35mm scanning options

In the late 90's I worked as a photojournalist and we were going through the baby steps to digital. We stopped shooting slide film, went to color neg and scanned our images into the computer.

I used a variety of scanners from makers like Minolta, Nikon, and Polaroid - even the old Leaf Scan. Wow, three pass scanning at it's finest

When we went digital in 2000, the scanners for the most part went into storage, and digital cameras with compact flash cards were used instead.

I'm out of the news biz now, have been for a while. I haven't scanned a negative in quite a long time. I have either done wet printing in the darkroom or shot digital files and worked in P-shop.

My options for wet printing are pretty much done. I will be rolling back the clock to 1990 something and begin scanning my black and white negatives rather than printing them.

I was wondering if there was an economical scanner out there that could scan 35mm negatives without breaking the bank? I would love a Nikon 9000 but hey, I gotta start a little bit lower than that

I have an older Espon scanner that has a neg attachment for it. I tried it last night and wow, horrible results.

With the shrinking footprint of film, I imagine the options for getting decent 35mm scans is also getting smaller. I was just wondering if there was a decent flat bed scanner, or 35mm film scanner at a reasonable price out there to start scanning my negs again.

Thanks,
steve

Steve

new or used?

Epson Photo Perfection 4870 or later models are a good "start", yet to actually see much from the cheapies like the Pacificfilm ones.

Nikon LS-4000, LS-V or LS-5000 are all great (don't have much fondness for the LS-IV as it seemed to be quiet on par with my Epson

I have found good results from any film minilab which is using the Noritsu system at develop time, but you must insist on the higher res scans. Some places charge like wounded bulls for the extra dpi, others don't seem to care.

New ... well heaps of options.
What's your budget?
What's your volume of scanning?
What's your end point quality expectation?

I trade off quality for ease of bulk handling on my Epson vs Nikon (I have two Epsons and a Nikon 4000). The 4000 does well for the details but takes more handling and setup time while the Epson allows me to plonk 6 strips on the glass and hang the washing out.

Pellicle thanks for your reply.

I would like to be able to scan 35mm negs and make 8x10 framed and mounted prints.

My volume is pretty low, a few frames from a strip of five out of the neg sleeves at a time.

Budget? Well I just wanted to see what was out there and then go from there. I would rather save and get a scanner, than get a cheap scanner that never really will work for what I need it for. I would be comfortable in the $500 or lower range right now, or save a bit and get a better scanner later in the year.

I really do love shooting film, and hope that I can still shoot film but convert files digitally but still be within a decent budget.

steve

Steve

well, I'd suggest a tidy LS-4000 would yeild the best value for money in terms of outright quality of images. Its 4000dpi and has access to the automated stuff if you need it (like bulk slide feeders and bulk roll feeder).


8x10 isn't really challenging for 35mm and flatbeds, though it depends on your needs. Have a read of this blog post and see how you feel about the Epson.

Epson V700 (or V750) equipped with Silverfast gets my vote.

See my review, Dead Link Removed.

I'll second the vote for the V750. I use VueScan software and the Epson Scan is pretty decent, too. It will do pretty well everything from 10x8 to 35mm negs and slides.

I'm sure there'll be better scanners out there but I suspect you may have to pay an awful lot more for a marginal improvement in quality.

Thanks everyone for your replies. I'm glad there are decent priced options out there for scanning negs. I still enjoy shooting film, and having the opportunity to scan and print will be great!

steve

While I have and use an Epson V700 a fair bit for MF and 4x5, I can't say I'm tremendously impressed by it in 35mm. It's OK up to 8x10. You'd do better finding a dedicated used scanner like a Minolta Scan Dual IV or Minolta 5400. They can be had fairly cheap. The Dmax is far better. Channel noise is less, and the resolution, in the case of the Scan Dual IV is a real 3100ppi or so. The V700 will struggle to get much more than 2200 to 2300 ppi.

I also own a V700 and would agree it's not the best option for scanning 35mm.
Also, upgrading the stock film holders can significantly improve scan quality.

