed scanners seemed to be accepted as providing 'better' results. Granted most 'slide scanners' are relatively low res, but I'd warrant very few flatbed scanners would qualify as high res so substituting a high res 'camera' (ala the 'wolverine' 'branded scanners quoted above) should theoretically provide 'better' results
Of course software could be a big factor in this, but considering that the same software can (most likely) be used in both situations I think it's safe to take that out of the equation.
any thoughts?