35mm home scanning options

[Mr Badger]

Not wishing to be a pedant but it's

"Your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries"

I wouldn't like to be in your shoes if @Server Hamster thinks you're casting aspersions!

 

[excalibur2]

Short answer -easily verified from any textbook on photography - no.

Indeed and like many other things including photography when results are only as good as the weakest link, but then some people like shots from crappy cameras....so what ever turns you on or the price you are willing to pay.

 

[stevelmx5]

I've just bought a Plustek 7200i from Facebook Marketplace after getting 2 rolls of Kosmo Mono and 1 roll of Velvia back from AG. The Velvia, and one roll of Kosmo, were shot with my OM1 and the other Kosmo with a Leica CL I borrowed, and all three rolls look very good under a loupe so I'm keen to get a good scan from them. I don't generally shoot a lot of 35mm film because I've always felt that my 35mm digital kit offered me the same experience, but I think my issue is that I've never shot a lot of better quality emulsions in 35mm so it's not been a fair comparison. Whilst Kosmo isn't a high end film, the results still look sharp and with good contrast, and the Velvia looks awesome like slide always does :0)

For the price I paid for the Plustek, I could have got AG to scan 4/5 rolls of film so I think it was a fair price and I'm looking forward to seeing what results it delivers, having previously used a V500 to scan all my film.

Now I need to invest in some better 35mm film, I'm thinking Portra 400 :0)

 

[kenm]

Couple of ancient threads may be worth regurgetating:

https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/scanner-advice-please.461067/

and:

https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/the-great-tp-film-scanner-test.378783/

 

[Mr Badger]

Now I need to invest in some better 35mm film, I'm thinking Portra 400 :0)

Depending on what you want to take photos of, have a think about some Kodak Gold 200. Nice fine grain for a 200 ISO and I find it scans nicely on my Epson V600, it's quite a warm looking film so good for those '80s/90s look' holiday type photos and I'm planning to use it to capture some autumn colours this weekend now the oak trees are turning colour. 7 Day Shop are currently selling 5 rolls of 36 exp 135 Gold 200 for £21.00 including delivery, so it's quite a bit cheaper than Ektar 100. Portra 400 is good for skin tones but I find it can look a bit flat in some situations... horses for courses though. I do like Portra 800 but don't shoot a lot of it because of the price. Hope this is useful, slightly off topic but there's mention of a scanner in there!

 

[ChrisR]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/145197982@N02/31651230128/in/album-72157695365592301/

excuse the photo! but this is a scan of hp5 at 400, scanned at 2400 dpi i think. In my opinion is not bad in terms of resolution but its not great, compared to the plustek link i posted. granted i dont know the details of that scan. My scan also has a high pass filter sharpening done to it

Ben, that is very nice indeed... if it is indeed yours? Bit confused by the name and central European location!

 

[Mr Badger]

I find my Epson V600 (pretty similar to the V550) gives the best results at 3200 dpi, so try that and see what you think. I toyed with getting a Plustek for 35mm scans but decided I had enough stuff on my desk already! If I shoot a film that I think contains some 'special' shots then I get AG or Filmdev to do a high res scan of it when I send it to be developed, if it's just general stuff then I go for develop only and home scan using my Epson at 3200 dpi and find it's fine for posting on here.

 

[stevelmx5]

Depending on what you want to take photos of, have a think about some Kodak Gold 200. Nice fine grain for a 200 ISO and I find it scans nicely on my Epson V600, it's quite a warm looking film so good for those '80s/90s look' holiday type photos and I'm planning to use it to capture some autumn colours this weekend now the oak trees are turning colour. 7 Day Shop are currently selling 5 rolls of 36 exp 135 Gold 200 for £21.00 including delivery, so it's quite a bit cheaper than Ektar 100. Portra 400 is good for skin tones but I find it can look a bit flat in some situations... horses for courses though. I do like Portra 800 but don't shoot a lot of it because of the price. Hope this is useful, slightly off topic but there's mention of a scanner in there!

