Why so few dedicated film scanners?
- Thread starter Takkun
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
- Replies 95
- Views 7K
Skiff
Well-known
Instax cameras are now the most succesful camera type on the market: Surpassing even DSLM and DSLR sales!
In 2017:
- about 4.1 million DSLMs were built
- about 7.5 million DSLRs were bulit.
And Fuji has sold 7.7 million Instax cameras.
And their new target for the current year is 10 million. They have said that last week at Photokina.
For years now Instax film is a mass market again.
Concerning scanners:
The pessimistic view expressed here in this thread is wrong: We have Plustek, Pacific Image / Reflecta / Braun, Noritsu, ICG, Hasselblad for higher quality up to Top-Scanners (including drum-scanners).
And Epson and Canon for low quality flatbed scanners.
Plustek has just announced a new, improved OpticFilm 120 Pro Scanner at Photokina. Reflecta has this summer introduced its new Digit 7000 magazin scanner. And both companies have told me at the Photokina that demand is increasing.
That the demand for film and film related products is increasing was told by all companies at Photokina who are active in this business.
Larry Cloetta
Veteran
That is possible, numerically. Whether those numbers are significant is a different matter.
What is not debatable is that companies man their booths with people from marketing, and marketers know that the best way to increase demand is to tell people that the product is very popular, exciting even.
Nobody manning a booth at Photokina “who are active in this business” is ever going to tell an attendee that perhaps the market for their product is a bit flat. Not unless they want to get canned.
I shoot more film than digital, but seriously, the patient may be in remission, but is probably still dying. When Nikon starts making updated Super Coolscan 9000 ED film scanners, or anybody makes something at that level, then I’ll believe there is a significant market. Which they would do, if there was.
Skiff
Well-known
Sorry to say, but in my case you are wrong.
Because I have not talked to the "marketing" people at the booth counters (by the way, these marketing people don't exist at all at the small film company booths at Photokina).
I have talked to the people who know the numbers. Company owners and market researchers. People who have been brutally honest to me in the past. People I trust. They have told me the real shocking numbers all the years in which film was in decline. But the situation has changed, demand is increasing.
Your comment shows that you have never been at Photokina, at least not in the last decade.
By the way, lots of distributors were complaining there that the demand is meanwhile so high, that there are massive backorders especially at Fujifilm and Kodak (backorders in the seven digit range). Both have delivery problems because demand is surpassing supply.
Larry Cloetta
Veteran
Guth
Appreciative User
As someone who has just returned to shooting film after more than a decade away it's almost comical that I happened upon this thread searching for information on current high quality film scanners. Jeez, I feel so insignificant now, lol.
Michael Markey
Veteran
I`ve just replaced my Epson V600 with an 850 and couldn`t be more pleased.
mod2001
Old school modernist
With 35mm film? Because even my little Plustek 7600 delivers much better results than the Epson (have the 750 which is technically identical to the 850).
Anyhow, hope the new Pacific scanner delivers on its promises, for sure not as fast as the Pakon, but new, hopefully available via Reflecta in Europe and no longer the need to switch single film stripes and/or holders, this is the part which annoys me most in the whole scanning process. With the Pacific scanner you can simply put 10 strips at once in it and leave it alone. Huge improvement for people like me which a big and still growing archive of cut film stripes.
Juergen
Stuart John
Well-known
I don't think we really need any more manufactures of scanners. What we need is canon or epson to produce something better. Put decent optics with focusing into their flatbeds so we can get a real scan thats sharp and not a mushy mess.
If I could get a really good solid 12mp scan from 35mm with a flatbed I would be happy. Medium format would be even better from the same scanner.
At the moment I have to mess about with a D800 with the bellows and macro lens and slide copy attachment. Sure it works and works very well. I can scan a whole B&W film very fast and convert to positive in light room. But it is still a lot of p'''''g around.
I do have a v500, it is ok for small prints and web uploads but 35mm is pretty mushy with it. I have been tempted to try a V850.
If I could get a really good solid 12mp scan from 35mm with a flatbed I would be happy. Medium format would be even better from the same scanner.
At the moment I have to mess about with a D800 with the bellows and macro lens and slide copy attachment. Sure it works and works very well. I can scan a whole B&W film very fast and convert to positive in light room. But it is still a lot of p'''''g around.
I do have a v500, it is ok for small prints and web uploads but 35mm is pretty mushy with it. I have been tempted to try a V850.
