Looking for 35mm negative scanner

RichArmitage

RichArmitage

Suspended / Banned
Messages
53
Edit My Images
Yes
I'm not entirely sure if this is the correct area to post this question but here goes.

I'm looking to get myself a scanner which is able to scan my 35mm negatives for me, so I can take more control of my images and not have to spend a fortune having them scanned and printed elsewhere.

I have been recommended the Epson V500, does anyone have any experience with this scanner?

If anyone could shed some light on this subject for me that would be great, any advise or experience, ideally I'm looking to spend around £100.

Thanks!
 
From posts from members here:- The V500 is good value for the money and gives reasonable results for 35mm and good results from medium format films..I'm sure other member here would give more info as I don't own one and have the V750.
 
There's loads of threads about scanners on here and the Epson is very highly regarded there are better scanners out there for 35mm scanning although probably not for £100.

The v500 is versatile and good value as is the Canonscan 9000 which you should be able to pick up 2ndhand for about £100
 
V500 user here. Works perfectly and of course will do 120 if you want to move up to medium format. You should be able to pick one up for a ton and generally they don't lose much value either.

Andy
 
might want to wait till the new v800 / 850 is out as the second hand prices on 500 / 700's will be bound to drop a bit
 
thorton said:
Don't bother with a flatbed if you're only scanning 35mm, you'll be much better pleased getting a dedicated 35mm scanner.
Click to expand...
I agree but I'm not sure there's much choice of dedicated 35mm scanners for £100
 
RaglanSurf said:
I agree but I'm not sure there's much choice of dedicated 35mm scanners for £100
Click to expand...

Some older Plusteks (7300, 7600, 7200 etc) are available for under £100. Plus some old Minolta DImage scanners (like the Dual III) can also be had for under £100 :)

I'd advise looking at the Plustek 7000 series.
 
Do they need a SCSI interface?
 
Agreed, my Plustek 7500i is USB-connected. Look out for the ones with an i after the number, they have the infra red channel, nice for dust spots on E6 and C41 films...
 
thorton said:
Some older Plusteks (7300, 7600, 7200 etc) are available for under £100. Plus some old Minolta DImage scanners (like the Dual III) can also be had for under £100 :)

I'd advise looking at the Plustek 7000 series.
Click to expand...


Interesting points as for example this guy doesn't think much of the V750 pro and I agree with his views esp for true dpi of 2300 dpi, so a V500 will not be better than the V750 and so it might be worth considering a dedicated 35mm scanner if only using 35mm film.

http://www.filmscanner.info/en/EpsonPerfectionV750Pro.html
 
V500 User, Previously had a much older Epson, and then a Canoscan. Very happy with my V500, I think that I paid a tad under £120 for it new, after shopping around online. I shoot both 35mm and 120 - mainly 6 x 6, but sometimes larger from a box camera. The 35mm holder is very good - you can fit up to 12 exposures between two strips in one scan (I usually cut to strips of five, so that is 10 exposures per scan). The 120 holder is a bit weak, and on 6 x 6, I can only scan two exposures at a time. I cut negatives in threes - so I have to turn it around for a second scan to catch the third exposure on a strip.

The holders are unfortunately non adjustable.

Most people use Vuescan as the scanner software. Personally, I get along fine with the supplied Epson software, although if I was to dump Windows - it won't run on Linux, unlike Vuescan.

It includes Digital Ice technology - great for C41 and E6, but no good for true b/w. However, it is very good, but can really slow down a scan.

Scan times - depends on resolution etc - but much faster than my previous Canoscan.
 
Hi

Going through this at the moment, trying the digitise about twenty years worth of negatives and slides, with 35mm & 120 and sadly only have an Epson 4490 flatbed scanner and although it is just about adequate for 120 it is really a poor option for 35mm with lack of sharp focus being the main issue.

Only a few years ago there where a large number of very good dedicated film scanners from the likes of Minolta, Nikon and Canon, but now other than Plustek there are virtually none. There are many cheap copy units that are based on poor quality digital cameras but no scanners other than Plustek who make both 35mm and 120 version, but the 120 version is very expensive.

You could go down the second hand route but the good ones often sell for more an they cost new because of the lack of new models.

Also you need to make sure you can get drivers for you computer and OS as most have been abandoned by the makers so no drivers are available for the newer windows and Mac OS's plus SCSI cards are not that popular or easy to get as well.

I have mentioned the Plustek scanners but have no experience with them and have not found any valid user reviews passing comment on the scan quality.

