Scanner - Newbie

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mw_uio

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I do not have a scanner, and I do not have any experience.

This is what I am looking for:

- Scans negatives 35mm - including the edges.
- Scanner can hold 6 frames to scan.
- Scan mounted slides - 35mm
- Scans B&W - reasonably well

What should I be looking at? My Price range $200-500 range.
Is it possible?

Mark
UIO, EC
 
The Nikon Coolscan V does all you need...except possibly scanning the edges of film. I don't know if it does that. I have the Nikon 8000ED scanner and it scans to the edge but doesn't have a big enough scan to give a 'black border' effect. Despite what people say, I get fine BW results with my Nikon.

peace3.jpg


bottles1.jpg


These are both 35mm scans from BW negs done on my Nikon scanner. The first one is Ilford Pan-F, the second Kodak Tmax 3200.
 
I have a Coolscan IV that gives me the border effect that I want -- but it must be adjusted to the max in Vuescan. Sadly it doesn't give me the negative information on the edges (eg. Kodak 400TX).

2535928875_1e68cd49a0.jpg


2536733488_1aa172b700.jpg
 
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another newbie question:

how difficult is the scanning process? and how time-consuming is it? i want to shoot (primarily color, but occasionally bw) film but dont want to spend much time on scanning and post-processing. i'm asking this because the scans i'm getting from my lab (in south asia) are less than satisfactory. i had to spend a lot of time in post processing to make the few test (E6) scans look like the originals, which is frustrating because i do minimum post-processing with my digi-ps pics. is this normal?

hope i'm not digressing too much
 
I think you'll be disappointed at this response: scanning is a time consuming process.

- It takes about 35 mins for me to scan an entire roll of 36 frames. Max resolution (2900 dpi I think), full frame, no adjustments at this stage. I don't have contact sheets to allow me to decide on which frames I want, so I just feed the entire roll and see what comes out of it.

- It takes about 2 mins on average to do the necessary adjustments to each frame in Photoshop, such as levels, dodging and burning.

- It takes about 10 mins to archive an entire roll in Lightroom, including tagging, backing up, etc.

So in all, yes, it's a time consuming process if you want to do it right. I work on the assumption that I will some day lose all my negs in a fire or something as devastating. So I try to make sure that I do the scanning as best as I can.
 
I second everything Alansoon said, and want to add that the newer scanners are 4000 dpi, so they may take even longer than his 2900 dpi scanner. You do get more resolution that way, which is nice, but more time. My scanner is 4000 dpi, but is a lot slower than the 35mm-only models like the Coolscan V. Mine can also do medium format films and is really made for them...it isn't as fast for 35mm as the 35mm only scanners.
 
Depends also what you want to do with the scans.
For getting out maximum resolution from slow film, planning big prints, or getting out deep details from very contrasty slides (strong shadows), you might need a good film scanner.
But for prints of A4 size or even a bit bigger, of not too difficult film, like most traditional black and white negatives, you could get an epson v700 or even v500...
 
I'm not aware of any scanner other than a flatbed with a modified holder (or, well, a drum scanner) that can get all the way to the film edges. They are not designed to go that far out.

Last night I was scanning slides (which are far easier to edit out the keepers with) while studying. In an hour plus I scanned 5 slides. Ugh.
 
I haven't done any scanning in a number of years altho I'm considering starting again.

I'm surprised people scan an entire roll of film. I suppose it's the equivalent of contact sheets but I stopped making contact sheets 30 years ago. It's far faster to pre-edit shots and only scan those that you really think are important. Since you will still have the negatives or transparencies on hand, you can always go back later and scan in something else.

When I first started with film scanning, I didn't have any dust removal software available. I spent a lot of time spotting my scanned images in my editing software. That was the most time-consuming and tedious part of the scanning process to me.
 
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