What is the best non-commercial scanner on the market right now?

[jordanatkins]

I have the plustek 8100 and it delivers the goods. Getting better scans than with the Nikon 5000 I used previously..

I'm glad to hear this, because that scanner is the one I'm leaning most heavily toward! Plus it's on sale on B&H right now.

 

[philipus]

I'm currently scanning a large archive of old slides and negs with my 9000 and I find it to be quick enough. Plus it will provide large scans for enlargements too, should I want that. Vuescan's Edit setting, which from memory is roughly 1800x2400, usually results in >20Mb files). I've enlarged these to A4 without much problem. A3+ and probably larger should be possible with max resolution.

For the same money the new Opticfilm 120 could be an option. I considered it but bought the 9000 because I am familiar with the Coolscans from before and I didn't feel at all reassured by the focusing problems with the Plustek. Autofocus is critical imho.

Edit: About digitizing. I also tried this with my 5D2 and the 100L. The results were not bad at all. What put me off was the extra time I had to spend dust spotting in Photoshop and that it was ultimately slower since I couldn't just load two strips and press scan. I know ICE will degrade a bit but it is a tradeoff I am willing to accept. But there's no doubt one can get really amazing results with a good DSLR and macro lens.

 

[ChrisLivsey]

The plustek can't be beaten for price/performance ratio IMHO.
Compared to S/H others this is new, warranted and inexpensive it is in the 'If beaks in 5 years chuck it and buy new" category.
I run the 8100 as I was going to scan so little colour I cheaped out to loose the IR function.
I have just posted a lens test to Flickr this was all sliders at zero,Silverfast software as bundled, in scanner sharpening, straight out of the box scan, no time wasting post processing at all. I have no doubt those skilled in the scanning art could squeeze a lot more out but this fine for me.

HP5+ TD-201 (35 rolls through this mix) Nikkor Olympic 50mm f1.4

I have no idea how big the print would be if you scaled up the crop to full frame.

Full frame

Centre Crop (re-scanned)

 

[heller]

The best non commercial scanner is the Hasselblad Flextight X5 scanner.
That is, if you consider the drum scanners to be the "commercial" scanners.
Although the Flextight is advertised by Hasselblad as a "Virtual" drum scanner, it does not employ any fluid mounting and so on. The results are stunning.
www.daniheller.com

 

[Bob Michaels]

Limiting your selection to current manufacture units really limits you. Film scanners seem to be very much like film cameras where few are being manufactured but there are many great deals on superior quality equipment out there in the used marketplace. There always seems to be a reasonable supply of Minolta 5400 scanners on EBay for about the same price as a new Epson 700. There are some scan test targets in this thread. Check what one of those Minolta 5400s will do.

Don't constrain yourself to a scanner with low resolution just to you have one that comes new in a box. Remember there have been no breakthroughs in scanner technology since Digital Ice about 10-12 years ago.

 

[k__43]

I just bought a Canon FS4000US. I also own a Plustek 8200 and a V500. I use the later for MF only. I bought the Canon for Batch scanning since I was tired using the one frame, manual forward, next frame method of the Plustek. It does seem to have it's quirks but it out performs the newer Plustek .. The plustek would be good enough for me tho.
the whole frame:
Link

the cropped shots at 100%(all upscaled to match the 7200 dpi of the plustek, no sharpening except maybe for the 1200dpi lab scan. I don't know what they did there,)

Link

The pic here shows the lab scan btw. my scans have more shadow and highlight details.

 

[Fernando2]

Nice comparison! The old FS4000 is clearly the best. No surprise. 🙂

 

[k__43]

Nice comparison! The old FS4000 is clearly the best. No surprise. 🙂

🙂

btw. all shot on drug store ISO 200 film (made in USA so re-badged Kodak)
with a M6 and Summicron 35 V4 and a flash at about f/5.6 or f/8

 

[btgc]

Just make sure to connect FS4000 to SCSI otherwise USB1 is way too slow.

 

[k__43]

Just make sure to connect FS4000 to SCSI otherwise USB1 is way too slow.

I don't find that thing as slow as the internet claims. I always suspect that no one really measures time with vuescan, which always seems to scan faster.
My iMac has no scsi

 

[tajart]

8100 vs 8200 plustek

8100 vs 8200 plustek

as a scanner for 35 mm slides and negative, it looks like the main difference between these two models is the infrared channel in the 8200.

the infrared channel is primarily to aid in dust removal?

good feature or not. recommendations between these two models?

thanks in advance.

