Scanner for 35mm

[andrew00]

Hey,

I recently got back in the film game as digital got me down, picked me self up a Contax G2 again which I'm loving. I'm looking for a film scanner, most likely I'll stick at 35mm so I don't suspect I'll need more.

I've been reading up on the various Plustek and Epson scanners available, and the discontinued Nikon and Minolta's, over even a light box/overhead dslr shot, it's a bit of a minefield tbh and I get confused easily heh.

Whilst I'm pro in my video work and not yet in my photo work, I'd like to have a scanner that can scan to 'pro' quality, i.e. so I could sell prints or supply the images for publication.

I assume in the latter case I might need to get drum scans but I don't know the current state of the tech and if I can scan myself to a great threshold quality then I'd love that.

From what I can see though a lot of these scanners take ages to scan and ones like the Plustek have to be manually fed so can't be set to scan whilst I pop to the shops, which is a shame heh.

Ergo I presume many peeps scan at low quality and re-scan the best images at best quality? If so options are needed etc.

Therefore can people please give some recommendations please - I don't have one project and then I'm doing, it'll be a continual thing to let me take advantage of cheaper processing and then scan myself.

Cheers in advance!

Andy

 

[j.scooter]

subscribed.
I would also like to know what options are out there. My Epson V600 was great for medium format and OK for 35mm. Now that I am shoot 35mm exclusively, I would like something better than just OK.

 

[kanzlr]

scanning stopped to be a hassle when I adopted the following workflow:

I got myself a Nikon LS 4000 and the SA-21 film feeder. I modified it with a wire and tape to behave like a SA-30 (so now it scans full rolls, not strips of 6 negatives).

Then I got Vuescan and ColorPerfect.

the workflow:

put the strip of film (uncut) in the Coolscan, tell Vuescan to scan the raw TIF (see ColorPerfects instructions), scan the whole roll, then I go for dinner (the full roll of 36 images takes approx 45 minutes).

When I am back from dinner, I have 36 nice TIF files on my harddrive. I then open them in Photoshop, fire up the ColorPerfect plugin, chose the film maker and type, adjust gamma and stuff a bit, maybe add curves, finished.

VERY fast. I just processed 22 rolls from a recent Iceland trip within days, including tagging, adding locations to metadata, etc.

 

[filmfan]

Wow. Great system.

scanning stopped to be a hassle when I adopted the following workflow:

I got myself a Nikon LS 4000 and the SA-21 film feeder. I modified it with a wire and tape to behave like a SA-30 (so now it scans full rolls, not strips of 6 negatives).

Then I got Vuescan and ColorPerfect.

the workflow:

put the strip of film (uncut) in the Coolscan, tell Vuescan to scan the raw TIF (see ColorPerfects instructions), scan the whole roll, then I go for dinner (the full roll of 36 images takes approx 45 minutes).

When I am back from dinner, I have 36 nice TIF files on my harddrive. I then open them in Photoshop, fire up the ColorPerfect plugin, chose the film maker and type, adjust gamma and stuff a bit, maybe add curves, finished.

VERY fast. I just processed 22 rolls from a recent Iceland trip within days, including tagging, adding locations to metadata, etc.

 

[astro8]

I was going to buy a Plustek but thought that manually advancing each frame would drive me crazy. After 2 Nikons from ebay turned up DOA I snagged a Canon FS4000.

I use Vuescan and auto focus and scan 6 preview frames then I'll scan at 4000dpi with whatever multi-passes etc I want of the keepers. The full res scans are pretty slow but thankfully I don't have many keepers...maybe 0, 1, 2 or 3 per roll.

Having a slower scanner really helps with editing!

I'm happy with the quality of the scans, I don't feel left wanting.

 

[kanzlr]

Wow. Great system.

it works really well. Just make sure to set the date of capture in Vuescan. If you import to Lightroom or Aperture, IPTC Metadata I add in Photoshop will be included as well as the capture date. Makes cataloguing your images easy.

 

[kanzlr]

I was going to buy a Plustek but thought that manually advancing each frame would drive me crazy.

that's why I didn't bought the Plustek. You could still get the Reflecta 7200 RPS that does full rolls too, and produces good quality scans as far as I've seen.

I tote with the idea of buying the new Plustek 120, but I would miss the capability to scan the full roll at once. I just delete the non-keeper files anyway, no need to chose upfront.

