What do you use to scan your 35mm negatives?

[rpt]

I have been scouting around for something to scan my negatives. I find that there are 5 mega pix scanners that are small and handy and then some flat bed scanners. Canon has a 9000F that I liked. However I read some folks say that the plastic attachment that holds the strips breaks off and canon does not carry spares for that! Has anybody used the 9000F? What is your experience?

Also what resolution do you scan at? Scanning at 4800 dpi would produce huge files I thought.

Thanks in advance.

 

[pwp]

If you have negs & trannies and need a Premium (with a capital P) file there is still absolutely no substitute for a wet mount drum scan. Otherwise the Nikon LS 4000 and LS 5000 are very competent film scanners, especially when teamed with first class software like Vuescan or Silverfast. Since they have both ceased production, there is almost a black market for both the Nikon LS 4000 and LS 5000.

If your needs are humbler, the Epson V700 flatbed scanner will do a nice job.

-PW

 

[unfocused]

Not the answer you are looking for, but I send them out. I've used ScanDigital and DigMyPics.

The investment in a high quality scanner, plus the heavy investment in time and effort to scan in hundreds of negatives makes it more cost-effective to have someone else do this. Now, understand, I'm talking about old negatives, as I don't shoot anything but digital today.

Scan Digital will scan specific negatives on a 35mm strip, which is great savings and convenience. They also occasionally offer Groupons. However, all scanning services take a couple of months to complete the work, so it's of no use if you are in a hurry.

 

[sagittariansrock]

I've used both Canon flatbeds (suck) and the Nikon LS5000 (very good).
The latter is highly recommended.
In general dedicated film and slide scanners are worth the time (to find them) and money, IMO.

 

[jm345]

I believe Canon just announced a new scanner for film. I didn't see the specs but I think the retail price is $250. If I can find more info I will post it here.

 

[pwp]

You'll find a lot of info on scanners, including very detailed reviews here:
http://www.photo-i.co.uk/

New Canon film scanner? Hmmm. Maybe a flatbed with film scan capacity. Especially at $250.

-PW

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

If you still shoot 35mm, you might get a slide or film scanner, but if you are merely converting old slides and film to digital, just have them done for you.
I use a Epson flatbed photoscanner to convert my really old 120 film from the 1940's to digital. Its not as critical as 35mm, so my Epson photo 3170 does fine. It struggles with slides, but then, my old slides are not that great in any event.
I'd scan them at a high resolution, I made the mistake of scanning at too low a resolution, which means I need to redo them.
Cat photo and me in about 1945.

 

[nonac]

I have a Nikon Coolscan V that I've had for 10-12 years. Excellent piece of equipment for slides and negatives. They no longer make them; however, you may be able to locate a good used one for a good price. Mine was about $600 new, 10-12 years ago.

 

[Hillsilly]

If you're just doing a few scans and its not 100% crucial to get the best possible scan, I'd stick with a cheaper scanner such as the 9000F or Epson V600. I've never used the 5mpx ones you've mentioned, but I know they're cheap so why not give them a go? But if you're going to be doing a lot of scanning, I'd encourage you to get to the next step up or outsource it. Scanning is a very tedious and time consuming activity. I couldn't think of anything worse then spending a lot of time scanning negatives and not being happy with the results.

For what it worth, I do a lot of scanning and use a Canon 9950F (Hey...we're a Canon family!). This works well and was good for its time, but this model was discontinued years ago. Because I need to scan in many different formats, if I was shopping today, I'd look at the Epson V700 / Epson V750. For 35mm I typically scan at 2400dpi. At 2400dpi, on the best quality settings, it takes me just over an hour to scan 30 colour images. Its less than half that time for B & W. Higher dpi leads to much bigger file sizes and slower scans.

If you get into it and you budget permits it, a quality dedicated film scanner is the best way to go. The quality of scans, ease of use and capabilities (eg scanning more slides in one go, scanning a while uncut roll of film, slide holders, different film sizes) improve as you spend more. You occasionally see used Nikon and Minolta film scanners sell for reasonable prices on eBay.

 

[Zlatko]

For slides, I believe you can attach a Nikon slide copy attachment to a macro lens and photograph slides with your digital camera —
http://www.scantips.com/es-1b.html
Maybe the same or similar can be done for negatives?

 

[dr croubie]

I've heard very good things about the Nikon Coolscan range, but then I also saw one on ebay last week get upwards of $5000.
Personally, I've got the Epson V750 Pro. They're not available in Australia, I got it via ebay second hand for a bit less than the v700 costs here new ($600 or so). Being on Linux, I've never used the Silverfast that it came with, I've got an iscan driver that lets me scan up to 3200dpi. This gives about a 15mp FF file, not many films resolve that high anyway and I tend to use high-iso B+W and/or expired cross-processed junk films. That said, I put a roll of Velvia 50 through my Mamiya 645 and got some very nice 40MP files (and I could get 10 of the same camera for the price of a D800).

