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Archive 2016 · Looking For a Scanner for prints/negatives & slides

  
 
Robert Spencer
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Looking For a Scanner for prints/negatives & slides


Wanting to make copies of old prints from family album. Many negative are without matching prints as well. Personal experience requested for reccomendation of a unit that will not break the bank.


Dec 05, 2016 at 02:00 PM
rdeloe
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Looking For a Scanner for prints/negatives & slides


For prints alone, and for a modest amount, it's hard to beat the Canon Lide 210 and its successors. But it doesn't do negatives. For scanning negatives, I used to use an Epson v700. I think they're up to v800 now. It seems dedicated film scanners you can attach to your computer and sit on your desk are a thing of the past.

Honestly though, the pain of scanning is the main reason I switched from film... It was such a trial to get a good scan (free of dust, hairs, scratches, etc.) -- and I was use the BetterScanning templates and glass on a really good scanner, with VueScan software. People who have it all figured out will probably disagree with me! But I found it to be a pain in the butt.

If this is the only the only project (in other words, you're not planning to set up a dedicated film-to-digital workflow) then it's probably far easier (but not cheaper) to put everything in a box and have it scanned by a service. Good luck with this.



Dec 05, 2016 at 02:07 PM
15Bit
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Looking For a Scanner for prints/negatives & slides


I got good results from a V700 a few years ago.


Dec 05, 2016 at 02:10 PM
Robert Spencer
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Looking For a Scanner for prints/negatives & slides


Who makes the V700?


Dec 05, 2016 at 02:26 PM
chez
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Looking For a Scanner for prints/negatives & slides


I did basically the same thing a few years ago. Found a huge collection of very old prints and negatives of all sizes...this was like 100 years old. Bought an Epson V700 scanner and it handled things very well on both the prints and negatives. I use the V700 to scan my medium and large format film now...it handles this task very nicely.

Be prepared to spend many hours scanning and processing your older prints and film. It's truly a labour of love.



Dec 05, 2016 at 02:33 PM
jancohen
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Looking For a Scanner for prints/negatives & slides


Microtek ScanMaker i900

I actually have one of these (with all the accessories, including the target and some extras) that I haven't used in five years or so. Think I paid about $330 for it when I bought it used, back around 2010 or so.



Dec 05, 2016 at 03:07 PM
OntheRez
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Looking For a Scanner for prints/negatives & slides


Jan,
How well did that Microtek scan negatives? Got a pile of them I'd like to get back.

For my sins, I had to scan over 800 (critical family ) slides last year. Got good service from an Optitech 6000? or some such marketing hype. Did well with slides, not too good with negatives. The Silverfast sw worked poorly under OS X and went to Hamerick's ViewScan solution. Worked well. Took forever and my girl friend seriously owes me though I doubt I'll ever collect Really won't do that again.

If the Microtek does a good job on negatives, do you want to get rid of it?

Robert



Dec 05, 2016 at 07:18 PM
jancohen
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Looking For a Scanner for prints/negatives & slides


Was that a Plustek you are referring to?

For me, it was far cheaper than a drum scanner and I used Vuescan with it to scan 4x5 negatives and transparencies, for which it did an acceptable job. It's no drum scanner though, and as Rob de Loe mentioned above, you almost need a clean room to do the work in (not to mention sound anti-static workflows). It did come with an older version of Silverfast as well, and I believe I have that as well. As for whether it would speed things up for you compared to the scanner you used, hard to say without knowing exactly which scanner you used previously. It's a slow, large flat scanner. Still, I believe I have both batch templates for 35mm slides and strips, but I'd have to check for sure. Those templates might help speed up the process somewhat. I haven't shot nor processed smaller film myself since I left Europe in 1990.

I'd also have to power it on to make sure it still works, and perhaps update the version of Vuescan that's still installed on this computer (the version I have shows a last modified date of 2013 and it was used with Win 7 Pro). I had been thinking about getting rid of it to free up some storage space though, so I'll think about it. Probably wouldn't be able to check it out until the weekend though. Oh, and keep it might it probably wouldn't be cheap to ship. When I got it, it was packaged in its original packaging, then doublepacked and cushioned in a much larger box.

I'll shoot you a pm when I know more.




Dec 05, 2016 at 09:31 PM
mhayes5254
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Looking For a Scanner for prints/negatives & slides


If your goal is simply digitizing family memories, something like the Epson v550 is far more than you need, although I did not look to see what is available for film holders. If you want something for "serious" negative/slide scanning, the higher end scanners have significantly better dynamic range (dmax). I have an older v750 to use for 4x5 film and used it previously for old family pictures.


Dec 05, 2016 at 11:19 PM
walts.photo
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Looking For a Scanner for prints/negatives & slides


Those Epsons are good. That's what they use at our local fancy photo lab to scan film. You want to make sure you get a model that has the dust removal feature by infrared. Not sure how it works exactly but I think it scans twice, one visible and one in IR. The difference allows dust particles to be subtracted out.


