film scanners

[Dan-H]

anyone have one, or know much about them?

would like to be able to scan 35mm negatives and mounted slides.

[TObject]

I have one. Minolta QuickScan 35 Plus. It's an older model.

Film scanner is a very good way to scan film (ether positive or negative). The only better (quality wise), would be a drum scanner.

Drum scanners are expensive, and it takes some time to prepare the material to be scanned. They are not used often to scan 35 mm film at all.

Check out the ?Scanners? section at http://www.photo-forums.com/ for latest info.

If I was to buy a new film scanner today, I would probably buy the most expensive Nikon I could afford. They just came out with Super Coolscan 5000 ED, which sounds pretty good on paper; its predecessors 4000, and 2000, have been prized and loved by many. One of the guys I know has the Super Coolscan 2000, and I think it's better than the scanner I have, although, mine is pretty good too.

http://www.nikon.ca/cameras/products...ed/default.asp

Minolta would have been my second choice, followed by Canon, I think.

[Patenter]

I bought a Nikon Coolscan 4000 and scanned all of my slides (thousands). I used the autoloader attachment that works through a group of 50 slides at a time. The scanner did a great job. The autoloader took a little extra engineering to work without a hitch. I would load it in the morning and again at night. I also used the film strip loader for negatives without any problems.

I highly recommend these later Nikon models. The Nikon LD optics are excellent; but probably just as important is the ICE software that works wonders on cleaning up scratches and dust. I also used the built-in software to correct faded colors in some old (about 40 years old) Kodachrome slides for my father.

Once I scanned my large library of slides/negatives, I sold the scanner and autoloader on e-bay for just a little less than I paid for it. What a deal! I'll probably get another one to do my next set of slides in a year or two.

[JMyerz]

Polaroid sprint scan or microtek. Handles 135 and 120 film.

One of the best scanners. $1700

[Dan-H]

My digi just doesn't take good enough pictures. I like being able to print at home and put stuff up on the web, but the quality just isn't good enough for printing pictures.

I have a fairly good 35mm setup. My wife has a nice APS format point-n-shoot, and I have an OK pocket PNS. My Dad has a zillion slides since the dawn of time ( my time that is).

1700 or even a grand is more than I want to spend, but I might try the buy/use/sell it approach to get a higher end unit for the older stuff. Thanks for the idea.

I think the real issue is should I upgrade the digi, or primarily go back to film.

[TObject]

It takes time to make a good scan. Slide feeders, and automatic image correction software may give you acceptable results, but get ready to spend a lot of time scanning "a zillion" slides. Also, be aware that, Digital ICE does not work well on Kodachrome or silver halide B&W film, if these are the types of film you primarily want to scan (you can still scan those just fine, just need to turn the ICE off, or expect softening in some regions of the picture).

One note on the attachments that go in front of digital cameras for taking pictures of film. Don't waste your time. I got one of those, that I hoped to use to digitize my old film quickly. The results range from mediocre to bad. And it doesn't save a lot of time in comparison to film scanner ether.

B&H has the Minolta DiMAGE Scan Elite 5400 for $829.95. Looks interesting, if you don't need to scan APS films or do large batch scanning.

Another note. Take a look at VueScan utility from http://www.hamrick.com/ (they have a free trial version). There are many folks who love it, and prefer it to the software that comes with scanners from the factory. It's got a pretty big compatibility list.

As for "upgrading" to digital, instead of buying a scanner. What exactly are you looking to upgrade to? If this is something that works for you then sure, why not.

[Dan-H]

Originally posted by TObject

As for "upgrading" to digital, instead of buying a scanner. What exactly are you looking to upgrade to? If this is something that works for you then sure, why not.

Maybe I'm not being very clear on what I'm looking for, and I'm not really sure what I want.

My current inventory:

I have an HPC20 1 mega pixel digital camera. works OK for point and shoot type pics. quality isn't as good as I would like it to be.

I have a 35mm Konica SLR with several lenses.
I have a 35mm Canon point and shoot (fair)
My wife has an APS Canon ELF point and shoot.

My wife and family like printed pictures and I have two decent inkjets. a 1200 dpi (forget the number) and a 2400 dpi HP Office JetG85x or G85i or something like that. These are fine for up to 4x6 sized prints. 5x7 isn't bad. but 8x10s are poor when the source image is from my current digi camera.

That and the time and effort to sort through these is time consuming since my parents and in-laws have slow computers, otherwise I'd just burn them CDs with the pics on them and let them print whatever suits them.

That and the quality of my current digi has me thinking about switching back to 35mm for most of my picture taking, (except Point-N-Shoot 4wheeling stuff), and then I'll want some of the 35mms digitized.

Also:

I want to digitize some of my Dads slides from when I was a kid.

I want a better digital camera.

I want a new 35mm camera.

I can't afford everything, so I'm looking at what-ifs.

unfortunately almost all of the what-ifs are over what I want to spend other than perhaps a new-and-improved digital camera.

does that make more sense?

[TObject]

A good film scanner is the most sensible way to digitize old slides.

[JMyerz]

Agreed.

If your sticking to 35mm then get a Nikon Cool scan thats in your $$ range.

Originally posted by TObject
A good film scanner is the most sensible way to digitize old slides.