Best Way To Scan

iamchrisphoto

iamchrisphoto

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Chris Scuffins
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Hi,

Well I've only had my OM2n a few days and I'm well and truly smitten with shooting film. But I guess I better start looking at what I can do once I get my first film developed. :)

I had a look through some of the companies suggested in the sticky thread, and looking into some of those, decent sized scans (at least 5mp eqiv.) are going to cost at least £15 a film. Generally larger scans seem to be a lot lot more!

So is this what I can expect to pay for decent scans from now on? If I'm going through a roll or two a month that soon adds up.

Obviously scanning myself is an alternative, but will the results be comparable?

I was wondering if it will work out cheaper to get the film developed as normal and then scan myself on a £100-200 scanner?

I'm all a bit new to this, so would appreciate some help. :)

Thanks
 
iamchrisphoto said:
Hi,

Well I've only had my OM2n a few days and I'm well and truly smitten with shooting film. But I guess I better start looking at what I can do once I get my first film developed. :)

I had a look through some of the companies suggested in the sticky thread, and looking into some of those, decent sized scans (at least 5mp eqiv.) are going to cost at least £15 a film. Generally larger scans seem to be a lot lot more!

So is this what I can expect to pay for decent scans from now on? If I'm going through a roll or two a month that soon adds up.

Obviously scanning myself is an alternative, but will the results be comparable?

I was wondering if it will work out cheaper to get the film developed as normal and then scan myself on a £100-200 scanner?

I'm all a bit new to this, so would appreciate some help. :)

Thanks
Click to expand...

My Lab scans to CD at 3000x2000 for a mere £1.50 extra. The scans are very clear, no grain ever shows up and they have plenty of detail BUT you are stuck with standard auto levelling, which is fine if every shot is perfectly exposed at box speed, whic hperhaps accounts for 5% of my work.

I can scan much larger at home and at any exposure I need BUT I can never get my scans from my plustek 7200 to be as grain free and sharp as they can at the lab, even at the same resolution. (Plus some dust always gets in between lab and home, and the plustek really makes it stand out!)

I have already eyed up a proper Minolta 5400 II but at £500 I suspect I'll be waiting a while for that. :(
 
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I think most of the regulars in here, either develop and scan their own B&W films tbh.

some cranks like me, even process their own colour (c41 and e6 :eek:)
 
Well for colour:- It depends what are you going to do with your shots...if you are just going to post them on a forum or email with no large cropping, or 4X6" prints.....then a supermarket scan (maybe with a few spots to clean up in PS :) ) is good enough. I'm happy with Asda, and found it's quite hard to beat an expensive Fuji Frontier scanner with an Epson V750 as all you get is less pixel breakup for your money compared to Asda's low scan.
 
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TheBigYin said:
I think most of the regulars in here, either develop and scan their own B&W films tbh.
Click to expand...

Including me - it was a no brainer. I wanted to shoot B&W predominantly (and still do), and although C-41 colour dev is still cheap in most places, B&W tends to be hand processed and thus expensive. The cheapest place I could find was £6-7 a roll, and at one point I had nearly 10 rolls in my "to develop" bag - simply not feasible, let alone scanning on top of that!

Got the developing tank, the changing bag and chemicals and the bathroom sink. Developed upwards of 40+ rolls now :thumbs: chemicals per roll works out to about 40-50p. I bought a scanner second hand off eBay, an old Epson 4180, it does both 35mm and medium format (slowly). But considering it cost me the same amount it would cost me to get 3-4 rolls of film scanned commercially, it was a done deal! :)
 
Alan Clogwyn said:
My Lab scans to CD at 3000x2000 for a mere £1.50 extra. The scans are very clear, no grain ever shows up and they have plenty of detail BUT you are stuck with standard auto levelling, which is fine if every shot is perfectly exposed at box speed, whic hperhaps accounts for 5% of my work.

I can scan much larger at home and at any exposure I need BUT I can never get my scans from my plustek 7200 to be as grain free and sharp as they can at the lab, even at the same resolution. (Plus some dust always gets in between lab and home, and the plustek really makes it stand out!)

I have already eyed up a proper Minolta 5400 II but at £500 I suspect I'll be waiting a while for that. :(
Click to expand...

