Film Scanner Suggestions

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Hello chaps,

I currently have a epson v300 which is getting old and more importantly cropping up lines on the scan from dust stuck inside the scanner somewhere. Its beginning to get annoying so I am looking for something new.

My thoughts are something like a

Plustek 8100 Ai or Epson V500.

The thing about the plustek that bothers me is that the mechanism looks a bit flimsy? Does anyone with actualy user experience confirm whether the film holder actually moves automatically or do you have to push it through.

I quite like the fact that v500 can scan 12 negatives in one go as well.
I am not really looking to print the results. Its more of a digital contact sheet process.

thanks
Sid
 
It depends on whether you want to just scan 35mm, or scan other formats as well. If you just want to scan 35mm then a dedicated scanner like a Plustek or Reflecta is desirable (as they are much better than flatbeds with 35mm), but then you will have to get another scanner should you want to scan 120 as well. (you do have to push the holder in for every frame BTW with the Plustek and with nearly all other current dedicated 35mm scanners)

If you want a dedicated 35mm scanner, you might want to look at the Reflecta Crystalscan 7200 (which is in a similar price band to the Plustek 8100), which also has Digital ICE infrared dust and scratch reduction for colour films, and (in my opinion) Reflecta scanners are that bit better than Plustek, especially with the Digital ICE.

Both do have the same problem though of you being forced to scan at the maximim 7200 dpi to get the maximum quality of ~3300 dpi (as although the sensor can resolve 7200 dpi, optics in the scanning pathway limit the actual resolved resolution) which increases the scanning time greatly, and means that you have to downsize them to avoid having massive files bloated with unnecessary data. If you use Vuescan though there is a useful reduction option though where it reduces the scan size by the specified factor to reduce noise. (The more expensive Reflecta Proscan 7200 which I have doesn't have this problem as the sensor purely only resolves 3600 dpi [which in actuality comes to about 3250 dpi], the 7200 on the front is for marketing purposes)

There are a couple of reviews on this site (which does quite in depth tests of film scanners) of both the Crystascan and the 8100 which you might find useful:

Crystalscan: http://www.filmscanner.info/en/ReflectaCrystalScan7200.html

Plustek 8100: http://www.filmscanner.info/en/PlustekOpticFilm8100.html
 
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The film holder has to be pushed through on the Plusteks. It isn't very flimsy - it just clicks into place. Certainly no more flimsy than the 35mm holders on the Epson scanners.

If you want a digital contact sheet, I'd get the V500. The quality is likely to be pretty poor compared to the Plustek (or the Reflecta that Samuel mentioned), but it'll be much faster and for a digital contact sheet, pretty adequate. I think the Epson scanners are pretty dire for 35mm work, but they are much better for batches.
 
I have a Pustek 7500i, which is mechanically much the same as the 8100 (I believe). It is, of course, 35mm only (although I did manage some slides of that square format... 110?). The negative holders are fine; they clip down nicely and have bars cross at the end of each frame to hold the strip flat. If you have curly negs, the strip is flexible enough to get a grip at the left end while still holding the film edge at the right end (probably more easily understood when you do it!). The slide holder is more fragile; mine has already lost one of its springy bits. But of course you only need that if you have mounted slides; unmounted transparencies go through the strip holder. And yes, you push it though for each frame; I push it until it clicks positively, then apply some back pressure just to make sure it's in the same place each time. An implication of all of this is, you have to visit your scanner each frame. With SilverFast I used to sit down briefly each frame and do any adjustments that are needed in the software to get the contrast right, etc. Since I don't know how to do this with Vuescan, it's a lot quicker. In between I'm doing something else...

BTW the 8100 has the updated version of SilverFast (8.x?), which might act more like a normal Mac or Windows program than the strangeness that is version 6. Having said that, everything is there where you need it in v6.

I haven't tried 35mm on the V.500; I suppose I should, but I'm put off by the film strip holder, which appears not to have any crossbars and I suspect won't hold the strip in place quite so firmly. But that's speculation... I suppose I'm also put off by the upper "resolution number" being 6400 rather than 7200 as in the Plustek, but I can hear Samuel muttering furiously under his breath about taking those numbers at face value! Actually I do remember a German site that does incomprehensible measurements involving a USAF "target", that seemed to imply the Plustek did do better than the Epson. And, as Samual has pointed out, some of the Reflectas also do even better.

I'm not sure there would be much less faffing between frames with the V.500; you may not have to move the strip-holder, but (AFAICS) you do have to move the frame selector mask with your mouse...
 
ChrisR said:
I haven't tried 35mm on the V.500; I suppose I should, but I'm put off by the film strip holder, which appears not to have any crossbars and I suspect won't hold the strip in place quite so firmly. But that's speculation... I suppose I'm also put off by the upper "resolution number" being 6400 rather than 7200 as in the Plustek, but I can hear Samuel muttering furiously under his breath about taking those numbers at face value! Actually I do remember a German site that does incomprehensible measurements involving a USAF "target", that seemed to imply the Plustek did do better than the Epson. And, as Samual has pointed out, some of the Reflectas also do even better.
Click to expand...

I guess I have got a bit of a reputation now! :lol:

Those links I gave above are to that German site, the only things that you really need to understand about the USAF 1951 target is the end DPI figure that they get off it, and it really separates the marketing specs from the actual real world ones!

The result that they got off the V500 was 1600 dpi (at 3200 dpi and above, less below) which is passably acceptable for medium format, but will only give about a 4 megapixel image for 35mm. Whilst that is fine for web use, for printing out except for 6"x4" or similar that is fairly bad.

The Plustek resolved about 3800 dpi, but crucially to get that you have to scan at the maximim 7200 dpi which greatly extends scan times, coming in at 3 minutes 56 seconds (with no multi exposure, with it it comes to 8 minutes 17 seconds).
 
Hi chaps,

Thanks for the replies, I'm in a connundrum now.
I could just keep the v300 for the digital contacts and use the plustek scanner when I want to a scan a good image "properly". I am not keen on lack of auto-feed, that makes the whole scanning thing very intensive. If I go upto V700 though, I could squeeze out good resolution on 24 negs at a go (leave it running overnight or something lol)
I mainly only shoot B&W, so I'm not fussed about DICE technologies.

I'm quite interested though in darkroom printing as well, as tbh if I wanted to scan and print, I would probably shoot digital anyways rather than shoot film.

Edit/ that was a poor reply but I am genuinely not sure, v700 is about twice what I was looking to spend tbh.
 
Just to add that some guys use their digital cameras to photograph their negs...sounds good? well you don't just put the neg on a table and take a shot, but use a home built setup to hold the camera and neg and then, as you are so close, you could probably use an old enlarging lens (if you can borrow one) that is if you don't have a macro lens.
 
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