Scanning 4 strips of 6 35mm in a batch is easy enough in the v750, then taking a huge 200mb file and cutting it down into individual shots is what takes me the time. The inbuilt holder that came with it is good enough for a triage-operation at least, and for snapshots. The 120 film holder, just because it's a holder, the negs can sag in the middle and affect sharpness. So I've bought myself a Betterscanning.com wet/dry holder. I haven't tried the wet-mounting yet, but even dry-mounting (using Magic Tape) has an amazingly good impact, it's just so much sharper and highly recommended to anyone who is serious (but on a budget).

I've read the i-photo review of the v600, and considering it's half the price of the v700 new, it's worth a look, but the v700/750 is just better for films. As for v700 vs v750, I don't think there's much real difference except the Multicoated glass (anyone ever tried both?)

 

[sanj]

http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2012/11/11/using-a-dslr-to-scan-negative-film-by-stefan-schmidt/

 

[rpt]

All, thanks for all your replies. I will take a look at some flatbed scanners available in India. Unfortunately I have not found any agency that does film scanning.

 

[jm345]

Here is a press release on the new Canon scanner:

"The CanoScan 9000F Mark II Photo Scanner provides consumers with an easy solution for all photo and document archiving needs. Capable of scanning a 35mm film strip with the film scanning guide and frame and Film Adapter Unit, precious photos from a family's history can be archived. The maximum optical resolution for the CanoScan 9000F Mark II Photo Scanner is 9600 x 9600 dots-per-inch (dpi) for film and 4800 x 4800 dpi for all other media. Equipped with Auto Document Fix, this feature analyzes and corrects to help ensure text characters stand out and are sharp and clear; and helps pictures to maintain their color, tone and contrast.

The CanoScan 9000F Mark II Photo Scanner will have an estimated selling price of $199.99"

http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/about_canon?pageKeyCode=pressreldetail&docId=0901e024807339ad#

 

[PVS]

I moved from Canon 8800F to Plustek 7400 for 35mm, have to admit I'm quite impressed by the difference. I still use CS8800F for 120s, though.

Here's some insight of it's capabilities:
http://www.filmscanner.info/en/PlustekOpticFilm7400.html

 

[dr croubie]

For slides, I believe you can attach a Nikon slide copy attachment to a macro lens and photograph slides with your digital camera —
http://www.scantips.com/es-1b.html
Maybe the same or similar can be done for negatives?

no problems, only to invert the negative in for example PS

The one quirk that you have to watch out for is that most Slides have a clear base, most colour negatives (and some B+W negatives that use C41, eg BW400CN) have a yellowy-orange base.
When you scan a Slide, or take a photo with a macro lens on a slide-duplicator, it's just like taking a photo, the colours are the same.
But when you scan a Negative, the scanner will automatically adjust for that yellow-orange. Your camera won't.
The easiest way to calibrate is to take the same photo on Film and Digital, then 'scan' the film with your digital. Adjust the film shot so that the colours are the same, save the adjustments (or remember them), and henceforth use it for every film shot.
Or just shoot Slides, or buy a real scanner, much easier.

 

[rpt]

Everybody, thanks again for all the tips. Btw, I was wondering about the orange in the negatives.

 

[paul13walnut5]

I use to use a Minolta Dimage Scan Elite 5400.

I actually got offered more for it used that I paid new, was a very good scanner with 40MP output, great dmax and manaul controls and useful software suite.

I ran it on mac osX.4 and there were problems getting it to work well with anything beyond that without different patches etc.

It was gathering dust and I wasn't shooting film so much, but if you can get hold of one, and like a cup of coffee when you scan (16bit tiff files with 3 pass ICE could take a while) it's a great scanner. Reputed to work well on more recent OS's with Viewscan, though I would acutally run a PC with XP or a Mac with Panther to make the most of the Minolta software.

 

[RLPhoto]

I have to do this all the time and the Epson v700 is the best I've used. It even had an wet plate option for the best quality you can get this side of a drum scan.

 

[Hillsilly]

Operating systems are a real pain. My 9950F won't work on a windows 7 or 8 64bit - Canon has only released 32 bit divers. Consequently, I've got an old Vista computer plugging away in the corner solely to run a scanner. As soon as that computer dies, my perfectly good scanner becomes obsolete. I've tried XP mode on Windows 7 and that doesn't work. The joys of working with ancient technology like film and scanners.