Negative Scanners

[Bob Michaels]

Jeremy, as with almost everything in photography there is a learning curve. It will be a long long time before the quality of the output is limited by the equipment instead of your own skill.

Scanning, working up in an image editor (i.e. Photoshop) and printing is certainly not a point the mouse and click proposition. You can get "OK" output reasonably quick. "Good" takes a while to learn. "Really good" becomes a lifetime of continual learning, just as in the wet darkroom.

I don't want to dissuade you in any way. Just don't get too hung up over the quality of the equipment. It's you that matters.

 

[jarski]

is Nikon CoolScan V ED still good buy ? no rumors for updated model. I read from its spec that it was there already 3 years ago. 5000 ED or 9000 ED are so expensive that those are out of my reach.

 

[JNewell]

There are no rumors of an update and the state of the market makes an update very unlikely. It's still an excellent scanner and the only real choice IMO if you want to buy something that's not an orphan.

 

[anselwannab]

I agree with the learning curve comment. Besides DPI, bit depth , and DMAX, there are a host of other variables, like negative density, software used, scanning technique.

The good thing is that al it takes is a bit of screwing around to get to an optimized system. The better news is that there are alot of people here that can help out, and that not even considering the other websites out there.

I have a Minolta Scan Dual IV (3200dpi?, its been a few months). I can get good 11x17 prints, even 13x19 depending on maxing the variables. No digital ICE, but that doesn't work with B&W silver based films.

Something like the SDIV is $250. If I had it to do over, I might get a flat bed like a Epson 700/750 so I could do medium and large format negatives.

Mark