Scanner for school

CMoore said:

1. This is really ALL My Fault. The school and the instructor have set up a program to teach a group (15-20) of beginner students about Digital Photography. No doubt it makes the job more difficult if they have ONE Student that wants to tailor the class to his needs. Better to keep everybody on the same page. Plus, if ONE Student can manipulate the system to get what he wants.......
I was wanting to learn some basic Lightroom skills, mostly so i could learn to make 8x10 Digital Negs from my 35mm film Negs, and then try some Plat/Palad Prints...stuff like that.

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There is really no need to apologize as I think all you need is to experience it for yourself. For the purposes of post processing, a file is file regardless of the originating source. Here are some of my own examples from film.

Kodak Portra 800 with grain reduction and white balance.


Four frames of Kodak Ektar 100 stitched using freeware Microsoft ICE


Digitized Kodak 160VC color negative using a DSLR compared to Nikon Coolscan. There is no dust and scratch removal with digicam method while the Coolscan&Nikonscan ICE is the best implementation ever in terms of quality and speed.


My post processing skills to get the color results from color negatives is not as good as what I automatically get from Coolscan&Nikonscan.

Although I have done many others to achieve a goal, it will always be better if you do it yourself for whatever purposes you need.

CMoore said:

AND.....would this scanner be OK for that.?
Thank You

https://www.amazon.com/Plustek-Opti...34588404&sr=8-4&keywords=plustek+film+scanner

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Let me suggest an alternative scanner, a Canon FS4000us. It will likely give you somewhat better scan quality than the Plustek, at least that's what most people say who have reason to know the difference. They come up on ebay fairly regularly. However, if you go this route be sure it includes the slide and film holders. Those parts are no longer available from Canon.

A used Canon FS4000us is probably the greatest bargain in the scanner world. They typically sell on ebay for about half of what the new scanner costs that you linked to, sometimes even one fourth as much. The scan quality is excellent. It is said that the Nikon scanners beat it by a nose, but the Canon is very very close and a lot less expensive. The biggest disadvantage of the Canon is that the scan speed is slow. It is a little faster if you use the SCSI interface rather than the usb port (original usb speed, not usb 2 speed), but SCSI-equipped computers are not too common these days.

It's actually not too hard to find scsi cards on ebay and install them in a PC. It's even possible to get some of the legacy scsi cards to work under Windows 10 if you use a few tricks when you install the software. I have four of these scanners, connected to four different computers, all using the SCSI interface. One is a linux computer, two are Windows 10 computers, and one is a Windows 7 computer.

If you decide to get a Canon FS4000us you should plan to get Vuescan software to run the scanner. Silverfast scanning software also supports this scanner, but Silverfast is a lot more expensive and the version that supports the FS4000us has a restricted feature list, so Vuescan is probably your best bet for this particular scanner.

Life.....
Scanner is on the back burner...but thanks for the info.
I took an Alternative Class last semester, and THAT was my first introduction to putting a 35mm Neg onto a computer.
My teacher donated her Nikon Scanner.....Vuescan Software is what the college used.
Thanks Again

I empathize with your family situation as I have had to deal with the aging parent situation.

I would recommend a used DSLR. 10-12 megapixels is all you need - megapixel counts are vastly over-rated. Buy a camera that can use your existing lenses. After you completely the course, next year or whenever, you will still have a camera that can be used for "scanning" images, documenting your home and possessions for insurance reasons, posting images to social media, and possibly for taking preview images before committing to film. A DSLR is simply a tool and will not in any way contaminate your film equipment.

Yeah, that advice has already been given.....and it still makes sense.!
No doubt, if i HAD a Digital SLR, i could find good use for it.
Please..........i hope i didn't sound like a Film Snob.

I had The SAME problem with my digital electronics class. I enrolled twice and dropped it twice. The second time i got, almost, half-way through.
Whats worse about that is...not just "analog" electronics, but because i am into guitar amps..... TUBES.
Forget "Digital".....i still cannot remember (for those of you that have electronics interest) how to bias a transistor.
I am STUCK in Circa 1970 Technology.
I should have been born in The 1930's.
Of course if i had been, i might be dead now.

I was born in 1932, and am still alive. My first decade in electronics was all vacuum tubes. You can't imagine what maintaining a vacuum tube computer was like. Mean time between failures was hours, not months or years. However, the Hammarlund SP-600 was a great vacuum tube multiband receiver, and the Navy's LM frequency meter (BC-221 in the Army) was a clever example of getting high performance out of a minimum of equipment. I understand why, in theory, VT audio amps should be preferred over solid state amps, but these ancient ears can't tell the difference.

Jim Jones said:

I was born in 1932, and am still alive. My first decade in electronics was all vacuum tubes. You can't imagine what maintaining a vacuum tube computer was like. Mean time between failures was hours, not months or years. However, the Hammarlund SP-600 was a great vacuum tube multiband receiver, and the Navy's LM frequency meter (BC-221 in the Army) was a clever example of getting high performance out of a minimum of equipment. I understand why, in theory, VT audio amps should be preferred over solid state amps, but these ancient ears can't tell the difference.

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Wow.....i wish i lived next door to you.
I could learn A LOT about Photography and Electronics.