new scanner options

I have a basic film scanner (Minolta Dual II) that is surprisingly good for its price/age but not brilliant. I would like to upgrade, but the reasonably priced quality options have fallen out of the market (Minolta & Nikon). I use 35mm.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

John
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jjbirder/

Depends on budget and use. I have an Epson V700 which scans B&W well but slides poorly. Its also difficult to get more than an A4 print out of it that I am happy with unless it's B&W and then I can go up to A3 for an OK print. I have seen others suggesting the V500 is a good scanner.

I have also recently purchased a used Minolta 5400 which is brilliant - managed a 40" print from my XPan Velvia slides with fantastic detail.

Again, depends on budget and use.

Hi JJ

j j said:

I have a basic film scanner (Minolta Dual II) ... I would like to upgrade, but the reasonably priced quality options have fallen out of the market (Minolta & Nikon). I use 35mm.

Any suggestions?

Click to expand...

do you use negative or slide?

if you're not shy of the used market, consider the Nikons still. I recently bought a used LS-IV ED which is about the first good implementation of ICE. To my eyes it handles dust / small scratches / processing streaks as if nothing was there. It does OK to 2900dpi but I think that negative challenges it more for noise than people would like to admit (as negative is quite dense in the blue channel).

After using an Epson 4870 (older version of the 4990 - V700) for some time I find the film handling clunky and the images not significantly sharper (even with a LOT of fiddling with manual focus). At the end of the day (as long as my film is clean) the Epson does as good a job with a little post processing (which really can't be done on the Nikon without making the grain worse).

Gotta wotch those Epsons as there is a problem with registration of each R G and B channel which some examples don't have, others have a little and still others a lot. I've had a few emails with even V700's showing it.

Quality control I guess

I've just bought (and am waiting for delivery) a used Nikon LS-4000 and for less than 500 euro if it's better than the LS-IV ED I'll be willing to put up with the slowness to get the detail and the ICE.

Can't say about vuescan but I can say that with the Nikon and the Epson software I get better results scanning my Neg as pos, setting rough levels in the scanner driver, then after scanning into photoshop invert - assign the right profile then invert set levels more carefully and apply curves. Some times (rarely) the software does neg as neg ok ... mostly it clips my shadow details too much (while still giving me noise).

aside from that there's increasingly not much out there with the market seeming to concentrate again to just a few units

Thanks Robin and pellicle.

I use C41 films mostly. My budget is less than the current lowest Nikon. Below that currently, it is either Plustek (from what I can tell, great detail but perhaps not the best quality images otherwise).

I am tempted by the Epson flatbeds, but they sound a bit fiddly, which works against the convenience plus points of doing a full film at a time, and perhaps no better quality (albeit with more resolution) than my current scanner.

Looks like I need a secondhand Minolta or Nikon...

John

Sounds

There is another option that you might like to consider and that is the Polaroid Sprintscan or Microtek equivalent. These are quite hard to get hold of but do come up on ebay and can go very cheaply.

Just checked ebay and found this one

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Microtek-Arti...14&_trkparms=72:1690|66:2|65:12|39:1|240:1318

I was watching a couple of these a few months back and saw one go for 75 and the other for 50. You should get an A3 scan out of one of these on 35mm without problem.