Best scanner $350.00 or less

M

momentcollector

Guest
Hi,
Just wondering what the best scanner is for $350.00 or less. I shoot some 6x6 but mostly 35mm. Would a flatbed be the way to go? Would I be able to get something with Digital Ice? Do you think buying used would be OK...Im a little nervous about buying a used one...What are your thoughts...


Thanks in advance.
 
The espon 4990 should be able to do everything you need, I bought mine for about 400E a few months ago and I'm very happy with it. With any luck it's a little cheaper in the US 😉


EDIT: I bought this scanner specifically to e able to scan medium format and some 4*5 slides though, if you dont need that kind of size it's not the best choice for the money.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
If you don't need medium format scanner, you can get a brand new Minolta Dual Scan IV for about $250 US. It is a pretty good scanner, does 3600dpi but does not have digital ice. One step up would be Nikon Cool Scan V, but it would cost about $500 US.

I read some reviews of Plustek Opticfilm 7200, and they are positive considering the price of $200 US. I might just get one of those ($250 here in Canada). It is supposed to do 7200dpi but the quality at that res is not very good. But if you keep it at 3600dpi, reviews say it is quite good, comparable to above mentioned Minolta.

I use old Nikon LS-2000 at work for now, and really can't complain about the results. It is (only ???) 2700dpi but it includes digital ICE. You can get one of those on the evil site for $150 or so.

Hope this helps.
 
lido said:
If you don't need medium format scanner, you can get a brand new Minolta Dual Scan IV for about $250 US. It is a pretty good scanner, does 3600dpi but does not have digital ice.
Click to expand...

I second the recommendation on the Konica-Minolta Scan Dual IV. I'm scanning negs now on one as I speak (type). 🙂

Digital Ice is a dust/scratch/flaw correction using infrared. Theory is that dust and crud will be opaque to infrared. I've heard good and bad things about it. It does not work with silver B&W or Kodachrome.
 
I've been in the market myself. I'm leaning towards the Scan Dual IV. I was looking at the plustek and the reviews looked good, but is not usable with Macs. So that option is off the table for me.
 
Thanks for the replies...sounds like the minolta scan dual 4 is the one. Any tricks to cleaning negs prior to scanning. I had a scanner without ice a while ago but the dust on negs and slides was a big factor. Anyway around this...I used canned air to spray them off before scanning seemed to help a bit but was no where near perfect.
 
momentcollector said:
Thanks for the replies...sounds like the minolta scan dual 4 is the one. Any tricks to cleaning negs prior to scanning. I had a scanner without ice a while ago but the dust on negs and slides was a big factor. Anyway around this...I used canned air to spray them off before scanning seemed to help a bit but was no where near perfect.
Click to expand...
Are you developing your own film? I find good development and drying techniques avoid most of the problems and produce very clean negatives. It's a serious benefit of home development.

An antistatic cloth helps if the negs are dirty. You can gently wipe the negatives to remove some of the surface gunk, after first blowing away particles. If the negs are dirty due to lab processing, it's hard to do much except clean up in a photo editor.

Gene
 
momentcollector said:
Any tricks to cleaning negs prior to scanning. I had a scanner without ice a while ago but the dust on negs and slides was a big factor. Anyway around this...I used canned air to spray them off before scanning seemed to help a bit but was no where near perfect.
Click to expand...

I use canned air routinely, and a dust brush if that doesn't do it. For the really bad ones I've found that clean H2O on a cotton ball will take most of it off, followed by canned air to get the cotton stuff off. 🙂

Which reminds me, there occasionally appears some kind of crud that doesn't seem to come off, and isn't obvious on the negs. I have a sample and I'll post that in another thread.
 
I think the Minolta is a great choice. I've had one for a few months, and love it. I shoot mostly B&W, so ICE wasn't an issue for me. For the little color I shoot, I just blast them w/ some canned air, and wipe with a cloth if needed.

For medium format, I opted to go cheap and get an Epson 3170. Epson had a deal where they were $79 shipped last week. The two scanner approach was ideal for me because I shoot 90% 35mm, and didn't want to make a sacrifice there w/ a flatbed.

Dave
 
One way to get lab crud off film is simply to rewash the film at home (assumes you have the developing equipment) in your film washer (finishing off with photoflo) and hang to dry in a dust-free environment.

Here's a scanner question. I just bought my first film scanner, a Plustek Opticfilm 7200 neg and slide scanner. Highly recommended, especially in UK and Europe. But I can't get a sharp scan off it using eiher color neg or TriX. As many of you know, a film strip will have a slight bow to it. Of course, in most cases, when you insert the neg strip into an enlarger negative carrier the blow is flattened out, necessary of course for a sharp edge-to-edge enlargement.

I can see no way that the Plustek can do this. The film strip carrier is very well-made but when closed it does not seem to flatten the neg at all. Could this be why I can't achieve a sharp scan? What about the Minolta, Nikon, or other scanners? Do they have a system that flattens the neg as it's being scanned?

Right now I'm clueless as I've never peered at the innards of any other scanner.

ted
 
The neg carrier on my Dual Scan IV has bars that cross the film area in between frames to help keep the film flatter in the holder. Seems to work pretty well.
 
Mine does too, Doug. I notice when I snap the carrier closed it does diminish the curve a bit. However, when I press the two sides together against the negs, they flatten even more.

But perhaps I'm guilty of cockpit error. I just did a scan of a 30 year old TriX neg of an old house that was, I'm sure, very sharp in terms of focus (35mm Super Takumar lens) and, after fiddling about blindly with the Silverfast software I must have pushed the right buttons. Also instead of printing from the SF menu I imported it into PS 2.0 and got a surprisingly evenly-toned and reasonably sharp 8X10 b/w print.

Boy, do I have a lot to learn!

Ted
 
dmr436 said:
I use canned air routinely
Click to expand...
Since I find the mythical 'dust-free environment' quite tricky to come by at home, I've tried all kinds of things.

A blast of canned air (without shaking the can, of course) has been the best for me. Really reduced time spent spotting scans.
 
If you can find a good deal on one, try an old Minolta Scan Multi. It can do 35mm, MF up to 6x9 and even 16mm movie film.
I'm using the Scan Multi II right now and I can tell you it does a better job of MF than the Epson. Even though it's a SCSI connection, single pass scans are very quick and it has up to 16x multi-pass scanning for high quality. My only complaint is that my colour stuff misses the ICE! My old Nikon LS IV had ICE and I'm a believer.
The B&W image is a 6x6 from my Rolleiflex and the colour image is a 35mm from my Leica.
 
I'm pleasantly surprised to see someone mention the Scan Multi II (or I). I've seen so many threads asking for MF/35mm scanner and everyone says 4990 or some other flatbed and I alwasy wondered why NO one ever mentioned the Minolta film scanner. I still don't know.

But I do have one (which was a very recent acquisition). The color slides come out fine but I can't get good output from B&W negs. Anyway I've played with it for a VERY short time only and haven't had much patience to tinker with different approaches. So don't take my word seriously. I'd myself love some sort of a simple modus operandum from a user such as photogdave (for B&W negs).

<I guess that must be www.newegg.com on the last post>
 
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