Valoi easy120 film scanning device

Film

Nice but way overpriced.

There are four key reasons why the inexpensive 35mm film scanning device from JJC was such a success:

  • Under $100
  • Assured parallelism of camera sensor and film planes
  • Superior definition to that from flat bed or dedicated scanners
  • Fast

Checking my LRc catalog I see that I ended up scanning 2300 35mm negatives and slides over an 8 week period working 2 hours or so daily (a rate of 20.5 scans per hour, including processing time at a cost of just 4 cents a scan) and were I using a traditional flatbed scanner I would still have another 12 months of wait time ahead of me …. and with lower definition results. How about 1 hour per high quality scan using a flat bed? Talk of using the wrong technology.

Now a 120 version of the JJC device has been announced by Valoi, using identical design principles but with one big if. It’s very expensive. By the time you add a film holder, duster and the advance mechanism you are looking at $750. Checking my physical albums I count 28 rolls of 120 film negatives and slides, or 336 images which works out to $2.26 and, no, I will not be taking any more film snaps on 120 or any other format, despite the imminent arrival of a gorgeous ‘display only’ Rolleiflex 2.8D from 1955. All this extolling of the purported superiority of film over digital is straight out of Pseuds’ Corner, attributable to people who (rightly) place a very low value on their time. If that’s you and you want to pay twice as much, one of these is just the ticket.


The Valoi 120 film scanning device. Click the image for their web site.

The specs state that 6×4.5, 6×6 and 6×7 (no mention that I can find of 6×9) film format masks are available, each at an outrageous $75 each for a simple piece of plastic.

If a Chinese copy comes along at $200 or less I’m a buyer. Otherwise those 120 film originals can wait. Meanwhile, if you have thousands of originals to scan the Valoi might make better economic sense for you than for me.

Mac Mini M4 – Part V

Mac Mini M4, Macintosh

Matching storage.

In Part IV I wrote about the French company named Polysoft which is providing upgraded storage for the Mac Studio computer, adding that I expect they will expand their offerings to include the Mac mini M4.

That may take a while as they will have to reverse engineer around Apple’s greed, but meanwhile another entrepreneurial outfit has produced an external SSD in a box with the same footprint as the Mini. TechRadar has the story and storage capacities from 512gb to a whopping 8tb will cost from $140 to $1000. That is extremely competitive when you look at Apple’s upgrade pricing – Greedy Timmy wants an additional $800 for just 2tb.


The Orico external SSD for the Mac mini M4.

Orico claims a throughput of 40Gbps which seems unlikely to me, but we should soon be seeing test data.

Notre Dame reopens

Photographs

Glorious.

Well, it took 5 years and almost $1 billion in contributions sourced from across the planet (yours truly included) and Notre Dame reopened today, recovering from unspeakable tragedy. While one sour note is sounded by the presence of the Pig of the Western World, as morally degenerate a human as has ever occupied the White House, all churches attract vermin and Notre Dame is no exception.

So let’s rejoice that the world occasionally does something really right. The Grande Dame is back:


The reopening ceremony. Click the image for the video of the ceremony.


The new spire.

Vive La France!

Mac Mini M4 – Part IV

Mac Mini M4, Macintosh

Expect storage upgrades soon.

In Part III I wrote:

Internal SSD upgrades: Early teardowns of the Mac Mini M4 disclose that the NAND storage resides on a removable card. However, components on that card make it impossible to simply plug in a larger storage one as the Apple design ties the card to your particular machine. However, hackers with micro-soldering skills have unsoldered the two existing NAND modules from the card, replacing them with much larger ones for very low cost, and things work well. So you can bet that an aftermarket business will shortly arise offering this service. When you realize that Apple charges $200 for the jump from 256gb to 512gb, and $600 more to go from 256gb to 1tb, there’s money to be made from competing with Apple’s greed. So if you want a 1TB drive or greater it might make sense to buy the base 256gb $600 Mac Mini and wait for the market to offer upgrades.

Well, here we are not a month after the release of the Mac Mini M4 than French company Polysoft has reverse engineered the NAND storage in the Mac Studio and will soon be offering 8tb upgrades for $1,160. Here’s Apple’s pricing – greed personified while Mr. Cook walks around the stage, hands prayerfully clasped in supplication to the god of money:


Mac Studio SSD upgrades.

And here’s the excellent article and related video from Cult of Mac explaining what Polysoft accomplished and it’s really magical:


Click the image for the article.

In contrast to much of the appalling dreck found on YouTube, Luke Miani’s presentation is articulate and involving.

The real volume for Polysoft’s business will be selling upgrade SSDs for the Mac Mini M4 because that’s where the money is. I would expect they should have a competitive offering in a quarter or two. And yes, Apple’s greed for upgrades to that machine is equally abundantly on display. Well done Polysoft. Vive La France!

Carmel de Nuit

Photographs

Night photography.

When I think of night photography two names immediately come to mind – Brassaï and O. Winston Link. The former for his mythical images of Paris at night, the latter for the greatest steam train images ever made.

Back in 2013 I determined to photograph the festive season windows at night in that up market retail paradise, Carmel, and related the experience here. It bears adding that I have owned many 35mm focal length lenses but two stand out – the 35mm f/2 Asph Leitz Summicron for its contrast and the 35mm f/1.4 Sigma for its sensational definition – assuming you can get one that actually focuses correctly. The resolving power of the Sigma is unquestionably the highest I have enjoyed on any camera and the stellar definition is abundantly in evidence in my images. So it was the Sigma, attached to a Nikon D3x, which was the optic of choice for the night images of Carmel’s magnificent shop windows. Anything but lightweight, this combination was mounted on the outstanding Sirui K-40X ball head attached to an ancient and massive Linhof tripod. Looking at the data exposure times varied from 1/15th to 8 seconds and apertures were mostly f/5.6 or f/8. I let the Nikon do the exposure figuring though I had the camera set to underexpose by 1 stop, knowing that burned out highlights in these very high contrast images would not be recoverable in post processing. And speaking of processing, the new to me features of Lightroom Classic compared with my ages old Lightroom v6 made the already fine images even better, specifically the sophisticated masking tools and the ‘Texture’ slider which made the many images of clothing really come alive. Why, I almost feel good about sending Adobe $10 monthly for these enhancements. A couple of images were round tripped through Affinity Photo 2 to square things up.

Anyway, of the 56 images 42 were winners and you can view the slide show by clicking the picture below. The music is Cole Porter’s “I’ve got you under my skin” and the slideshow was generated using LRc. I encourage you to view this on the largest screen in your home, the TV, as the quality of the photos is nothing short of spectacular.


Click the image for the slideshow.