scanning lots of film

T

Teus

Thijs Deschildre
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Sometimes I get overloaded with film, summer trip for example can easily yield a dozen rolls of film. Development is OK, but scanning in strips of 4 or 5 takes too much time with my Minolta scan dual III. Selecting the frames I need doesn't cut down on time. Mostly the photos will be used for web and won't require intensive editing or high resolution.

Is it possible to find another way of scanning?
My scan dual might need upgrading. Perhaps I buy a film flatbed scanner that can scan a dozen frames at once. Anybody can tell me how this compares?
 
Thijs, I too found this soul-destroying when I just had a Nikon LS-50 - six frames at a time...

I got myself a V700 which does 24 frames (4x6) and a nice preview which is enough to say "no"/"scan" for each frame.

However, the quickest thing I found was making contact prints - you don't even need an enlarger and then having a close look with a 50mm camera lens and scanning in the ones which were required.
 
kully said:
I got myself a V700 which does 24 frames (4x6) and a nice preview which is enough to say "no"/"scan" for each frame.
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thanks. the v500 is affordable to me. could you post a 35mm sample from the v700?

dfoo said:
Buy a scanner that can do a roll at a time, like the coolscan 🙂
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there's any coolscan with this functionality I can get used for less than 300 euro?
 
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There have been some coolscan 4000's for sale on this forum for $400 USD in the past while. I suspect they are like the 5000 and can scan a full roll without the rollfilm adapter assuming a minor modification.

You cannot really compare a v500 and a coolscan anyway. The coolscan is miles better than any flatbed.
 
Thijs, I bought a V500 for my father-in-law - nice scanner. I didn't do any pixel peeping when I tried it but it was perfectly acceptable. Do note that the V500 only does 12 frames (135) at a time.

If you check my flickr - anything that is not digital or does not say 'Noritsu...' was scanned with the V700.
 
dfoo said:
There have been some coolscan 4000's for sale on this forum for $400 USD in the past while. I suspect they are like the 5000 and can scan a full roll without the rollfilm adapter assuming a minor modification.
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aha, according to this link the modification is very simple. my current scanner is 2 or 3 years old. getting a better scanner would be nice and maybe justify spending 400 euro on a coolscan.
 
Anyone use a dslr for "scanning" film? - eg Pentax 20d with bellows, slide/film holder and hi quality enlarging lens at medium aperture would appear to offer a quick usable good quality result in theory - oh and the set-up has many other uses too, unlike a scanner, and is in the same or cheaper bracket.
 
Teus said:
aha, according to this link the modification is very simple. my current scanner is 2 or 3 years old. getting a better scanner would be nice and maybe justify spending 400 euro on a coolscan.
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I modified my 5000. Basically I put a small piece of wire across two pins in the back of the roll scanner. Its probably the same mod on the 4000.
 
Could you please tell me a little more about where you palced this wire? Did you have to open up the unit, as in the previous reference to modification?
Thanks,
Rick


dfoo said:
I modified my 5000. Basically I put a small piece of wire across two pins in the back of the roll scanner. Its probably the same mod on the 4000.
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You could make digital contact sheets. This is where flatbeds have a distinct advantage over the film scanners; put the negs. in a printfile and scan that. I am not familiar with the V500 but I bet it has an 8x10 scanning area. Very convenient way to have a digital record of the whole roll and an easy way to edit out the baddies.
 
Quit scanning entire rolls!
Learn to evaluate a negative in situ. This is a skill photographers who shoot black and white film have used for decades. It actually works.
Then scan only the promising ones.
If you're brilliant, that might be just a few shots per 36.
If you're like me, that might be only one or two. ;-)
Scanning that many really doesn't take long.

Oh, and this method doesn't require investing in new (read, expensive) gear.
 
I do either of two things: (a) Make high-speed, low-res scans on my Minolta DS 5400 (I bought multiple film and slide holders to pre-load for this purpose), of (b) lay out my cut film, two rolls at a time, on my tabloid-size UMAX 2100XL flatbed (it has a tranny lid for this) and run off a digital "contact" print of each roll.

For the nine rolls I shot the other weekend (Nephew's graduation from the University of Florida), I decided to make high-res (16-bit, 5400dpi) scans off the Minolta, pitching what I don't like afterward and not having to deal with any re-scanning. I load up three holders of negs at a time; when the scanner's finished with one holder, it ejects it and alerts me, I come back from whatever else I was doing, pull the scanned holder and feed in a new one, click, and go back to whatever else I was doing. Repeat. 🙂

Not quite all that tedious if you strategize.


- Barrett
 
Here's another vote for the V700, I find its quality to be perfectly fine, and it is really nice to set up a scan of 24 frames and then walk away. I sold my Scan Elite II because it wasn't any better than the V700.
 
sooner said:
Here's another vote for the V700, I find its quality to be perfectly fine, and it is really nice to set up a scan of 24 frames and then walk away. I sold my Scan Elite II because it wasn't any better than the V700.
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This is definitely the way to go. Get a good flatbed that will scan 24 negs at one go. You can even scan them all at high res since it is an automatic operation.

/T
 
Zonan said:
Could you please tell me a little more about where you palced this wire? Did you have to open up the unit, as in the previous reference to modification?
Thanks,
Rick
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I did not open up the unit. You connect the two contacts as mentioned in that article, except you do it on the outside. I cannot post an image, as my scanner is back in Canada.
 
I just got myself an LS4000ED a couple of weeks ago, did the small modification (as dfoo mentioned) to scan complete rolls (nearly DUSTFREE !!) and I works like charm. Before that I used the V700 and really liked the results. But ... it took me a while to see it (or get Vscan set up correct) and the results of the LS4000ED are visibly better compared to the V700, especially for fine-grained BW film.

I have to add that I also used a Coolscan V ED before the V700 was annoyed that it can scan only up to 6 frames in one batch and sold it.
 
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