How's everyone scanning their Negs/Slides?

[joeyjoe]

Right now, I'm having just getting a photo CD along with my prints. I shoot Ilford XP2 Super almost exclusively so finding a lab that'll scan for me isn't a big deal at all. The main purpose of my scanning is to get digital copies for playing around with Photoshop and posting online to get feedback and such.

If I want enlargements, I hand the negs over to the prolab or print it myself in the darkroom.

I have a flatbed epson 1670 at the moment but I just can't get sharp scans out of it, even at max resolution (1200 DPI). The labs I process my slides at don't really have an economical way to get digial copies of the slides, at least in comparison to the $3 that Sam's Club asks for the entire roll on CD. I'm really wondering if film/slide flatness has anything to do with my bad scans. I don't know much about scan post-processing either. Sharpening and Unsharpmask might as well be French to me.

How's everyone else getting their negs/slides scanned? Looking through the gallery, I'm seeing plenty of wonderfully sharp pics.

oh, and has anyone gotten prints from a Fuji-Frontier machine or Kodak Photo CD? How's the quality and how large of a print can you get from it?

 

[RML]

I have my colour negs developed and scan them myself on my trusty Minolta Dual Scan 3. I work the resulting TIFF-files and save them as JPG-files (1% compression). No scanning or printing by a (1-hr) lab whatsoever.

 

[Roman]

I use an 'el cheapo' Mediax 1800 film scanner (which is sold under different names - Reflecta, Primax, Pacific Imaging, etc.), and hate it (just couldn't afford anything else at that time; while it is quite OK for putting pics on the web from 'ideal' (concerning density and contrast range) negs, it really messes up very dense or thin or contrasty negs (like from pushed film - see some of the soft, grainy results at my gallery: the concert pics), which my friend's Minolta Dual Scan III can scan quite well (see my Welder series). SOmetimes, fo no discernible reason, it makes weird lines across the scan, esp on the edges.
Eventually I want to get a Dual Scan IV, but I'm still saving up for that...
My MF negs and prints are scanned on a UMAX Astra 4500 flatbed with transparency unit, which is quite OK for web posting purposes.

Roman

 

[Sonnar2]

The problem with flatbed scanners are resolution and speed. My is labeled 4800dpi which should be enough for all kind of negative, but true resolution is about 1/3-1/2 of that. You see no difference in sharpness whether you use 2400 or 4800 dpi, exept it takes more time to scan. This is more or less typical with all kind of flatbed scanners. I have a special mask for medium format (6x6 or 6x9) and this works, though slow, quite good. But my MF lenses are pre-1945 Tessar lenses so not highest resolution. I bought this scanner for 200 USD. A better solution would require firewire adapter instead of USB for speed, much faster PC than I currently have, and high priced scanner.

 

[Doug]

I have the negs developed, not cut, not printed, scanned to a CD about 2000x3000 pixels. I'm fortunate in that the lab usually does a nice job of scanning, I believe with Agfa equipment.

 

[Vince Brant]

I develop my own negs...scan on a now superceeded!! :bang: Canon 9900F flatbed @ 3200 dpi (I believe the new ones are 4200 to compete with the new Epson )and print on a Epson 800 or 2100 @ 300dpi

I believe the Canon gives me great results but as with most flatbeds you still have to apply some usm (unsharp mask..photoshopCS "8") to get a perfect sharp result. ( wouldnt recomend using the usm supplied with the scaning software, these are far too basic ,they are either on or off.....not having much of a variable range to play with,so would recomend scanning ,then applying usm in PS or other imaging software

Dont expect fast scan times either...at this resolution you will have to wait approx 3 mins (35mm,up to 9mins with 120mm, time to go and make a coffee) for a complete scan ...plus you need a a decent sized computer to handle these size files I use a Mac G5

The canon also come s with masks for 35mm,medium and 4x5 formats.

35mm scans are more than adequate from the Canon but can honestly say you will get much better results scanning from larger formats . 😎 :

 

[rover]

I have an Epson 3200 which does a good enough job for what I use it for, which is web posting and simply making electronic files. The current Epson flatbeds should be even better, and are much more film friendly in their set up. If you are only using 35mm film the best way to go is to get a dedicated film scanner. The Minolta Dual Scan IV is highly regarded and reasonably priced, and obviously there are many others.

 

[Pherdinand]

I scan prints on a flatbed 🙁 Pretty sloppy, unless you get it exactly right tone-wise from start, you cannot adjust almost anything on it. Plus, lots of unsharp masking needed.

 

[berci]

I develop my B&W or have the negative/slides developed and then scan them on my HP S20 (crap now but was a fine scanner several years ago). I'd like to buy a good epson (the new F3200) soon.

 

[pukupi]

When I first moved from digital to film I thought I could forgo the need for a scanner by having the lab do this for me but I was never happy with the results so I picked up an Canon 9950F and have never looked back.

Dust can be a problem with negative scans but a good air blower usually does the job. I've never been happy with FLARE or ICE dust scan removal so instead fire up the the handy Heal tool in Photoshop for any dust that escaped the air blower.

Since I mostly shoot in colour, I'm also using Photoshop to move suitable candidates to black and white.

 

[Cheme]

I have a leaf 45 scanner that I picked up used for $500 several years ago. I shoot in every format imaginable from 4x5 down and needed a scanner to cover all of these. It's slow and clunky but the quality is very high.

