Gear Talk > Software & Accessories

Film Scanners - any user recommendations?

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BillyBean:
I have a Nikon Coolscan IV, which is a 35mm dedicated negative scanner. If you have a lot, a dedicated negative scanner is going to produce much better results, and be easier to use, than a flatbed scanner with a converter. The key thing to realise is that its not an issue of pixels - its about the dmax - the dynamic range if you like. These things are expensive for a reason.

You mentioned both black and white and Kodachrome. Be aware that all scanner types can struggle with these two negative types. Black and white negatives that have been traditionally developed (i.e. not a C41 process) will not tolerate an infrared channel scan, which means you cannot remove dust and scratches automatically. If your negs are dusty, therefore, think carefully about post-processing, because regardless of what the scanner maker says, you could hit issues. As for Kodachromes, these also have challenges, because (so far as I understand it) they have quite a 3 dimensional makeup physically, which means that getting the scan in focus can be challenging (you can actually see this structure if you look carefully at the neg). And the colour balance is different too, though that's easily addressed. Nikon scanners have a Kodachrome setting which works pretty well - I've scanned thousands of Kodachromes from the 1950s and 1960s with excellent results - there is a very slight softening, but post-processing sharpening addresses this quite well, and Kodachromes survive very well compared to other negatives, so the overall outcome is excellent. (of course, one should really talk about positives, rather than negatives, in the case of Kodachrome...)

There is a Rocky Nook book on scanning slides and negatives, which is pretty good.

According to Lightroom, I have scanned about 10,000 old negatives and slides, dating back to the 1950s. So I can heartily recommend the Nikon scanners (even though I shoot on Canon kit...). They crop up second hand quite regularly. No one makes decent negative scanners new anymore...  :(

TexPhoto:
My vote is: Weed out the 10-100 photos you really want, and have them professionally scanned.   This is a slow tedious process, and your results will not be as good as professional results.

I did use a Nikon 8000 a few years ago, and thought the process is very slow, it produced good results.  Maybe buy a used one, then sell it after.

swannd:
I haven't had a lot of experience with other scanners, however I have had good results with a CanonScan FS4000 that I picked up second hand. Combine this with VueScan software, and calibrate it. I purchased a Kodachrome and a Fuji IT8 target as i shot Kodachrome for many years, and then transitioned to Provia. Again its only good for 35mm (or APS!).

Swanny.

kbmelb:
I use to use the Nikon CoolScan 8000 and it did a great job but at a very slow rate. The best results were with multi-pass scanning, especially with 35mm. I found four passes worked best. Never used the 9000.

I think whatever scanner you choose check to see if it will do multi-pass scans. I imagine this is all software so you could check to see if Silverfast supports the scanner and buy their software to get multi-pass ability.

tron:
I have the Nikon Coolscan 5000 for scanning 35mm (my only NIKON item!)

It is very good! Since you have mostly medium format to scan the best would be a Nikon 8000 or 9000.

I assume it will be very expensive though...

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