Gear Talk > Software & Accessories

Film Scanners - any user recommendations?

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Liszon:
Hi, I have an urgent problem, maybe someone here can answer:

I recently purchased a Canon fs4000us 35mm scanner second hand, but it turned out faulty:
The official Canon service in Hungary said that the "motor turns out from its axle" - occasional error, sometimes its working for a couple of scans, but mostly results a corrupted scan session, and the unit hangs up with a loud noise.
The part could be replaced, but they dont have any spares, so they claimed its unrepairable.

The seller seems to be wanished, so I cant get my money back..

Can anyone recommend me an online shop, where I can still buy a spare motor for the fs4000, refurbished/working parts from disassembled machines would be fine also.

Please, if you can help me, share your ideas!

pwp:
Ever thought about using your camera? It's been a useful solution for plenty of photographers.

http://thedambook.com/downloads/Camera_Scanning_Krogh.pdf
http://www.dpbestflow.org/camera/camera-scanning

These links are a good starting point. Look around the www and you'll find plenty more relevant info & tutorials.

Paul Wright

dafrank:
There are several approaches you can take. If you want to really take a chance, scour used equipment sites on the net for an old drum scanner, complete with the old computer to run it. Forget about trying to run one of these with your current computer; you'll need to buy an old computer that's been running it all along - too many software and connector conflicts with recent hardware and OS's. An old Howtek, Fujifilm, ICG, Aztek (really a Howtek with different software), Screen, or even a Linotype-Hell. You should be able to get one dirt cheap, and if you can find a decent one in working condition with attached software, you'll have a tremendous tool. And, when you're done with your own work, you might even be able to do some work for hire. The good models made by these companies are still the best of the best at scanning film. The Imacon scanners are also very good and are sometimes referred to as "drum" scanners, but they aren't really that at all. They scan film on a slighlty curved open platen, but, at heart, their guts contain no more than very good versions of the same CCD line-scanner arrays that are found in almost every desktop slide scanner. Real drums use analogue photo-multiplier tubes, superior optics and superior film alignment - a whole different animal.

Going one step down and getting practical, a Nikon coolscan 8000 or 9000 will do a great job for what you want for both 35mm and 120 szie film. I use a 9000, and, if you are good at scanning you can get a result that is only a very very small step lower than most drums, but not the very highest end ones. The next practical step down from there is to use one of many excellent higher quality Nikon or Minolta scanners to scan your 35's and a good moderate flatbed scanner such as an Epson V600, V700 or V750 for larger film. I use the Epson V750, and for 120, 4x5", even 8x10", it does a way better than expected job, if you learn how to use it with skill; the results are more than acceptable for professional use. That is not the case with 35mm film; you must use a dedicated "slide" scanner like the Nikon 4000 or 5000, similar Minolta models, or a multi-format desktop like my Nikon 9000 to make really good scans of these. The reason the good flatbeds are sufficient for larger film is that they have to do less "work' in creating tdigitized images at lower reproduction ratios that the larger film formats allow.

One step below these scanners are the recent Chinese brands that are pretty close, but not quite as good as the old Coolscans; you can now buy these new in pretty much all the big online photo stores. They'll certainly be fine for your family image archives, but for art or commerce, the older scanners are preferrable

Last but not least, you can hire out your scans instead. If you have a huge number of frames to archive and you don't mind getting nearly all of them scanned at one time, at modest resolution and without true custom settings, you can probably negotiate a very low price per-scan with a reputable local or online lab.

Good luck.

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