Cheers for the idea. I've never shot Kodak Gold but some of the shots on Flickr do look nice. I've just bought a job lot of expired Portra 160vc to see how I get on. They're apparently 13 years OOD so I'll be shooting them at ISO 80/100 and am hoping there aren't any huge colour shifts as they've (apparently) been fridge stored all this time If I don't get on with these, I'll probably go back to Ektar as I've used that quite a bit in the past and liked the results.

 

[Mr Badger]

Cheers for the idea. I've never shot Kodak Gold but some of the shots on Flickr do look nice. I've just bought a job lot of expired Portra 160vc to see how I get on. They're apparently 13 years OOD so I'll be shooting them at ISO 80/100 and am hoping there aren't any huge colour shifts as they've (apparently) been fridge stored all this time If I don't get on with these, I'll probably go back to Ektar as I've used that quite a bit in the past and liked the results.

No problem, I don't think it's a bad deal at that price so I ordered another 5 rolls the other day. The ColorPlus 200 isn't bad, but it's jut a bit grainier than I like (prefer it to the old pound-shop AGFA though!), so earlier this year I thought I'd give the Gold a try and found I like it. The photos I posted of the old tractors at the ploughing match on 'Show us your film shots' (pages 525 & 528) were taken on Gold 200, so feel free to have a good squint at them at full size on Flickr if you like. Home scanned with an Epson V600 so you should get a good idea of what to expect. Best of luck with the Portra 160, hope it's OK.

 

[broc]

I bought a used 35mm Minolta film scanner which is USB attached. I also have an older Minolta SCSI attached scanner which can handle APS and 35mm, this is connected to an old DELL Precision laptop with the SCSI card in a docking station. The DELL laptop runs Windows XP as the Minolta software & drivers don't work on later O/S.

 

[wibbly]

I could do with thinking about a scanner for 35mm which would work with my Mac and won't break the bank, suggestions?

I seem to get totally confused with what works and doesn't work with a Mac whenever I research the topic!

 

[droj]

then I get AG or Filmdev to do a high res scan

I sent a 120 colour neg film to Ag for dev and scan, and whilst there was highlight detail discernible in the negs, the scans had blown them in some instances. Thus I'm reluctant to job out scanning to an automated process, and want hands-on control. For economic reasons, this means doing it in-house.

won't break the bank

Depends how big your bank is. A coolscan V for £400?

 

[ChrisR]

I could do with thinking about a scanner for 35mm which would work with my Mac and won't break the bank, suggestions?

I seem to get totally confused with what works and doesn't work with a Mac whenever I research the topic!

I think the simple choices work out to be the Plustek series if you're only concerned with 35mm, or the Epson Perfection series if medium format (120) is likely to be in your future (it will do both). For the Plusteks, the variants ending with an i (eg 7500i like mine) have the option of an additional infra-red scan to help remove dust etc automatically (doesn't work with most black and white, or Kodachrome). The Plusteks can also do multi-scan and multi-exposure, both of which have uses; I don't think the more affordable Epsons can do this, although I vaguely remember a hint that the more expensive Epsons can. All of these will work with Macs, although if you get a Plustek 7000 series in the box, it will come with a variant of Silverfast 6, which won't work with current Macs. In that case, you just buy Vuescan Pro, which a lot of people prefer anyway. If you got a Plustek 8000 series, they come with Silverfast 8 and AFAIK that will work with current Macs. Epsons come with Epson Scan, which some people like, if not, buy Vuescan Pro.

 

[ChrisR]

Writing that last post, it occurred to me that a couple of months ago I downloaded the 64-bit version of Vuescan Pro, and had some problems with it on my Mac with High Sierra. I should have reported them, but in order to check whether it was the scanner, I reverted to the 32-bit version, which worked fine, so I forgot about it.

Has anyone else had problems with the 64-bit version of Vuescan Pro on a Mac? The new version of OS-X, Mojave, is supposed to be the last version that will work with 32-bit software...