You can help...

[Bill Pierce]

Many of us have been around long enough to have filing cabinets filled with negatives and transparencies along with hard discs filled with digital images. And in many cases the darkroom that produced prints from the negatives and slides has shrunk or disappeared totally, replaced by a scanner. For those that worked with medium format and sheet film a moderately priced scanner can do the job well, but for 35mm - not so well. Most of the affordable, under $1000 scanners can’t capture the detail a good negative or slide is capable of - and this is very obvious if you scan and make large exhibition prints.

A long time ago, I bought a used, top of the line, Imacon scanner at a reasonable price. It does a very good job with 35mm film. Today’s Hasselblad equivalent can cost between $15,000 and $20,000. That makes the scanner unaffordable for the great majority of photographers. So what do you do with those film images - keep your darkroom, downsize your darkroom, use an economical scanner and make small prints, send images out to a lab that does good scans. For all of us who have bridged film and digital, it’s an important question - and if you have a good answer you can help a lot of people.

 

[mdarnton]

I scan with my Nikon D7200, bellows with film copy attachment, and 65/2.8 El-Nikkor (the best lens for this project available at a reasonable price. If you want to spend more, you can). 24Mp--4000x6000-- is enough for anything I do, and it works beautifully. If you need more, there are DSLRs with more Mp than that. The process is extremely easy, and quicker than scanning.

 

[hap]

I would love to use my D7100 but I am not sure I have the time to set things up and acquire whatever accessory gear. Do you copy the negative with a RAW or jpeg scan? How do you PP?...could it all be done in DXO or LR?

My other issue is a recently acquired Hasselblad. I think this forces me to continue with the lab or get a flatbed. Even old Minolta scanners with dual format are expensive.

 

[Dogman]

I have boxes upon boxes of prints, negatives and transparencies dating back over 40 years. Since closing my darkroom, I haven't really considered going through them. For a short time I scanned film but it never looked worth the effort. Really, I'm more interested in what I'm photographing today rather than getting bogged down in archiving all my old work.

 

[Jake Mongey]

I am lucky enough to have picked up a leica enlarger with a load of supplies at a cheap price but lack the actual room to have it in. I am currently saving up for a flatbed as getting a dedicated 120 scanner is completely extortionate.

 

[Rob-F]

Hi Bill, I kept my darkroom. And when we moved to another house, I built another darkroom. Yeah, I have an Epson scanner and a Nikon Coolscan V; but I really only use them for color transparencies I want to convert to digital. When I have the urge to develop and print, I want my darkroom to be there for me! There is nothing like a silver print!

 

[zuiko85]

I'm with the crowd who use a DSLR with an old, manual focus macro, build the setup out of plywood and use milk white plastic sheet to diffuse the light. However my standards ore very low. I'm using a 10mp DSLR.

 

[ellisson]

I have not yet sent any out 35mm negatives for hi-res scanning with an Imacon/Hasselblad scanner, but will consider this for the selected images, not entire rolls of film, if this is possible.

 

[Timmyjoe]

I was really lucky in acquiring a Nikon Coolscan 9000 right before they were discontinued. I still have most of my darkroom equipment, save an enlarger, and hope to one day set something back up, but the Coolscan does a pretty decent job with B&W scans. It's sort of like a diffusion enlarger with the black & white, not as contrasty as some of the smaller film scanners.

 

[willie_901]

Discovering a very good lab is probably the most economical way forward. To minimize costs, this approach requires vicious, aggressive editing to minimize costs. Vicious, aggressive editing is probably a good idea for all of our work anyway.

In my view most 35 mm film media do not benefit from high-end scanning. 35m film negatives and media only show well with normal print sizes anyway. Obviously there are exceptions where careful technique, excellent lenses and high resolution film were involved.

All of my film work is 35mm Tri-X, relatively high ISO (now considered low ISO!) transparencies and ISO 400 film emulsions from early last decade. I would never print these (wet or digital scans) larger than 8 X 12.

I had a very good lab make a 8 X 12 print from a scan I made from a circa 2006, ISO 400, 35mm, color negative. I used a Plustek OpticFilm unit with VueScan. It took a lot of time and effort to get the best possible scan. Post scan work was also time consuming. But the print was in a museum show on St. Louis street photography. There were 8 X 12 prints from digital media in the show and I felt the film scan held up well. Obviously this is a biased opinion.The print lab's work (light jet/laser printer) and paper selection (fine art rag) were important factors.

Medium format and larger is another story.

If rarely scan now. But if I was starting over I would pick up a used DSLR, an excellent macro lens and holder system. I already have the lighting gear.

 

[Out to Lunch]

It all depends where you live and on your life style. For me, outsourcing all developing, scanning and printing jobs makes good sense as by now there is a lot of choice between suppliers, especially in North America and Western Europe. I should clarify that I am an expatriate and I can't move around the world with darkroom equipment, chemicals, heavy scanners and printers.

 

[benmacphoto]

I use a Nikon CoolScan 4000 for all my 35mm film work.
I have even compared it against the Hasselblad X1 scanner, and wrote about it in my blog.
The Nikon 4000 images straight out of the scanner were either identical or in some cases superior to the X1 scanner.

In the past I tried using a DSLR to "scan" my film, a Nikon D800.
But found that it did not capture the unique film grain qualities like the Nikon 4000.

 

[stompyq]

I use a Nikon CoolScan 4000 for all my 35mm film work.
I have even compared it against the Hasselblad X1 scanner, and wrote about it in my blog.
The Nikon 4000 images straight out of the scanner were either identical or in some cases superior to the X1 scanner.

In the past I tried using a DSLR to "scan" my film, a Nikon D800.
But found that it did not capture the unique film grain qualities like the Nikon 4000.

That's interesting Ben. I had a Nikon coolscan 4000 for a long time before financial reasons forced me to get rid of it. My current setup, a Nikon D610 paired with extension tubes and a micro-nikkor 55mm lens completely blows the coolscan out of the water. Rescanning my older negs there is a clear difference in DR. The coolscan just clips the highlights and shadows quicker

 

[kshapero]

My boxes of negs and, now, CD's is much larger than my 8 SD cards, but I sleep well at night.

 

[Oscuro]

Dear Bill,
For a while we scanned 8x10 prints on a flatbed and then gave up after going completely digital. We never tried to scan negatives. My husband has more patience than I do. But I am Italian and he is a Gaul......

 

[Merlijn53]

I'm 63 now and have been photograping for almost 50 years.
When I moved house about 15 years ago, I did not rebuild my darkroom and started scanning (epson, minolta 5400, Imacon). Digital? I did my best, but it never impressed me.
Six months ago I went back to the darkroom and it felt like coming home. I still have my scanners and occasionally use them.
I scan all my negatives on a low resolution on the flatbed for my archive. It's easy to find a particular negative that way. And then I print in the darkroom. With the Heiland split grade system it's faster (and better imho) than scanning (the Imacon Flextight takes 20 minutes for a negative) and inktjet printing. And a lot more fun.
Frank

 

[shimokita]

Like many I scan my film (135 / 120 format) using both Epson and Nikon... in my case it's the Epson GT-X830 and Nikon Cool Scan V ED. The latter is 35mm film only, while the Epson takes a wide range of film and/or prints. In my case, if posting to the internet the Epson is good enough for 35mm film.

With the Nikon Cool Scan V ED, the 35mm B&W negatives end up as 69MB TIF files and the color negatives as 138MB TIFs.

Casey