 

[GeneW]

For 35mm I use a Konica Minolta 5400 film scanner. Slow if ICE or grain reducer is used, but high quality scans. (They're releasing a new model that is faster)

For 120 I scan with an Epson 4180 flatbed. Quite decent for the price but would love a dedicated film scanner for 120 some day.

Gene

 

[dmr]

How's everyone else getting their negs/slides scanned? Looking through the gallery, I'm seeing plenty of wonderfully sharp pics.

For everyday stuff, I just take them to {ducking, running, hiding} 🙂 Wally-World and have them put on CD. They are usually very consistent. I used to use their photos on line until they made it hard to download the whole roll in hi-res at once. 🙁

I used to use Target' but the last few times they did such a nasty job on the CD that it wasn't worth the hassle. 🙁

For serious stuff, there is an indie "real camera" shop here that does a very good hi-res develop and scan, but that costs more than develop-print-scan at Wally World.

Oh, and for my stuff it the gallery, since you want rangefinder only, and all of my rangefinder stuff is 30+ years old, those were scans done on the HP model {mumble} scanner at work.

 

[Nikon Bob]

I scan with a Min 5400 so as not to be at the mercy of a photo lab as to what the output from the neg looks like. For quick and dirty I just scan prints on a flat bed scanner.

Bob

 

[peter_n]

I used to get my negs developed and scanned at the local MotoPhoto (a quickie lab). Then I had to get a couple of negs scanned properly for the RFF book that was published yesterday and that cost $67!! 😱 After that my Christmas present was a Minolta Dual Scan IV which is great. I only shoot B&W on conventional negs so I don't need the ICE software - the scanner costs $250 and that's the cost of about 8 professionally scanned negs.

 

[kiev4a]

I was using a Pacific Image 1800 dpi scanner. Recently changed to the Canon 9950F (I have a lot of old 4x5 and 2 1/4 stuff to scan, too. Scan black and white and color 35mm at 3200 dpi and 2 1/4 at 2400 dpi. I size the images to the largest I'm likely to want to make them, then reduce to 300 dpi to save space. 300 dpi is pretty much standard for graphic arts reproduction and anything above that resolution serves no purpose.

 

[nwcanonman]

I, too, use the Minolta Dual Scan III. Good 35mm film/neg scanner, but the Minolta software sucks, I use Vuescan.
But, learning post-scan manipulation is as important as knowing how to focus your camera. Find something like Photoshop LE, and get one of the many teaching books or on-line courses to learn more.
You'll love the results.

 

[Kin Lau]

I have a leaf 45 scanner that I picked up used for $500 several years ago. I shoot in every format imaginable from 4x5 down and needed a scanner to cover all of these. It's slow and clunky but the quality is very high.

A leaf 45 for $500-?!?!? Wow! That's a very good deal.

I get by with a Minolta Dual Scan, 2820dpi and works very well for my stuff. It was only US$100- as a refurb.

 

[jdos2]

I bought a Leica! Excited I was to see my first scans come out- I'd not bought a new camera in 20 years, and this was supposed to be the best of the best, right?

The 90mm ASPH Summicron produced negatives on T-MAX 100 (pushed to 400) that were so sharp as to be painful, with a narrow DOF, and an almost actinctness that I loved. Full frame portraits were beautiful.

The 35mm ASPH Summilux, on the other hand, produced negatives that were distinctly un-sharp. Cats whiskers seen across the room with the 90 disappeared with the 35mm even fairly close.

I performed a test and shot some sheet music with both the Leica and the 35mm, and a Canon 10D with a 28mm f/1.8, wide open (for sale, ahem).
I developed the B&W, and scanned. The results were quite disappointing. Zooming in to pixel level on the 10D allowed me to read the author of the music, see the notes, sharps, flats, &c. In short, it was sharp. Yes, it had that typical slightly waxy look that the 10D is known for, but compared to the Summilux...
The Leica scan was BARELY readable for even the title of the music.
I took apart the scanner and found the inside glasss somewhat fogged. having cleaned that, it does scan rather better, but still it doesn't produce results like the 10D. So I grab a loupe to look at the negatives...
Holy cow! Sharp! Whiskers! Notes/flats/sharps, and more! Yes, the Summilux/Leica records more information than the 10D. There IS a difference in film and digital, and it leans towards film for me, but...

The above describes last weekend's sometimes emotion testing, where I thought I misspent my money. What I did NOT do was get a good film scanner.

I've learned that the Epson 2450 is simply a fair scanner. It happens to be able to scan transparancies, and if those negatives/positives are big enough, gives "decent" results, especially when scanned by VueScan, but that's it. Truly low end scanning for 35mm, enough to give me a rough idea about a negative, but completely underwhelming when it comes to the fine detail I need to make good 8x10's.

I'm looking around for someone that scans well. I'd love to be able to do the work myself, but film scanners aren't cheap, and I'm only slightly (ahem) tapped out from my recent Leica purchase.

I'm also looking around for an enlarger. I'll wet-print pictures myself if I have to (and it looks like I might have to).

 

[Warren T.]

A few years ago, I bought a refurbished Nikon Coolscan LS-30 for about $500. It scans slides and negatives, and came with Nikon's digital ICE software. It works well for me.

Warren