Budget 35mm Scanner: Under £150

toksuede said:
They both work with Macs, don't they? I'm sure Silverfast that comes with the 8800F works with a Mac, but does the 4490 come with Silverfast or Vuescan or their propietary software?
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Here is VueScan's supported scanner list. On MacOS it currently supports about 930 scanners. For the Canon 8800F it says it works under OS X, but needs Canon's drivers to be installed. The Epson 4490 and V300 work without any drivers from Epson.

No scanner comes with VueScan as far as I know, but you can download it from http://www.hamrick.com/. Registering it costs $40, but those are just about the best investment you can make when scanning, as the software is excellent, supports practically all scanners under the sun and runs on OS X, Linux and Windows. A friend of mine just used it to reactivate an old Minolta Scan Dual under Windows XP (Minolta is out of business and nobody dreamed that the old stuff from the 1990s would work under XP, but with VueScan it's no problem). In particular the program is great to have if you eventually do want to buy another dedicated film scanner and find out that Silverfast only works on the scanner you bought it with.
 
So, which one is "better, Vuescan or Silverfast?
Or is it akin to comparing Windows and Mac (obviously, Mac is better).
:)
 
I've used a couple of Epson scanners. I originally had a 3200, since replaced by a V700. I've also seen results from either a 4490 or a 4990 - I can't remember which it was.

And in every case, the results have been very good for the money - with the V700 being exceptionally good, to my eyes. At the time I had my 3200, I also compared it to a more expensive contemporary Polaroid dedicated film scanner, and I thought the Epson was better.

So if you get a V500 or a 4490, I think you'll be very pleased with the results.

ICE is a curious thing. My V700 supports it, but I've found the results very disappointing when I've tried it with transparencies. I know how it's supposed to work - dust spots are opaque to IR light, while film dyes are transparent - and so it should just work well. But I've found significant loss of fine resolution when I've tried ICE, in areas of the image that had no dust spots to remove, and I've also found what looks like aliasing and sharpening artifacts that weren't there with a non-ICE scan. This was using the bundled Epson software (Mac version), which I think otherwise gives me results that are at least as good as the common alternatives, with the added advantage of being able to scan up to 24 negs/12 slides in one go.

And concerning running Windows apps on Mac, you can indeed do it now, but you either need a dual boot thing or you need to run one of the emulators (or things that the authors, perhaps predantically, claim aren't emulators, but which provide an intermediate layer between Windows and the hardware anyway). I use Parallels, and it does work well. But it's plain that you're still running a Windows app, and the reason most Mac users are Mac users is because we don't like the Windows way of doing things. So while it's great for running the occasional application that you really need and which simply isn't available for Mac, for important things that I use regularly, it doesn't really cut it for me. So for scanning and other image processing, I would only consider systems that have native Mac software.

Best,
 
Alan
Good advice. Just got myself a V500 and could not be more pleased. Still getting to grips with the thing so prob not getting the best from it yet. Scans were costing me £10 a time from Ilford and the results that I am getting from the 500 are much better.

Michael
 
toksuede said:
So, which one is "better, Vuescan or Silverfast?
Or is it akin to comparing Windows and Mac (obviously, Mac is better).
:)
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I'd say if you want just good scans they're pretty equivalent. Silverfast has a somewhat prettier interface, costs a lot more more and is often limited to one scanner. VueScan runs on more different systems and supports many more different scanners. Some Silverfast versions come with an IT8 calibration target, which is handy, but which you can get for $10-$15 on eBay if you need it, and calibration itself is supported by VueScan as well. I prefer VueScan, but different strokes for different folks as they say.
 
Alan, nice to see you helping me here as well. :)

The lack of Mac support is the main reason I chose not to go for the Plustek. At this day and age, what company doesn't support both PC and Mac formats?

What I've read so far about ICE and ICE like technology should only be used when you want to make a good scan as scanning with this space age technology adds to your precious scanning time. My thoughts are that I will use it only for "good" scans and as for just checking out what I've shot on film, I'll just do a "quick" scan and that should do the job.

Honestly, in trillion years, I would never have guessed that the topic of scanning can create such a debate from usually level headed mild mannered RFF people...
 
toksuede said:
The lack of Mac support is the main reason I chose not to go for the Plustek. At this day and age, what company doesn't support both PC and Mac formats?
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Well, you seemed to be determined to get a 7200 for some reason. The old 7200 isn't supported, but the newer models starting with the 7300 are supported under OS X using Silverfast and VueScan [1]. The 7300 goes for about 200 EUR on eBay. Like most Plustek scanners it doesn't have ICE, but the new 7600i does, which is available new with warranty etc. for about 290 EUR (£270) on eBay. Not that this makes it any easier for you. :p

Philipp

[1] To get it running under VueScan on OS X, you need to install (ta-daa!) Silverfast. On the other hand the scaner comes with Silverfast SE. The more powerful Silverfast Ai costs a lot more, VueScan seems like a better alternative.
 
Philipp: Ah, I see. I chose the 7200 because it's cheap. 290 Euros is way past the size of my piggy bank. As I have said in the original post, as long as I can get a scan to post on flickr, I'm a happy man.

As for the software, I'm going to give the Epson one a try. If that doesn't really cut it, I'm going to go for the vuescan. Strange that you need to install Silverfast to get the Vuescan working on the Plusteks...

Alan: This is part 3 of my "welcome back to film and let's revolutionize football photography" journey. Next up will be developing BW films in my bathroom. :)
 
toksuede said:
Philipp: Ah, I see. I chose the 7200 because it's cheap. 290 Euros is way past the size of my piggy bank. As I have said in the original post, as long as I can get a scan to post on flickr, I'm a happy man.
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Yes, I just re-read the title of your thread and saw that it's really quite breaking the bank. For some reason I had £250 in the back of my head. For that kind of money you're likely to be better off with a flatbed than a used dedicated film scanner. I guess it's a choice between the 4490's ICE capability and the V300's speed.

Plustek's MacOS support does seem a bit tacked on.

As far as VueScan is concerned, just try it out, that's what the trial version is for :)
 
rxmd said:
Plustek's MacOS support does seem a bit tacked on.

As far as VueScan is concerned, just try it out, that's what the trial version is for :)
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Having used the 7200 on a PC, I must say that Plustek's entire driver approach seems a bit tacked on! You have to install the supplied scanning application X so that you can use the scanner with the entirely different scanning application Y of your choice. WTF?
 
If Plustek ever decides to develop with their propietary OSX drivers and software, I'm sure the Mac users who are on the fence regarding their scanners will be happy to jump in as are one of the few budget film scanners out there.

I just find it very strange that they don't develop one for the Mac people...
 
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