Pardon the shameless cheerleading, but I finally got around to hooking up my new film scanner (Minolta Dimage Scan Multi PRO), and it’s just too cool for words. These are the raw scans with the default settings; no Levels or Curves, no Unsharp Mask, just crop and resize (in iPhoto, no less; I didn’t even bother loading them into Photoshop). If a few quick snapshots at the zoo come out looking this good with no effort, I can’t wait to pull out the good stuff.

Even better, this was done on my shiny new 15” PowerBook under the last Panther beta, using Minolta’s standalone scanning app. 100% native OS X goodness, fully compatible with the latest version of the OS.

People familiar with my model photos will know how long I’ve been coddling my unstable and often-stubborn Nikon LS-2000. Five times into the shop, and it’s still a pain in the ass to work with. Worse, it’s SCSI, and while I could have gotten it to work when I migrated my graphics apps from a PC to a modern Mac, it would have been a hassle. The Minolta is a true plug-and-play FireWire device that I can turn on whenever I need to without rebooting.

Best of all, it’s a multi-format scanner, so I can finally make high-resolution scans of all the medium-format film I’ve been shooting. I’m doing some studio shoots next time I go down to LA, and I’m really looking forward to pulling out the RB-67.

update: Okay, it has one stupid feature. Like other film scanners, it has a locking screw that holds the head in place when you transport it. The only documented way to move the head to the lockable position is to use the supplied software (which would really suck if you packed up your office in the wrong order). You will search in vain for a button or menu item in the software that says “lock the optics”; you do it by hitting Ctrl-Shift-L on Windows, or Command-Shift-L on a Mac.