Which flatbed scanner?

[pschauss]

My wife has offered to buy me a scaner for Christmas. My use for a scanner is to produce digital images for posting on the web and for creating photo books (7"x7) at sites like Blurb or Shutterfly. At some point, I also want to start digitizing my 35mm slides so that I can display them on a computer screen.

Right now I create my digital images by scanning 5x7 wet prints (black and white, 35mm and medium format) with an HP 3380 Printer/Fax/Scanner. If I continue to use that approach with my new scanner would something like an Epson V700 be overkill? Would I get better results scanning the negatives directly?

The method that I use now usually produces acceptable results with minimal amounts of post-processing, but large black areas of the print sometimes come out with streaks in them. Is this an unavoidable problem with scanned prints or will a better scanner eliminate the problem?

 

[wafflecakee]

v700 or 750.

 

[ColSebastianMoran]

I'm happy with my Epson V500 for making sharp prints at 6x the linear dimension of the film.

The V700 and V750 are better.

Any of these will do a great job of scanning prints, and a great job producing files for the web. This is not the best tool for archival scans of 35mm negatives/slides.

 

[cabbiinc]

If you're just scanning 35mm negs and slides then you may look into getting a Plustek scanner or a used Nikon or Minolta Elite. If you plan to scan larger negatives in the future then a flatbed may be in order. But for scanning prints a V700 probably won't give you as much better as what you're getting now for the price you'll pay. If you don't like your HP scanner (and the software that comes with it) then a V500 or V600 would likely be more than enough.

 

[robert blu]

I have a 5000 ed nikon for 35 mm slides and film. Planning to buy as Epson V600 for 120 film and prints.
robert

 

[ray*j*gun]

I use an Epson V500 and its excellent. Yes scanning negs is much better than scanning prints. At best prints are a second generation of the image.

 

[thegman]

If you ever think you'll go beyond 35mm, then the V700 is great. If you're set on 35mm, I'd probably get a Plustek, they're smaller, and probably sharper/higher resolution for 35mm.

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

I'm not at all happy with any of the scanners (Minolta, Nikon and Plustek) that I've tried for 35mm black and white. Interestingly, my old Epson 1640U with the light box cover works very nicely for roll film and does a more than acceptable job with prints up to its maximum A4.

I'm experimenting with a Tamron SP 90 on a 5D for 35mm negatives now. As it's all kit I already have, it's a cheap solution.

 

[stompyq]

I have a V700 that does a great job with medium format. I print 6x7 scans to 8x10 prints routinely and they all come out great. Not so happy with the 35mm scans (although i'am comparing against my old coolscan 4000). I think for your purposes it might be ok. Still, prioritize which is important. If you plan to scan mostly 35mm and have a lot of time then buy a plustek over the epson. If you want to do both and don't want to spend time manually scanning individual 35mm frame then get the epson.

 

[mfogiel]

For scanning prints - any scanner with a big coverage.
For scanning 35mm - dedicated film scanner.
For scsnning MF - if you do not enlarge beyond 6-8 times, then Epson v700/750 is acceptable.
For scanning both 35mm and MF you need a better scanner like Nikon CS 9000 or perhaps the new Plustek 120, but the jury is still waiting to test this one.

 

[Dwig]

... but large black areas of the print sometimes come out with streaks in them. Is this an unavoidable problem with scanned prints or will a better scanner eliminate the problem?

A better flat bed scanner will eliminate the problem. These steaks are an indication of the limited ability of your current scanner. The All-in-One devices generally have decent scanners if all you are scanning are documents. When dealing with decent quality photographs there limitations begin to reveal themselves.

For the uses you (the OP) describe, and Epson v500 or v600 should be very suitable. The v700 and v750 can extract a broarder tonal range when scanning film, but the display methods you plan to use won't challenge the abilities of the v500 and v600.

 

[Rogier]

For medium format film* the Canoscan 9000 with a better scanning film holder.
If you only need to scan 35mm use a Plustek scanner.

If you want to scan both formats: Epson V700 / V750


*I own the older 8800 and find the results with 35mm poor. However a friend of mine recently replaced his Plustek with a 9000 and has good results with 35mm...

 

[froyd]

I use an Epson V500 and its excellent. Yes scanning negs is much better than scanning prints. At best prints are a second generation of the image.

Yes, but it's the first generation of the print. Depending on the OP's darkroom and computer PP skills, his prints could conceivably look better than what he's able to replicate by starting from scratch and tweaking the scan to match the print.

That was certainly the case for me until my PP skills improved enough to allow me to make better prints than the ones I was able to turn put in the darkroom.

 

[Shac]

V700 excellent for 120 and 4x5, and Coolscan for 35 - good luck

 

[kennylovrin]

This is all very subjective, but I purchased a v500 and I just can't stand it. It's way too low resolution to even make sense to me (for 35mm, medium format is 'ok').

Instead I got a dedicated 35mm neg scanner from Reflecta (ProScan 7200). It's light years better than the v500.

The reason I chose the reflecta is that it actually resolves optically very close to it's max dpi. So the max being 3200dpi, it optically manages to resolve about ~90% of that unless I remember it wrong. Some of the Plusteks can scan at 7200dpi but they do not resolve 7200dpi optically, so you end up with a large file with no more actual data in it.

Put simply, you get the same effect of scanning with the reflecta at 3200 and then upscale it in photoshop, as you do with scanning at 7200dpi wiht the plustek.

Now, just to clarify, I'm simplifying things a bit here, but try to get the point through. The v500 will max out at 1200-1600dpi actual resolution, so you'd end up with about 2-3mp of digital data from a 35mm neg. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

One big downside of the Reflecta is that the bundled scan app is utter ****, so you basically must add the cost of either VueScan or Silverlight to the scanner cost.

But everyone to their own, I'm pretty confident lots of people think I'm wrong here, but this is my stand point at least. Hope it helps. 🙂

Here's some more info: http://www.filmscanner.info/en/ReflectaProScan7200.html

Some upsides of a flatbed:
Handles more formats
Pretty quiet when scanning (at least the v500)

Downsides to flatbed:
A lot bigger
Worse quality (at least the v500)
Fiddly neg holders (at least the v500)

Upsides of the Reflecta:
Great quality for the price
Very compact
Effective use of data because of the optical resolution

Downsides of the Reflecta:
Quite noisy (I'm sensitive though)
Horrendous bundled software

Kenny