David Luttmann said:

While I have and use an Epson V700 a fair bit for MF and 4x5, I can't say I'm tremendously impressed by it in 35mm. It's OK up to 8x10. You'd do better finding a dedicated used scanner like a Minolta Scan Dual IV or Minolta 5400. They can be had fairly cheap. The Dmax is far better. Channel noise is less, and the resolution, in the case of the Scan Dual IV is a real 3100ppi or so. The V700 will struggle to get much more than 2200 to 2300 ppi.

Click to expand...

My experience with V700/750 shows that, if used properly, it rivals most 35mm film scanners in IQ.

I've found that most people do not realize that you must adjust the focus feet of all the holders to suit your individual unit, and use higher end software such as Silverfast to get the best out of these machines.

Stringent testing has shown thees units are capable of both true 4000 DPI and DMAX approaching 4.0.

Plustek Opticfilm 7600 or Reflecta Proscan 7200

Personally, I bought the Plustek. But the reflecta should have comparible results.

A lot of people had negative things to say about these scanners, often without any experience in using them. After a lot of doubt I decided to buy this one over the Epson V500. The results so far are pleasing. Slide film gives better result then negative, but I heard this is normal. Although I haven't used it for b&W yet, I'm sure it will also perform nicely with it.

I only printed some old slides from my grandfather, which are very grainy and dirty compared to new slide film. A4 and A3 prints look great. I printed one picture shot on Fuji Superia 800. On screen it looked very grainy, but the A3 only showed slight grain looking from up close. Hanging on the wall and standing a little over a foot away it looks great.

I have to admit, I've got no idea what I'm actually doing when scanning (or printing for that matter). I just mess about with different settings until the preview looks about right. with more knowledge/experience results can only get better. Using photoshop for the final touches wouldn't be a bad idea also, but I haven't done this so far.

A few downsides:

manual feeding. Only 4 mounted slides or six in a strip. This is not the fastest way of working.

35mm only. This was no problem when I bought it, but I started shooting MF recently and have no scanner for this.

I would love to show some examples, but my computer crashed and of course I had no backups. This is a link to some samples I posted, but they are not the best scans I made and aren't full size examples.

forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1018&message=36687646

Cheers,

Daniel

P.S.: you can click the images two times to enlarge them a bit

Daniel

Another P.S.: It comes with Silverfast software. I live in the Netherlands and when I bought it, (the SE version), it cost me 320 euros. Most shops here now sell them for around 280 euros.

tonyjuliano said:

My experience with V700/750 shows that, if used properly, it rivals most 35mm film scanners in IQ.

I've found that most people do not realize that you must adjust the focus feet of all the holders to suit your individual unit, and use higher end software such as Silverfast to get the best out of these machines.

Stringent testing has shown thees units are capable of both true 4000 DPI and DMAX approaching 4.0.

Click to expand...

I for one would really like to see some hard evidence supporting your claim. I'm in agreement with David Luttmann and pschwart regarding the actual Epson flat bed resolutions . . . pretty much any flatbed resolutions, far as that goes. This is a great site for having a look at just what the various flatbeds are capable of:

Collaborative Large Format Scanner Comparison

I own an Epson 4990, the immediate forerunner to the V7xx series, and I have tested film heights to determine the optimum height for maximum sharpness, and guess what? The optimum height for the best film sharpness was exactly half the width of a cardboard-mounted slide. Exactly what you'd want it to be (remember, the film is sandwiched in the middle of the mount, thus half the thickness). And my film holders thickness was also the same. So my negs are positioned above the glass as if they were mounted in cardboard slides.

So when I determined this, I realized that there would be no benefit to buying custom film holders for my 4990. And if film curvature were an issue, well then maybe I'd think about the anti-newtonian glass. But it never has been with medium format, cuz the holder keeps it flat anyway. 35mm, eh . . . well I shoot mostly slides anyway. :cool2: I'm working on a reliable way to shoot duplicates of my color negatives. I shoot dupes of my slides and my B&W negs with my DSLR nowadays. Faster than a scanner (much), and better resolution. Plus, the roll-film stage section of my duplicator holds the negs totally flat.