I'm glad I don't manufacture or sell video cameras. Actually I'm glad I don't depend on any hardware, the lesson I learnt years ago in the mainframe computer industry is just how hard it is to compete in the global hardware market. Of course IBM sold its once all conquering PC business to the Chinese company Lenovo and just this last week it is said Sony have found a buyer for their laptop product line. Not so long ago I saw Sony as the Microsoft based alternative to Apple, with well designed hardware almost as attractive as the Mac product line.
Then, yesterday, I saw the 30th anniversary video on the Apple website. The subject matter is a glossy, colourful and (in fashion terms) exciting catwalk show. Lots of trendy people, lots of swishing clothes. The subject matter didn't interest me, what impressed me is that the whole movie was shot on a collection of iPhones. Believe me the video lacks nothing, it is broadcast quality with lots of clever tricks. As the movie develops you get snippets of the way iPhones were used - clamped to standard tripods, hoisted on clever poles, mounted in pairs and groups, pointed and fired simultaneously. With great results.
Some years ago I was party to producing a business plan for a small video business - weddings, local business promos. The cost of decent cameras was the main item. A few years ago a passable video camera was £1500. How many iPhones would you get for that? Four, five? then there was the cost of video editing software, and training.
Do you think in a few years time we'll be thinking about buying dedicated video cameras? Or perhaps using multiple iPhones to work alongside or maybe even replace the now standard video recorder? Yes, today I'm glad I'm about to fire up the computers and start work on our photo scanning service.
Friday, February 7, 2014
Monday, February 3, 2014
Photo Scanning - MFP
I don't know anybody who scans more photos, slides and negatives than we do - particularly across Nikon, Kodak and Epson scanners. So I follow other peoples comments on photo scanning hardware with particular interest, most often via various blog posts. The photo scanning topics vary with several common themes recurring in posts. There are the "how tos" (scan, improve colour, crop, rotate, email, share and backup online) alongside several reviews and recommendations of hardware and software.
Over the last few days several posts have popped up with the theme "don't scan photos on an MFP device". Really? If you're not familiar with the abbreviation MFP stands for multi function print, those combined units that will print, fax and scan documents and prints. Given that you can buy one in my local supermarket for around £50 the quality of each functional unit isn't going to be as good as a dedicated printer or a dedicated photo or document scanner. But does that mean you should never, ever think of using an MFP unit to scan photos? Of course not, thanks to the help of one of my neighbours I checked scan quality on an Epson unit. At 300 dpi the scans of a decent print were more than acceptable. Hike the quality setting and scan images fell away, but modest results were achieved at lower resolution.
Are MFPs a photo scanning solution? If your needs are modest, and you only have a few photos to scan I think they could be. But they suffer from chronic slowness, as does any flatbed scanner. It's a one-by-one process so it will take a long time if your archive comprises hundreds of photos. Certainly you'll get a better result if you increase the quality of scanner you use but I would certainly not say you should "never" use an MFP to scan photos.
Over the last few days several posts have popped up with the theme "don't scan photos on an MFP device". Really? If you're not familiar with the abbreviation MFP stands for multi function print, those combined units that will print, fax and scan documents and prints. Given that you can buy one in my local supermarket for around £50 the quality of each functional unit isn't going to be as good as a dedicated printer or a dedicated photo or document scanner. But does that mean you should never, ever think of using an MFP unit to scan photos? Of course not, thanks to the help of one of my neighbours I checked scan quality on an Epson unit. At 300 dpi the scans of a decent print were more than acceptable. Hike the quality setting and scan images fell away, but modest results were achieved at lower resolution.
Are MFPs a photo scanning solution? If your needs are modest, and you only have a few photos to scan I think they could be. But they suffer from chronic slowness, as does any flatbed scanner. It's a one-by-one process so it will take a long time if your archive comprises hundreds of photos. Certainly you'll get a better result if you increase the quality of scanner you use but I would certainly not say you should "never" use an MFP to scan photos.
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