Michael Markey
Veteran
Yes just 35mm film.
It`s good enough for me and a marked improvement over the V600.
Very happy with it although it isn`t heavily used these days.
I did look at Plustek but can`t recall why I didn`t buy.
I seem to remember that there were quite a few negative reviews about build quality but that may have been on a certain model … and anyway they may have been unfair but again I seem to recollect that it was enough to persuade me to stick with what I knew ie Epson.
Its web use for me or 5X7 prints which are printed by Ilford but again via the web.
mod2001
Old school modernist
If you're happy, who cares 🙂 I could live with the Epson for display, it has a kind of charming rendering especially with higher ISO-films, but in print (which is always my end result) it looks like I set the noise reduction to 80 in LR compared to the Plustek or other dedicated scanner for 35mm, that why I was asking.
In regards to the Plustek, no problems so far and haven't heard about any big issues with it.
Juergen
HHPhoto
Well-known
That comment clearly demonstrates that you don't know the Photokina. It is mainly a B2B fair. Especially for the film companies. Meeting your main suppliers and distributors, getting new orders in, and finding new business partners is the purpose of this fair. Talk to consumers is just a small side business.
I have also visited Photokina this September, as I have done in the previous two decades. And I can completely confirm what Skiff has said. Skiff is spot on.
Scanners: A friend of mine is quite satiesfied with the Reflecta RPS 10M. Resolution is even a bit better compared to the Nikon Coolscan V:
https://reflecta.de/en/products/detail/~nm.68~id.774/reflecta-RPS-10M.html
Cheers, Jan
mod2001
Old school modernist
Exactly, that's how it is, people forget this from time to time.
I tried, to be exact 2 times, the first I had to send back because of some hardware issues. I find the Reflect extremely slow and in many cases not accurate enough with the framing, at the end with manual adjustments and/or re-scanning I spent more time like before with other scanners. As I said, I don't expect the speed and accuracy of a Pakon F135, Noritsu LS600 or Fuji SP3000 nor their outstanding color management as I shoot mainly b/w, but my hopes are now that the new Pacific is somewhere in-between. At least at this price tag and compared to the price of the RPS10M I would expect it.
Juergen
Michael Markey
Veteran
Hi Juergen
I rarely print and if I do I send out to Ilford.
A good 80% of what I do is for other people anyway and is always digital sports stuff , my film usage these days is low.
The Epson is a reasonable compromise for me.
The build quality thing about the Plustek was probably just internet talk.
Michael
olifaunt
Well-known
I have a Dimage 5400 I use with Silverfast. It so painful to use that the lab has to really mess up a scan really badly before I'll touch it. The scanner is technically supposedly excellent but all that goodness advantage is defeated by the inexplicable fact they couldn't be bothered to design film holders that flattened the film, meaning parts of the frame are always going to be out of focus. Silverfast is nominally maintained and still sold for $$$ but handles like a software relic from the 80s that has to be babysat for every frame and doesn't even have a profile for one of the most-used films today, namely the "new" Portra 400, eight years after its introduction. That is the state of the art in 2018.
From what I read, even the most recent flatbeds are pretty much just as painful to use.
If someone made something like the self-feeding Pakon with higher res there would surely be a market.
From what I read, even the most recent flatbeds are pretty much just as painful to use.
If someone made something like the self-feeding Pakon with higher res there would surely be a market.
brbo
Well-known
Noritsu still makes such a scanner even today. And if you do not want to pay the money for a new Noritsu L-600 there are quite a few of them available at the used market...
olifaunt
Well-known
Thank you for the pointer, I didn't know about it. Someone published a review of it though and now used prices I see are ridiculous. I suspect a number of people are making a living off buying, reviewing, and then flipping film stuff at great profit, but that's just my hunch 😉
willie_901
Veteran
Niche markets are significant to businesses dedicated to those markets.
They are insignificant to businesses that focus on mass martkets.
mod2001
Old school modernist
There's hope (in case you didn't see the other thread here), as soon as this scanner gets sold in Europe directly, I will buy one. Thought also a long tome about a Pakon or used Noritsu LS-600, but don't want to mess around with all the software needed to run them, besides it is not easy to get them here in Europe.
http://www.scanace.com/scan_pd_1.php?id=50
Juergen
pauld111
Well-known
I wish we could start a petition for Leica to make a great quality 35mm dedicated scanner
