| Photography Forum: Digital Darkroom Forum: |
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Q. Minimum requirements for a Canon FS4000US
Asked by Halid Izzet
(K=373) on 8/14/2002
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I want to get into scanning my own photos but have a computer that is about 4 years old.
1 Can anyone tell me what are the minimum requirements (RAM Processor etc, for scanning an image. I tried the unit out and the scan times (or transfer times were over 50 minutes for about 2000dpi scan, and totally blocked my computer. I need to upgrade it, but to what ?
2 What are the "optimum" requirements (I may just get a new computer rather than upgrading)
3 What are the maximun sizes of prints from a 4000 dpi scan ?
4 What are your best scanning times (including transfer) for say 2000 dpi scans ?
5 Is the Canon the best to buy as there is no Firewire connection ?
Thanks for your answers
Halid
www.thephotofinder.com
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Mark Thomas
(K=743) - Comment Date 9/7/2002
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Here's some minimums and recommendations..
Processor speed - not that critical, but 400 Mhz or greater would be good
Memory - Don't even think about less than 256 Mb - I would *strongly* recommend 512Mb or even 1Gb
Hard Disk space - Lots!!
Typical scans will be 50-100 Mb or greater depending on your resolution settings, and using the FARE etc will slow things down. The Canon is no speed wizard, and the software is pretty dopey in the way it uses memory. It might be worth trying Vuescan (www.hamrick.com) to speed up the operation of the scanner - you'll lose some functionality, but gain in many ways for not much money..
mt
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Greg Brakefield
(K=60) - Comment Date 9/15/2002
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Hi Halid,
I agree with Mark. I have a Pentium 400 Mhz with 512Mb of Ram and it works fine. With the price of RAM so low, you should go as high as your processor allows. I spent the better part of the day scanning with the FS4000US and printing on an Epson 2200 - what a combo! Using USB is slooow. I timed it today, for a 126MB file (4000 dpi @ 42 bit) it took 19 min. to scan one frame (at 5 passes using VueScan).
I highly recommend VueScan because of its multi-pass feature. You can download a trial version for free - if you like it you pay $40.00. I have heard that using a SCSI-2 cards speeds things up. I think I'm going to buy one this week. Mark, are you using SCSI-2? If so, aprrox. how much faster does it scan?
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Mark Thomas
(K=743) - Comment Date 9/18/2002
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Hi, Greg, thanks for the backup! I have to confess that i don't own the Canon, but have used it for a full day and discovered most of its quirks.. :)
My scanner is a dear old Acer (Benq) 2720, on normal SCSI. It's a very good scanner for the money, and scans only take 40 sec at 2700 dpi so I haven't lusted for any more speed. With the Canon I would be very tempted to try the SCSI2, provided of course the Canon actually supports the higher speeds..?
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