Do you mind me asking who your lab is? That sounds exactly what I was looking for in terms of price/resolution. (Assuming that's £1.50 per CD, not per frame)
 
Photo Express in Hull charged me £9.50 to dev and scan 2 C41 films. The scans are fine for web use (3000x2000 or so jpegs) but I don't think they will print out to well. Their developing is good though and you get nice, clean negatives.
 
iamchrisphoto said:
Do you mind me asking who your lab is? That sounds exactly what I was looking for in terms of price/resolution. (Assuming that's £1.50 per CD, not per frame)
Click to expand...

That's my local lab - Fotostop in Pwllheli. :thumbs:
 
A local independent will dev and scan a roll for about £5.. minilab developed and they don't fire it up every day. But I usually choose to scan myself (V500), I'm either a masochist or I'm trying to justify buying the scanner.
 
Alastair said:
A local independent will dev and scan a roll for about £5.. minilab developed and they don't fire it up every day. But I usually choose to scan myself (V500), I'm either a masochist or I'm trying to justify buying the scanner.
Click to expand...

Hmm. I was looking at the V500. What sort of files do you get out of that if you don't mind me asking?
 
iamchrisphoto said:
Hmm. I was looking at the V500. What sort of files do you get out of that if you don't mind me asking?
Click to expand...

I'm very happy with them now that I have my workflow sorted. It does take time to get a good scan, get it set-up to scan the maximum infirmation from the scan and then process that into the finished digital file.


Kodak Portra 400, RB67 Pro S


Fuji Pro 400H, Yashica D


Fuji FP-100C, RB67 Pro S

The revelation to me was finding this blogpost that got me thinking about how to get the best end image from scanning a negative.
 
Thanks to everyone for all the help so far.

Lots of links and companies to look into.

There seems to be a huge range in price and resolution. And of course I could do some or all of this myself.....lots to think about!
 
Alastair said:
I'm very happy with them now that I have my workflow sorted. It does take time to get a good scan, get it set-up to scan the maximum infirmation from the scan and then process that into the finished digital file.
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing, they look very good to me. May just go ahead and buy a scanner and learn the process myself rather than paying someone else to do it. :)
 
Id much rather scan my own. Using medium format i dont see the point of getting a 3000x3000 scan back from a lab, thats less resolution than my D300 could do so completely misses the point of a larger format for me.
 
I think for me, it's more the "control freak" side of my nature coming out - it's not really about the money - if I cared about the cost, I'd not be shooting film anymore, but having complete and total control of the process - from the selection of the correct film in the beginning, through the whole photographic part, and then selection of the appropriate (for the subject you hope and pray you've captured on the film) developer and processing times/concentrations/agitation methods. And then you get to scan things and have yet another level of control (or at the least, another crack at getting it nearer to what you wanted). Yes, that level of control - or at least perceived control, really appeals to my OCD side :)
 
If you have an independent lab near you that has a Fuji Frontier ask for the top scans that are at 4500 dpi.
 
TheBigYin said:
I think for me, it's more the "control freak" side of my nature coming out - it's not really about the money - if I cared about the cost, I'd not be shooting film anymore, but having complete and total control of the process - from the selection of the correct film in the beginning, through the whole photographic part, and then selection of the appropriate (for the subject you hope and pray you've captured on the film) developer and processing times/concentrations/agitation methods. And then you get to scan things and have yet another level of control (or at the least, another crack at getting it nearer to what you wanted). Yes, that level of control - or at least perceived control, really appeals to my OCD side :)
Click to expand...

I think that's what I'm finding hardest about shooting film. I just hate the idea of popping film in the post and hoping that the lab doesn't screw it up or lose it or whatever. I'm so used to being able to control everything from beginning to end with digital. And thats a benefit I never really appreciated until now. :)
 
iamchrisphoto said:
Yeah seems reasonable, but your still looking at £10 for a med res CD plus developing. If I bought a scanner for £130, it would pay for itself after 13 rolls of film.
Click to expand...

Yeah your right and I think its probably time I started looking at getting a scanner as well. :thumbs:

Andy
 
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iamchrisphoto said:
I think that's what I'm finding hardest about shooting film. I just hate the idea of popping film in the post and hoping that the lab doesn't screw it up or lose it or whatever. I'm so used to being able to control everything from beginning to end with digital. And thats a benefit I never really appreciated until now. :)
Click to expand...

erm well you can dev and scan yourself, colour or B/W ;)
 
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