What do you use for scanning your negs?

[Praxis Unitas]

I have hacked the stock feeder to accept whole rolls of film...I just hit scan, leave the room, and come back an hour later to a folder full of TIFs. Awesome.

Do tell about the 'hack', please!


I use the 5000ED. If you want to try befor eyou buy, check out the 'scan cafe' service. It's dirt cheap, and they use the 5000ed and 9000ed for the process. I just got some MF negatives back form their lab. They look great, and at 75 megapixels, you can't beat the resolution!

 

[dfoo]

Check these links for details on the mod:

http://www.helmut-stoepfgeshoff.de/sa21-sa30e.html

http://photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00FGuM

 

[Dogman]

I have a V700 but haven't used it much at all since I bought it. I started shooting more with digital cameras and simply haven't gone back to doing any film lately. I did scan a few old medium format FP4+ negatives that look fine and a few 4x5 color transparencies that look great. The only 35mm I've done with it was some very old Tri-X negatives my step-son had been wanting me to print for him. They were a challenge--they had been taken over 20 years ago, underexposed, drugstore processed and stored under poor conditions with a lot of resulting scratches, embedded debris and a little fungus. The scans actually looked more than adequate and he was pleased with the prints I made for him. I really need to learn this scanner better. It appears to have excellent potential.

 

[nightfly]

I use an Epson 4990 for my 35mm negs and am pretty happy with the results although I seem to be in the minority. Mostly tri-x scanned with Epson scan and at 4800 dpi and post processed (mostly levels and curves) in Photoshop. I've printed up to about 11 x 14 and have the prints hanging in my house and would have no issues printing them for public display or selling.

I'm not very fussy about sharpness but tonality wise I am and have no issues. For medium format I've made prints with this combo that are spectacular at 12 x 12. Very sharp and detailed.

I'm not much of pixel peeper and I push my prints to be pretty contrasty so loosing shadow detail isn't an issue for me, but I'm pretty satisfied with the results.