Of the many I have used in the past two I can recomend if you can get them and get them to work with you OS is the Minolta 5400 for 35mm which was one of the best ever made for that format and the Minolta Multi Pro for Upto 120. I so regret selling both for peanuts many years ago.

Paul
 
That felabay scanner seems a good price right now, but might shoot up in the last few minutes. It was the bottom of the range model, and does not include the infrared ICE option. Seller doesn't say what software etc is included.
 
Samuel on here recommends Reflecta scanners (the attached rather than stand-alone ones) but they are more expensive than Plustek (which I have). One thing to remember: you will potentially have your scanner for a long time, so it might be worth getting a decent one that will do a good job for you, and save you time in various ways (eg infrared saves spotting time). Also, you will likely get most of your money back when you sell.

But, on the subject of saving your time, the Plusteks are manual, one frame at a time. The decent flatbeds let you put in a lot of frames at once and the workflow can be much quicker, I believe.
 
If youre only going to be scanning old 35mm negs/slides and not shooting any more film then it's worth getting ome of the Nikon Coolscan scanners, unless you want to b****r about with scsi cards I'd go from the version IV/4000 onwards. Theyre not cheap but unless you pay way over the odds or break it you'll never lose money. As mentioned above if youre using a newer Mac you'll have to get a copy of Vuescan but if youve got an older PC then you can run the dedicated Nikoon software.
 
RichArmitage said:
Would this be a stand alone one?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Reflecta-...g_Rackmount_Cases_Chassis&hash=item3f3d34867c
Click to expand...

That's pretty much just a cheap digital camera in a box (a very slight upgrade from ones that Aldi etc sell) and is not a proper 35mm scanner (in the sense that we are talking). Reflecta's range is quite comprehensive and generally of high quality, although now sadly the prices are extraordinary compared to when I brought my Reflecta ProScan 7200 a few years ago.

If you want to get a proper 35mm scanner (anything that looks remotely similar to the scanner you linked above is not), look at the reviews on http://www.filmscanner.info/en/FilmscannerTestberichte.html that Brian mentioned above, as they really put the scanners through their paces in their tests and separate the reality from the marketing. They have reviews of most dedicated scanners from the past decade and further so that should give you a good selection to consider.
 
Yeah avoid the ones like that reflecta they're awful. As someone mentioned previously look for a plustek with an i at the end - it'll help loads on colour scanning. A 7200i shouldn't set you back too much.
 
Just remember to check that the software and drivers support your OS you would surprised how many windows scanners from well known makers have no drivers compatable withe Windows 8 or any version of Windows if you are using a 64bit version, canon should hang their heads in shame for ignoring the 64bit OS's

Paul
 
thorton said:
Some older Plusteks (7300, 7600, 7200 etc) are available for under £100. Plus some old Minolta DImage scanners (like the Dual III) can also be had for under £100 :)

I'd advise looking at the Plustek 7000 series.
Click to expand...

Plustek Scanners are meant to be very slow; I have a dedicated Reflecta 7200 scanner that is very good but has the styling of a mid-90's escort interior :lol:
 
H'mm this as all getting confusing and would be interested in the final choice by RichArmitage and why........ mind you with a nick like that would go for a coolscan. ;)
 
I think from everything I have seen and read I am going to go for a Plustek with an 'i' at the end for the scratch and dust removal.

I'ts just a matter of waiting for the right one to pop up on eBay for the right price i think, I can't seem to find them elsewhere.

I have found a few Minolta Dimage's, however none of them come with the usb cable, and after a quick search for the cable it seems to cost over £100 itself!
 
RichArmitage said:
I think from everything I have seen and read I am going to go for a Plustek with an 'i' at the end for the scratch and dust removal.

I'ts just a matter of waiting for the right one to pop up on eBay for the right price i think, I can't seem to find them elsewhere.

I have found a few Minolta Dimage's, however none of them come with the usb cable, and after a quick search for the cable it seems to cost over £100 itself!
Click to expand...

What type of film are you shooting? If you're shooting lots of traditional black and white, then the scratch and dust removal feature is worthless.

I previously owned a Plustek without the digital ICE feature and I just did the dust removal in Aperture or Lightroom; it's probably faster to do this than use the dust removal feature, as the digital ICE is slow.

The Plusteks are all exactly the same with regard to tech specs except for the dust and scratch removal feature. The different model numbers only refer to the bundled software and not differences in the hardware itself.

Personally, I couldn't see much of an advantage from the Plustek compared to my Epson 4490 flatbed to warrant keeping it. If I were really worried about maximising image quality, I'd be shooting medium format anyway.
 
RichArmitage said:
I think from everything I have seen and read I am going to go for a Plustek with an 'i' at the end for the scratch and dust removal.

