Hasselblad/Imacon scanner malfunction - factory service arrogance?

I have a severe malfunction with an Imacon/Hasselblad Flextight 343 scanner: The scanner is scanning skew: A square negative is output like a parallelogramm to a very visible degree. You can see an example here: http://www.henningharms.com/stuff/343.jpg. I also scanned 35mm film with the perforation on both sides in order to exclude that the ‘film window’ of the camera is causing the problem.

I shipped the scanner to the Hasselblad factory service in Copenhagen (Denmark). Upon return, the fault was unresolved.

I claimed the malfunction again and sent example scans. This time, Hasselblad answered by mail that the “scanner is performing well within factory specifications” and that “not even one of our new scanners (X1/X5) will perform better in this respect compared to your scanner”.

The Hasselblad Flextight 343 sales brochure says:
“Perfect scans have never been easier to make … you can easily control 
your capture using the best image-evaluation instruments 
you have—your own eyes. No surprises await you later 
when you open your images in Photoshop or roll them off 
the presses.”

My questions are:
Am I too demanding when it comes to the functions of my photographic equipment?
Should I rather not trust my own eyes as ‘the best evaluation instrument’ but Hasselblad’s factory specifications?

Has anybody had similar problems with Hasselblad scanners and was it possible to resolve them?

To be fair: the picture quality of the scanner is superb (thanks to the Rodenstock lens?) and the operation of the scanner a joy. Even the Flexcolor software works well nowadays, after years of incompatibility with their own fullframe masks when it came to 3F (RAW) scanning.

by Henning Harms at 2008-09-20 21:31:24 UTC (ed. Sep 20 2008 ) Warsaw , Poland | Bookmark | | Report spam→