Dec 06, 2016 at 11:10 AM
kdphotography
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Looking For a Scanner for prints/negatives & slides


Flatbed film scanners are fine for "simple" digitizing of film, especially where anticipated print sizes will be small. They are acceptable for medium and large format film, again where anticipated print sizes are small to moderate' for 35mm film it is much more difficult to obtain a quality scan.

There seems to be a huge divide between lower priced dedicated film scanners and high end scanners. The lack of offerings, imo, is do to the advent of digital and decreasing film use. Low end film scanners (up to a few thousand dollars) seem to be hit and miss, with reliability a common complaint. If you get one that works, hang on to it; others stop working after short stints.

For my fine art printing business, I opted for a Hasselblad Flextight X5 to scan film for my clients. No way would I justify this purchase for personal use! The quality and speed is exceptional. Quality over any flatbed film scanner is plainly visible to my eye. But the ease of use is the big plus.

If I had hundreds/thousands of family photo negatives to scan/digitize, I'd probably opt for a low-end commercial service to scan in bulk rather than face the daunting and time consuming head smacking table job with an Epson flatbed scanner. Then, after reviewing the digitized images, you can then opt for higher quality scans of those select negatives.

Ken
www.carmelfineartprinting.com



Dec 06, 2016 at 11:25 AM
OntheRez
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Looking For a Scanner for prints/negatives & slides


jancohen wrote:
Was that a Plustek you are referring to?

I'll shoot you a pm when I know more.



Correct. It was a Plustek and did a credible job. (I think I've tried to block that whole memory from my mind!) VueScan doesn't have all the bells and whistles that Silverfast had, but for me, SF was not really stable. Hamrick does an excellent job of maintaining VS and updating for new models. Not expensive and an excellent tool. Gets my highest recommendation.

Robert




Dec 06, 2016 at 12:25 PM
jancohen
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Looking For a Scanner for prints/negatives & slides


+1 ^ agreed.

OntheRez wrote:
Hamrick does an excellent job of maintaining VS and updating for new models. Not expensive and an excellent tool. Gets my highest recommendation.

Robert






Dec 06, 2016 at 01:09 PM
Robert Spencer
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Looking For a Scanner for prints/negatives & slides


Mhays5354 wrote:

If your goal is simply digitizing family memories, something like the Epson v550 is far more than you need, although I did not look to see what is available for film holders. If you want something for "serious" negative/slide scanning, the higher end scanners have significantly better dynamic range (dmax). I have an older v750 to use for 4x5 film and used it previously for old family pictures.

I`m thinking I might just do that. It is within my budget & gets good reviews.
My thanks to all for the help & assistance offered here. Gotta love the net for having places like this to get info when needed. More later.



Dec 06, 2016 at 02:08 PM
xvvvz
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Looking For a Scanner for prints/negatives & slides


Watch your local craigslist listings for a good used scanner. Decent scanners often show for a good price. A V7xx is optically as good as the newer V8xx series. It may need to be opened up and have a simple cleaning performed but that is fairly simple. I have put up exploded diagrams here to help know what screws to remove:

http://www.betterscanning.com/scanning/dismantling.html

Doug



Dec 06, 2016 at 03:11 PM
tcphoto
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Looking For a Scanner for prints/negatives & slides


It all depends on your budget, I was perfectly happy buying an Epson 3200 some ten years ago and I still use it from time to time.


Dec 06, 2016 at 04:40 PM
walts.photo
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · Looking For a Scanner for prints/negatives & slides


As kdphotography pointed out, these flat bed scanners are only good for the medium and large format film. Unless maybe you have a special clean-room and a spotless film developing system.

I could never get my 35mm film to any decent quality, even with IR dust reduction and photoshop work. Just too much magnification of defects in the film, water-spots from development, and general room dust. Sure, I could have bought a class 100 clean room hood, developed my own film, and been anal retentive with mask and white gloves, but that didn't seem like fun anymore.

For preserving family memories, ok, good enough. But as a hobby that could compete with my 35mm digital cameras, no way.

Do the really high end $xxx000 dedicated film scanners really do something special to avoid the problems we see on 35mm format? Or just make the process faster?



Dec 07, 2016 at 11:39 AM
Robert Spencer
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · Looking For a Scanner for prints/negatives & slides


tcphoto what software works well with it? I`m still looking & comparing.


Dec 07, 2016 at 11:46 PM
retrofocus
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · Looking For a Scanner for prints/negatives & slides


I just got the Plustek 8200i Ai for my 35 mm negative scans. It comes with SilverFast 8 software which can be upgraded for free to version 8.8. I really like the scanner and the result it provides - especially the IR scan with dust removal works very efficiently. The automatic color calibration for color negative scans with film presets works very well in SilverFast, too.


Dec 08, 2016 at 09:53 AM
tcphoto
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · Looking For a Scanner for prints/negatives & slides


Robert Spencer wrote:
tcphoto what software works well with it? I`m still looking & comparing.


I let my Silverfast software license lapse and see that it'd be $35 to update to the current version. I do not scan anything critical so I simply use Apple's Image Capture to import and CC2017 to edit.



Dec 08, 2016 at 10:01 AM





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