Scanning: wow, what a pain

[Teus]

Shooting takes concentration and time but is rewarding; developing is a 20-40 minute job but is fun; scanning film strips of 6 frames is bothersome. I wanted a quicker workflow, either by selection only the frames I like, or by getting a scanner that does bulk scanning.

I bought the Reflecta crystalscan 7200 for a 220 euro + shipping since its specifications said it could scan one big strip of film. Scanners arrives here this morning: yeah, you can put a long strip in it, but need to advance the film by hand. OK, I was stupid to assume you could get affordable bulk scanning :bang:


"oh well", I thought, "I could keep it since its better than my Minolta scan dual III". Big mistake, it gets way outperformed by a scanner from 2002. You can see the minolta has a bit more noise (didn't use multi-pass) and outputs less shadow detail, but its way sharper: comparison 1 and both scanners at 2820/3000 DPI

this scanner is going back to its seller. I was a bit hesitant to do this, since they'll make loss on this, but this scanner sucks in every possible way. The minolta works faster, the reflecta software often crashes at 7200 DPI, I see some banding,...

I'll stick to my dualscan III for now. anybody knows of an affordable bulk scanner, or one that could nicely speed up the work at least?

 

[alien8]

Well, as many people here have commented, scanning the entire roll and then editing is not necessarily the best approach. Since most rolls only yield a couple or at best a few memorable shots it makes more sense to edit first rather than spending time scanning the 'throwaways'.

Can't comment on the quality of your scanner.

 

[Teus]

well, yeah. I might look into making contact sheets.

 

[kully]

Don't do it Teus! I did the same thing - scanning the entire roll, six strips at a time - when I got my Nikon LS-50. It almost made me go back to digital.

You only need a 60w desk lamp and a very small darkroom to make contact sheets, I pop the clear neg holder on the flatbed scanner.

 

[jgran]

So, why couldn't you lay all the negatives on a cheap flatbed scanner and make a digital contact sheet that way? Sure the resolution wouldn't be great, but at least you'd get an idea of what was worth running through the better film scanner. Wondering if anyone has ever done this?
Jorge in MN

 

[Teus]

So, why couldn't you lay all the negatives on a cheap flatbed scanner and make a digital contact sheet that way? Sure the resolution wouldn't be great, but at least you'd get an idea of what was worth running through the better film scanner. Wondering if anyone has ever done this?
Jorge in MN

might be an idea as well. for <100 you can find a scanner and printer these days, and I don't really scan/print otherwise

 

[sleepyhead]

I have an Epson 4990 flatbed scanner and a Minolta 5400 scanner. With the Epson I can scan around 20 frames in one go, usually at around 800 dpi - this is pretty fast and allows a decent look at each frame. I save these small files for future reference.

Then only the important frames go to the Elite 5400, usually scanned around 4800 dpi with 4x multiple sampling. This is slow....

 

[pfoto]

One of the Nikon scanners has an add-on that scans an uncut roll of 36 exp. film in one go. It's pretty expensive I think.

 

[rich815]

One of the Nikon scanners has an add-on that scans an uncut roll of 36 exp. film in one go. It's pretty expensive I think.

I have one of these for my LS-4000. Got it on eBay for about $275. Worth it's weight in gold!

 

[remegius]

So, why couldn't you lay all the negatives on a cheap flatbed scanner and make a digital contact sheet that way? Sure the resolution wouldn't be great, but at least you'd get an idea of what was worth running through the better film scanner. Wondering if anyone has ever done this?
Jorge in MN

I do it all the time. You need to tweak the file in PS after your done, but it gives quite acceptible results.

Cheers...

 

[Mackinaw]

So, why couldn't you lay all the negatives on a cheap flatbed scanner and make a digital contact sheet that way? Sure the resolution wouldn't be great, but at least you'd get an idea of what was worth running through the better film scanner. Wondering if anyone has ever done this?
Jorge in MN

I often line up negatives to fill a roughly 8" X 10" area and use a digital camera to take a picture of the assembled negs. I import that pic into PhotoShop and then invert the image. While not contact-sheet quality, it does allow me to seperate the good pics from the bad. Definitely cuts down on scanning time.

Jim B.

 

[MikeL]

Scanning can be a pain, but it beats dying young.