 

[kanzlr]

current production 35mm only scanner...I'd get a Reflecta (Pacific Image) RPS 7200 as it seems to offer very good resolution combined with the possibility to scan a whole roll of film at once.

 

[Andrea Taurisano]

current production 35mm only scanner...I'd get a Reflecta (Pacific Image) RPS 7200 as it seems to offer very good resolution combined with the possibility to scan a whole roll of film at once.

This is a good suggestion. There are a couple of recent threads on this Reflecta (one started by myself). I haven't bought it because it turns out that the batch scanning of a whole 35mm roll is pretty much useless when there are night or dark shots in consecutive frames, as the scanner does not see the bridges. This forces you to sit there and fine-position the film, at which point the advantage over flatbed negative scanners IMO is gone.

 

[ChrisLivsey]

as a scanner for 35 mm slides and negative, it looks like the main difference between these two models is the infrared channel in the 8200.

the infrared channel is primarily to aid in dust removal?

good feature or not. recommendations between these two models?

thanks in advance.

Yes its sole function is dust removal.
It will not work with B/W negatives (colour neg and positive yes)
It depends what you scan, B/W only, no need to pay for something you will not use.
The bundled software is the same for each model BTW.

As I only scan B/W (disclaimer: I did scan one roll of C41 this year and dust was not an issue) I have the less expensive model and am very happy with it. See my full frame and crop earlier in the thread.

 

[k__43]

I just want to add to the discussion, that I'm frustrated that today's best option to scan 35mm is to get an out of production scanner with uncertain service option.
(the last Nikons V, 5000, 9000 are still service-able as far as I know, I doubt that Minolta/Konica or my Canon will be)

The plustek 7k/8k series is ok-ish in resolution, but the lack of batch scanning is just annoying. It also seems that they used a stupid large aperture to make up for the lack of auto focusing by DOF and actually run into diffraction (just a wild guess). I can't believe that I have to scan at 7200 and only get around 3000dpi (scanning at 3600dpi gets you less resolution and I also get heavy banding in the dense areas of my negs). I've to scale down the results to avoid useless data on my hard disc (at least that I can do with batch scripting), while the really really old FS4000US I just bought almost scans with 100% efficiency. I've heard the reflectas are not much better in that regard.
I'd totally pay €700 for a second version of that canon (same optics, but faster).

 

[Fernando2]

I hear you. Many of us are in the same boat.
I know I'll have to struggle more and more to keep my old scanners (filmscanners and drum scanners) in order.

Now if just Plustek and Pacific Image (Reflecta rebrands P.I.) could come up with a modern "semi-pro" scanner.
The OpticFilm120 is a step in the right direction, but at Eur 1900 misses too many marks in my book (fixed focus, no exposure control, no single-pass multisampling).

Fernando

 

[k__43]

I hear you. Many of us are in the same boat.
I know I'll have to struggle more and more to keep my old scanners (filmscanners and drum scanners) in order.

Now if just Plustek and Pacific Image (Reflecta rebrands P.I.) could come up with a modern "semi-pro" scanner.
The OpticFilm120 is a step in the right direction, but at Eur 1900 misses too many marks in my book (fixed focus, no exposure control, no single-pass multisampling).

Fernando

I'm on the fence about the 120. It is quite a good scanner i guess but a lot of money for me. What I saw from it is good enough for me and it would help me with my MF shots.
What I don't get is that bundled piece of s*** software. I hope they realize that many people would rather take a €300 discount on their product.

 

[Etabeta]

Six months ago I started scanning with a Reflecta MF5000. Very basic software, but serious hardware. On the whole, good value for the price (1200 euros).

 

[Etabeta]

Six months ago I started scanning with a Reflecta MF5000. Very basic software, but serious hardware. On the whole, good value for the price (1200 euros).

 

[k__43]

Six months ago I started scanning with a Reflecta MF5000. Very basic software, but serious hardware. On the whole, good value for the price (1200 euros).

The MF5000 doesn't even cover 3 frames of 6x6 MF, also no batch scanning. the price seems fair and the quality might be good .. it might be a good choice for some but not for me - I'd rather try to get a Coolscan 8000 for that money.