 

[venchka]

I have scanned hundreds of originals, positive & negative, from 35mm, 6x6, 6x7 and 4x5 with an ancient Epson Expression 1680. Friends of mine do the same with Epson 4990 & V700/V750 scanners. I have been very fortunate to sell 16x20 prints from 6x7 and 12x18 prints from 35mm original negatives, color & B&W. If I had a need for an occasional bigger, better scan I would send the original for a drum scan. In my opinion, a top of the line Epson scanner and Epson Scan software is better than 99% of the originals need.
Epson absolutely wins on service after the sale and up to date drivers for current operating systems. My scanner originally shipped with Windows 2000 drivers. Current Windows 7 drivers are available from Epson for free.
YMMV.

Wayne

 

[JohnTF]

The Nikon scanners and some others show up occasionally at camera shows, and often at reasonable prices as many dealers just offer very little for them. The 4000 uses Firewire, but originally was sold with the sometimes necessary card.

On modern computers it should run fine, but on some of the older ones, scanners would slow things down, especially if you ran other software at the same time.

I prefer the -- go out and have a cup of coffee -- approach.

I hear some folks get the old Konica scanners to do good jobs on rolls once you get the set up.

You can always look for a used 8000 or 9000, people get lucky and find them, well, that is a rumor in my case. ;-)

The 4000 is an excellent scanner, I believe the 5000 was basically the same with USB.

I suppose everyone knows that Digital Ice is not a good idea with silver B&W film.

Regards, John

 

[andrew00]

I've been doing a little research and it looks like there's a variety of options out there.

The Epson scanner series seem useful b/c you can batch an entire roll, which is cool, by cutting the negs into 6x strips and laying them side by side in the scanner, useful.

But the Epson has a resolution of only about 2800dpi in reality, which is about 7 mega pixels, so you're not getting images as 'good' as digital images. You can still do a, what, 8x10 print, so essentially A4, but not really much more?

The Plustek range have to be manually advanced. That's just gonna peev me off, who can waste their day like that heh, same with the entry level Reflecta's.

The top of the range Reflecta (RPS 7200) can auto transport an entire roll, but doesn't seem to do so well, it just unspools it automatically so to me would invite errors? Seems probably the best 'current' prosumer model in an IQ sense.

The Nikon scanners are still pretty expensive on evil bay, £500+ for the entry 50 model and triple that or more for the 5k models.

Unless anyone can suggest an alternative it looks like either the top of the range Reflecta or the Epson 7500 would be the best bets.

 

[Matus]

I would say - before you shell the cash for a scanner - find a decent lab that will scan for you the 35mm films with something like Coolscan 5000, maybe have a few of your best shots scanned with Imacon X5 and enjoy the results - make a few A4 - A3 prints.

What I am trying to say - scanning is not a very rewarding work and takes a lot of time to learn to do properly and may take the fun out of getting nice prints.

P.S. Do NOT get a flat-bed scanner if you want anything better than 4x6" prints. 35mm negatives really need the best scans you can afford.

In my humble opinion, of course :angel:

 

[andrew00]

Yeah I'm a 35mm guy, only thing I can afford to shoot atm hehe.

It's weird how scanning tech seem to be a bit stable from what I can see, I've been reading about the Minolta 5400 which seems to be pretty good and that was discontinued like 8 years ago or something!

I know that film is film and it can't be compared to DSLR's which have gotten high quality, but it's interesting how the scanning tech hasn't seen to moved forward at the same rate.

 

[Godfrey]

I've updated my way to a Nikon Coolscan V ED and use the SA-21 to scan strips of six in a row with Vuescan. I set them up individually before scanning to get all the data I can off he negs and capture both Vuescan raw and TIFF-DNG files for maximum flexibility.

I scan all frames. And shred the negatives afterwards. These files ARE my master copies. No going back.

After everything is scanned, I have a set of scripts that inject all the appropriate EXIF metadata I care about into the exposures using EXIFtool. Once I'm done with that, the files are imported into Lightroom and become part of my standard photographic workflow.

