Beginner Educate me about B/W photo negative scanning..

[ManxTom]

This is a concept I'd not thought about or even considered until I got my Bronica ETRSi. I happened on a YouTube video with a guy talking about scanning black and white negs and turning them into positive 'images'. I have Lightroom and also Photoshop (and Gimp on another laptop) but it's the actual hardware I'm interested in. Which scanner? What sort of price? Is it, in the long run, a practical solution?

From what I have been able to Google it appears that Epson are the market leader in scanners (I've used, and liked, Epson printers for years). At this moment in time I don't have the space or resources to set up a darkroom etc.,

Whilst I am not a beginner to photography, I am a total beginner to all this new fangled digital scanning stuff. Can anyone offer an old man some advice??

 

[Shugpug]

Personally - I "scan" my negatives (35mm through 4x5) on a cheap LED light pad from Amazon with a m4/3 cameras on pixel shift mode. More than good enough to print from and, whilst a bit of a faff to set up every time, cheaper than a new scanner ("free" seeing as I already owned everything, but the light pad is not expensive) and takes up a whole lot less room. From what I understand, it is also a whole load quicker!

Here are a couple of examples - quality is up there with a real consumer scanner as far as I can work out. I think a drum scan would beat it, but now you're talking real expense and faff...Here

 

[TheBigYin]

https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/a-big-film-scanner-thread.709453/#post-8677520

 

[sirch]

The Epson V550 is a good starter and will scan up to 120 (6cm).