Scanner questions. Advice needed.

TimSandhu

TimSandhu

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Tim
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Wondering if anyone can offer some advice on getting prints and 35mm negatives scanned please.

I have hundreds of old photos and negatives which I would love to have stored as jpegs. I'm guessing I need some sort of flatbed scanner for the prints but am clueless when it comes to scanning technology and terminology.

1. What are the key features that I should be looking at in a scanner if I want accurate colour reproduction?
2. Do I need a separate scanner for prints and negatives? I'm sure I read something about a negative tray.
3. Is there any other info I can provide to help you answer my questions?

Thanks
Tim
 
Have a search through Film & Convetional as I think there are a couple of Scanner threads.

Anyway:

Price is also worth considering a £100 scanner may do the job but will not be anywhere nears as good as a £700 one.

Have a look at the Epson V700 series, these are flatbed scanner and will do both slides,negs and prints, some of the earleir scanner like the 4190? will also work and think you can get them second hand.

Other than that not really. Scanning is a bit of a black art, most will scan happily into some sort of editing software, but then you may have to fiddle with them to get the right tone, colour also remove all those annoying scratches, hairs etc that seem to find there way into negs/slides.

You may also want to look at labs as I think a few (don't know who as I don't use them) will scan neg and slide to a file.
 
Thanks Knikki I'll check out that Epson since it does slides too. - yep, I'm checking the threads now. I don't need the scans to be super high res. Just want to capture old prints before they fade and degrade further. As for getting a lab to do them. It might be cheaper just to buy a scanner given the volume that I have.
 
I have the Epspon V700 and I'm really happy with it, it does an excellent job of the scans. It comes with a variety of neg carriers from 35mm up to sheet film capapabilty. I'd have no hesitation in
recommending it. If you're after really good results I don't think I'd advise going cheaper.

In depth V700 review.
 
In all honesty, you really should not bother.

It's a lot harder and more expensive to gear up to scan slides and negs than it is to scan prints.

So...
Get them all made as prints and scan them. You only need a c£60 scanner for that (I use a Canon Canoscan Lide 60, but it's quite old now and it was about £40 and is fine).

Graham
 
A neg scan is not a great representation of the neg, a print scan is worse still.
If you want to digitize your analogue negs and slides to any kind of reasonable level, I couldn't recommend scanning prints.
The best scanners are still dedicated as film only, though flatbeds can do a decent job and they are multi purpose, a dedicated scanner scans only film.

*spams thread*

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread
 
i'm using the canoscan 5600F and have no problems with it at all, the results are not up there with the 35mm scanners which only scan them but it does me just fine.

expect to see some film shots up here in next few days, i can send you a full scanned negative so you can see the quality if you like?
 
£87 @ 45 mins left on this scanner, it could go for cheap, who knows.
I fancy it myself, but I'm skint.
It is a flatbed but film scanning is glassless, it has a drawer, best of both worlds.
For £100-£130, its gotta be worth a punt :shrug:


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/
 
Hey Joxby did you win the scanner bid??????

I looked at them about a year ago and they go some excellent reviews, but they weighted about 25kg, so ended up with the Microtek 120 instead.
 
I was in the same position a few years back. I had forty odd years worth of negatives and slides that were slowly deteriorating, and I decided that I'd be far better turning them into digital images. At least that way they weren't going to get any worse and potentially I could use photoshop or something similar to clean them up.

I think you've basically got three choices Tim...

You could get them done professionally. That will no doubt cost you a fair bit but other than that it's relatively painless.

You could buy a good flatbed scanner that also does film. But I do think this is a compromise. Virtually any modern flatbed scanner (and they're not that expensive) will scan the prints with ease. But I have my doubts as to their effectiveness with negatives and slides.

You could do what I did... buy a used film scanner (I went for a Minolta dimage scan elite II ) Take absolutely ages to scan the stuff in (literally months), and then sell it for £20 more than you paid for it. It doesn't have to be Minolta, Nikon did some superb film scanners too. If you're not in a rush this way probably makes sense. If you do decide to go this route, get a scanner with proper "digital ICE" which was developed by Kodak, and not the later software versions that came out, it works better at taking scratches and dirt out automatically. Digital ROC is useful too for getting the colour balance back with slides that have faded away. Just don't expect it to be a quick process!

I don't know if any of that has helped, but at least it's a bit more info...

cheers
 
Knikki said:
Hey Joxby did you win the scanner bid??????

I looked at them about a year ago and they go some excellent reviews, but they weighted about 25kg, so ended up with the Microtek 120 instead.
Click to expand...

Nope, I'm skint, and at £200 it wasn't a steal, just a bargain.

The Microtek 120, Polaroid 120, Minolta scan multi and the Coolscans are the daddy for 35 & 120.
I think the i900 is a good compromise, there are very few flatbeds that don't scan film through glass like a dedicated, and no dedicated scanners that scan up to 8x10 film, and reflective material.
Having said that, I've never used one, so I dunno how good they are, weight doesn't appear to be a reason not to buy one though, all it does is sit on a desk..:LOL:
 
TimSandhu said:
Wondering if anyone can offer some advice on getting prints and 35mm negatives scanned please.

I have hundreds of old photos and negatives which I would love to have stored as jpegs. I'm guessing I need some sort of flatbed scanner for the prints but am clueless when it comes to scanning technology and terminology.

1. What are the key features that I should be looking at in a scanner if I want accurate colour reproduction?
2. Do I need a separate scanner for prints and negatives? I'm sure I read something about a negative tray.
3. Is there any other info I can provide to help you answer my questions?

Thanks
Tim
Click to expand...


The Epson 2480 is dirt cheap s/h (paid £8 for mine) and will scan your negs and positives in jpg, and prints.
I now have the V750, and the 2480 is still good in comparing against the V750, in fact the computer screen is an equalizer and most times you can't see the difference if you are not cropping.
 
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