 

[trittium]

I enjoy scanning. Is there something wrong with me? I use an Epson 4180 that scans 12 frames at a time. Usually I do double duty and photoshop/ de-dust the images as they are saved. It really makes it go faster. Try it out.

 

[jbf]

I find scanning no more a pain than anything else photography related....

and what i mean by that is that its not a pain at all.



Here is a pretty good workflow for you.

1) Scan your entire contact sheet of negatives with either a flatbed scanner or you can use a lightbox (or a blank white document on a computer monitor) and lay your contacts out against that. Then use a camera with a macro mode to photograph the contact sheet.

Now you have a simple viewable 'proof' sheet that you can see which photos you like best.

2) Once you've picked the photos you think are the best, you can then scan each individually.


It takes me no more than 30 minutes to scan say.... 18-20 images from a set of 5-6 rolls of film. Thats usually a good 'batch' I think.


Also so long as you use a can of compressed air to dust off your negatives, I usually have only one or two specs of dust on my negatives once scanned... which take all of 2 seconds to remove in photoshop, etc.

 

[Teus]

1) Scan your entire contact sheet of negatives with either a flatbed scanner or you can use a lightbox (or a blank white document on a computer monitor) and lay your contacts out against that. Then use a camera with a macro mode to photograph the contact sheet.

Now you have a simple viewable 'proof' sheet that you can see which photos you like best.

yeah, that's great. I got a nice dSLR with macro lens to shoot it. I'll see what works best, making contact sheets is charming (store it along with film sheets), but I don't want to waste too much chemistry every time.

if somebody could comment on the quality of this reflecta scanner.. it's no good, is it

 

[jamxo]

I print film both in the darkroom and digitally. Whilst I love getting away from the world for a few hours and printing something by hand, for me the darkroom isnt a consistent, cheap or accesible method.

I dont mind scanning, because generally I can set the scanner up and then let it do it's thing, and whilst it's scanning, start working on the millions of other little things I should be doing. Or I can eat Lunch, or something.

I used to scan on an epson v700 and I used to make quick contact sheets, then scan in all the goodies, and whils tthe scanner itself was quick, I would spend quite a long time in photoshop getting pretty crap results for 135mm.

Recently I got a Nikon Coolscan V and it seems to be alot easier. It autoloads a strip of 2-6 frames, I clikc scan and it autofocuses and autoexposes for all of the frames induvidually, resulting in 6 4000dpi tiff's about 10 minutes later. It beats selecting frames, fiddling around with settings, and sharpening etc on the flatbed.

I think the way to approach scanning is that it is not a darkroom, you are free to do other things, so rather than spend an hour getting frustrated and bored purely scanning, spend an hour doing work, or browsing the internet, or listening to a new cd, or whatever, whilst scanning in the background.

My 2 cents.

 

[dmr]

This is why I still have DO/CD done since I got the scanner a couple years ago. I use the scanner when I want a presentation quality print or for things that I shot prior to the DO/CD days.

To do it right, it seems like it takes about 5 minutes per scan, more or less, which includes the futzing around with the negative carrier, blowing it off with canned air, un-sleeving, re-sleeving, adjusting levels, etc.

 

[Damaso]

Personally I use a loupe and a light table to make my first pass. I still end up with a lot of frames but there is little point is scanning everything you shoot. Do an edit first and you will be much happier.

Scanning is still very, very boring.

 

[Senecabud]

So, why couldn't you lay all the negatives on a cheap flatbed scanner and make a digital contact sheet that way? Sure the resolution wouldn't be great, but at least you'd get an idea of what was worth running through the better film scanner. Wondering if anyone has ever done this?
Jorge in MN

Yes, I do it all the time for both my B&W and Color negs, in both 35mm and 120. I just print the contact sheets out on plain printer paper, punch them, and file them in the binders with the sleeved negs. I don't do detailed scans unless and until I'm ready to make a fine print of a selected frame. 🙂

 

[Teus]

My father had a large stock of paper left from 10 years ago, including some A4 sized paper. Blacks aren't really deep on the paper, but it works fine for contacts. Very nice to store contacts along with my negative sheets.

Contact printing is OK and it's a lot more fun to edit my photos now. As bonus, judging exposure of the contacts is easier than scanning or just looking at the negs. Thanks for showing me the light 🙂