35mm film & slide scanners?

[JayR]

Im looking into scanners to digitise some of the slides and films Ive shot over the last couple of decades and struggling to work out what model to get.
(and older thread here was 2 years old)

I had thought about the Epson v600, having done some reading a few months ago, though now I hear people saying that the Epsons (V500, 600 & 700) flatbed type arent so great for 35mm.

The images to be scanned were little more than some travels, some documentary and a little of the creative stuff, definitely not professional level or anything, but if I figure if Im going to spend the time scanning, I may as well not waste it with really crappy image quality.

Definitely only for 35mm, but some very long panoramas up to 20cm from my lomo spinner.


Anyone got any thoughts??

Will the Epson 600 be enough?
Ive just heard about 'Plustek' but havent looked into them yet
What about other options?

Definitely dont want to spend bucketloads, I liked the idea of trying to keep it under $500. Thanks in advance!

[deef]

Hi JayR

I have an Epson V600 and originally got it mainly for digitzing old slides and photos. I find that it produces files that are pretty good and are perfectly adequate for my needs. It very much depends on the quality of the original of course. Most respond well to a clean up in Photoshop.

Here is an example of an ektachrome 64 35mm slide scanned on the V600 and proceesed in PS7.



Allow plenty of time as it is a fairly slow process.

For othe scanning work it is a great scanner.

Cheers, John D

[MarkChap]

If you want to stay under $500.00, I would suggest the V600 Epson, had, loved it, upgraded to the V700, when I acquired one at the right price ()

[JayR]

If you want to stay under $500.00, I would suggest the V600 Epson, had, loved it, upgraded to the V700, when I acquired one at the right price ()

How did you find the difference?
I had heard there wasnt as much of a jump between V600 & V700 as between V500 & V600 (even though not indicative of the cost of the units...)

[arthurking83]

from memory there are a few major hardware differences between V600 and V700.
That is, both in terms of supplied accessories and internal hardware quality.

Can't really remember tho, it was a very long time ago that I looked into it.
For my purposes tho(as in what I wanted to do) I found that a bellows with slide copy attachment was the cheaper and easier way to go about copying and digitizing 35mm film.
(I don't have any larger format needs).

Most simple lenses work well with these devices, the hardware can usually be found on ebay for not too much, and once your done you have a very flexible macro setup to also play with(if the interest is there).

The only issue with my choice to save some money and not get the scanner, is that eventually(after the fact) .. I had a need to copy a huge pile of documents .. and of course had no scanner to do so.
(that problem was solved via the use of the work copier/scanner )

Something I found handier in using the bellows/copy attachment was the end result of having raw files to play with, rather than tiff files for more processing headroom.

[blkmcs]

These might be worth a look.

http://www.kaiserbaas.com/slide-converters

[arthurking83]

some of the problems with these types of devices:

* $200!
Most bellows + slide copy attachment will cost less than that(on ebay).
My Nikon (PB4+PS4) unit cost me less than $200 in the end. Took over a year to finally win one, but a bit of perseverance pays. I already have cameras and lenses!

* Top model is 9Mp! .. while 9 Mp is nothing to sneeze at, it's a lot of money for only 9Mp.
With the bellows, I originally copied my films with the D300(12Mp) but now I have the option to use the D800(36Mp).
In a few years time, if I update my current camera to the latest 54Mp model, I'll have 54Mp copies of the films too.
Although in saying that more resolution doesn't necessarily equate to better quality scans! All you may end up seeing is more grain in the film if you pixel peep.

* Quality could be dubious to say the least. Not only from a hardware perspective, but also from a software point of view. I can't see any specific output formats listed.,, hope it's not jpg only! You would want tiff for best results.

The problem with any dedicated devices .. what do you do with them after you're done.
That was part of my decision factor, get a $700 scanner that I may subsequently use once or twice in the years to come and which in a few years time may not be supported by my operating system(again) .. which basically means the device is eventually junked ... etc.
I had a scanner from many years back but no new drivers exist for it .. it got taken to a place where it should meet it's maker(I think)

I found that a pure hardware solution was the best way to channel my (limited)funds, whilst allowing flexibility in it's possible uses. It took a bit of time and experimenting to get the best results, but once that was done copying the slides was a very simple affair.
The bellows allows for some pretty extreme macros too now, which is really what you end up doing when copying slides with a bellows+copy attachment.

If I could do it all again, how would I do it?

For copying film slides, I would still do it with the bellows. And if I had any other need to scan docs again, I'd just get a cheapie($50) scanner for that purpose.

[fabian628]

I have the v700 and it works well for all formats up to 4x5. I don't have much experience to compare as its my first scanner, depending on how invested you are in scanning film cheaper ones might be more viable. I do like the fact I can scan 24 shots at once and the software creates all the files for individual photos. Ive found that the colours are pretty accurate and good from this scanner.

[Speedway]

I have the Canon LiDE 700F and found it does a reasonable job on negatives and is excellent as a photo / document scanner and at under $170 delivered from CrazySales (see link in sponsors list) I am very happy with it.
Cheers
Keith.
PS for the pano shots you can scan in sections then stitch.

This is a scan of a 35mm negative from the 70's Just cropped a little and sized for site.
IMG_0003aSz2.jpg

[fenderslash]

For quality that's very much over and above the flatbed scanners the discontinued Nikon Coolscan range has a great reputation. On the downside they're worth quite a lot on the 2nd hand market because of their reputation and the fact that you can't buy them new anymore. On the plus side it should mean that once you've finished your project you could most likely sell it on for what you paid, or even perhaps at a profit. I still shoot a lot of film so I could justify the cost to purchase and retain one. One last thing to keep in mind if you're tempted to check out this option is that I don't think the native Nikon software operates on anything newer than Windows XP, but there is other software out there (eg Vuescan and Silverfast) that overcomes that problem.

[JayR]

For quality that's very much over and above the flatbed scanners the discontinued Nikon Coolscan range has a great reputation.

Would they do panoramic scans too though?

Thanks for all the notes everyone, muchos appreciated.

[ameerat42]

...Would they do panoramic scans too though?...

What do you mean, JayR? A scan of a panoramic photo?
Am.

[griffljg]

I have about 3,000 slides from taken from the early 1980s to the mid 1990s. About 18 months ago, I bought a plustek OpticFilm 8200i slide scanner and started scanning into digital format. It is a time-consuming task, but very satisfying to see all my old pics again.

Here is one which I took of Victoria Falls back in May 1986:

[mongo]

Mongo did not think anyone still copies 35mm slides with a scanner. He has been telling people for years to do this instead:

Read Mongo's first and third post in this thread if you really want to know how it is best done: http://www.ausphotography.net.au/for...+scanner+mongo