I'ts just a matter of waiting for the right one to pop up on eBay for the right price i think, I can't seem to find them elsewhere.

I have found a few Minolta Dimage's, however none of them come with the usb cable, and after a quick search for the cable it seems to cost over £100 itself!
Click to expand...

The newer models (III and above) use a normal USB cable that you'll already have for your printer.

I admit it's confusing as some of the older ones need SSCI cards or something but just have a look at the back and if it has a male USB port you're set!

I used to have a Plustek 7600 and found it very good but manually advancing the negative holder got really boring as you had to sit at the computer the whole time.
 
robhooley167 said:
Do they need a SCSI interface?
Click to expand...

Only the original minolta scandual needs scsi from 2 onward they are usb I use a 3 but the 4 has Infrared spot removal as well.
They also have a focus ability. Which is a help with less than flat film.
 
skysh4rk said:
I previously owned a Plustek without the digital ICE feature and I just did the dust removal in Aperture or Lightroom; it's probably faster to do this than use the dust removal feature, as the digital ICE is slow.
Click to expand...

I suppose it's horses for courses here. Since I often do 4 passes (multi-pass) and a multi-exposure, the extra infrared pass is not much. It doesn't take as long as the multi-exposure scan, IIRC.
When I have volumes to do, I just start a frame, go away and do something (eg watch TV until the next ad break) then come back advance the frame and start the next scan. Over a period of several months I did several thousand old negatives and slides.

Where the infrared really does come into its own is for old stuff, particularly slides. If you have mounted slides from way back that you have shown a few times, they WILL have serious dust. I mean, thousands of dust marks per frame. Sadly most of mine were Kodachrome (where infrared dust removal doesn't work for the same reasons as for black and white, the sliver halide crystals blocking the infrared and being treated as dust) rather than Ektachrome (E6), it was still worth my while to spend time on many slides custom-building a mask for each frame to allow the infrared to work in the sky areas.
 
ChrisR said:
I suppose it's horses for courses here. Since I often do 4 passes (multi-pass) and a multi-exposure, the extra infrared pass is not much. It doesn't take as long as the multi-exposure scan, IIRC.
When I have volumes to do, I just start a frame, go away and do something (eg watch TV until the next ad break) then come back advance the frame and start the next scan. Over a period of several months I did several thousand old negatives and slides.

Where the infrared really does come into its own is for old stuff, particularly slides. If you have mounted slides from way back that you have shown a few times, they WILL have serious dust. I mean, thousands of dust marks per frame. Sadly most of mine were Kodachrome (where infrared dust removal doesn't work for the same reasons as for black and white, the sliver halide crystals blocking the infrared and being treated as dust) rather than Ektachrome (E6), it was still worth my while to spend time on many slides custom-building a mask for each frame to allow the infrared to work in the sky areas.
Click to expand...

I've never had old film and such great volumes of film to scan before, but I can see how the digital ICE could be advantageous in such a situation. If you're scanning small volumes of recently developed film though, I'm not sure it's as big a help.

I'm surprised to hear that you do four passes and a multi-exposure?

Perhaps slides are different with the Plustek, but I didn't think there was any benefit of multiple scans with negative film.
 
TBH this practice dates back from the start of my scanning marathon, I think it was something in the SilverFast guides:

Multiple scanning / Multiple sampling: Clarity can be improved while scanning difficult artwork. The image is scanned several times to determine the mean. In this manner, CCD noise, caused by thermal activity, particularly in dark areas of the image, can be significantly reduced depending on the number of samples.
Click to expand...

However, I did note in the tutorial on scanning with ColorPerfect in another thread, the guy saying he didn't use multi-scanning in case it softened the image. Just re-reading the SilverFast guide, I see they had a software auto-alignment to reduce the likelihood and impact of that. Perhaps I should stop multi-sampling!

I've also been told that multi-exposure is not important for negatives, but it seems to me it should be helpful in extracting more detail in highlight areas, which we have been discussing on and off in various threads.

Anyway, I'm generally re-thinking my scanning workflow as a result of these various conversations. Thanks, everyone!
 
skysh4rk said:
Perhaps slides are different with the Plustek, but I didn't think there was any benefit of multiple scans with negative film.
Click to expand...

Multi-exposure is a complete waste of time with negative film as obviously the dark tones (none of which are dense enough compared to slide to warrant needing additional exposure) represent highlights , but muti-pass scanning is very useful with both slides and negatives as it reduces scanner noise and is especially helpful with underexposed negatives if the scan needs to be brightened to correct the underexposure.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top