I occasionally do the lightbox/macro setup digital capture too. It's particularly useful when I'm capturing Minox or medium format negs. The process is similar but I don't shred Minox negs. They're somehow too precious to me. 🙂

 

[Murchu]

Have a look at the following thread also, if you haven't seen it: http://rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=122248

Somebody recently asked me elsewhere my thoughts on 35mm negative scanning, so will just note what I said to them, should you find any benefit in it;

Borrowed a Plustek 7600 from a user here who was kind enough to lend it to me to try it out for a few scans, and must say I found it very impressive. Of what's in production, nearly all flatbeds will give you an effective 1600dpi, the Epson V700/750 will give you 2400dpi, the Plustek's 3300dpi, and the older Nikon and Minolta scanners will give you 3800- 4000dpi. These numbers were pulled off filmscannerinfo.com who do a good job of putting real numbers to the manufacturers claimed dpi figures.

Effectively, these will give you scans of the following resolution for 35mm: 2400x 1600 pixels, 3200x 2400 pixels, 4950x 3300 pixels and 5700x 3900 pixels, respectively, from the above scanners. Basically any flatbed for web scans, or a V700/750 or dedicated 35mm scanner for print-capable scans. All this is predicated on scanning 35mm negatives, as for 120, most photo flatbeds will give you good results of 4000x 4000 pixels at 1600 dpi for 6x6, for example.

Bottom line, if I was picking up a 35mm negative scanner in the morning, I would pick up either a Plustek 7400 for b&w only, or a Plustek 7600 for b&w and colour. The difference between the two being the 7600 has infrared dust removal that works on C41 negatives and E6 slides. The 8100 and 8200 are the updated versions of the 7400 and 7600, giving you Silverfast 8 out of the box, as opposed to Silverfast 6.6 with the 7400 & 7600 (which I believe you may be able to update to Silverfast 8 up to a limited time). Re: SIlverfast, it comes in 2 flavours; Se & Ai, the former giving restricted functionality including 8-bit scans only, with the latter having no such restrictions. I use Vuescan myself (which will give me 16 bit scans).

So, in a slightly longwinded way, those are the options that emerged when I researched buying a scanner a while back. The only option I have not mentioned is the new Plustek 120 scanner, which will set you back about €2500, but will give you an effective dpi of 5300 apparently.

 

[Mablo]

I had the Nikon Coolscan V ED + SA-21 for many years. Then I stumbled upon the new Plustek 35mm scanners. I bought the economical Plustek 7400 as my backup b&w scanner but then I found out it's performance is almost at par with my Coolscan. I have since sold my Nikon scanner and I'm happy with the Plustek.

 

[andrew00]

Yeah, it's interesting to compare the real world resolution vs quoted.

I think personally I'll wait a week or two and see if I can find a Minolta 5400 II, from what I've reading so far they're pretty great, combo that with Vuescan.

 

[andrew00]

I've been looking this week at buying a Minolta 5400 II but I've not seen any for sale here in the UK!

There's a few of the version 1's but not versions 2's so far, I guess they're scarse now they're discontinued!

 

[flip]

scanning stopped to be a hassle when I adopted the following workflow:

I got myself a Nikon LS 4000 and the SA-21 film feeder. I modified it with a wire and tape to behave like a SA-30 (so now it scans full rolls, not strips of 6 negatives).

Then I got Vuescan and ColorPerfect.

the workflow:

put the strip of film (uncut) in the Coolscan, tell Vuescan to scan the raw TIF (see ColorPerfects instructions), scan the whole roll, then I go for dinner (the full roll of 36 images takes approx 45 minutes).

When I am back from dinner, I have 36 nice TIF files on my harddrive. I then open them in Photoshop, fire up the ColorPerfect plugin, chose the film maker and type, adjust gamma and stuff a bit, maybe add curves, finished.

VERY fast. I just processed 22 rolls from a recent Iceland trip within days, including tagging, adding locations to metadata, etc.

I do about the same with my 5000. Tif DNG format. I read that the 5000 is faster than the 4000, but have no personal experience with the 4000 to judge by. I couldn't imagine doing film any other way.

 

[kanzlr]

my 4000 takes approx 45 minutes to scan a roll of 36 with ICE on and export to TIF

 

[raid]

I will first try my newly bought Epson V700, and then I will take it from there. As Matus said, if you limit your printing to a few, carefully selected negatives, a lab could do the scans for the prints. Else, and for "other uses", I would be content with the Epson.