Negative scanner for film photographer?

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shimada

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Hello,

I would like to ask some advice from those who shoot on film and then scan their negatives in digitally to process. In the past I have primarily shot on film, I studied photography at art school and would say my work is more slanted towards fine art and I always find digital somehow disapointing next to film which is entirely personal of course. I was spoiled at art school in London and Edinburgh where I had access to great dark rooms and facilities but now I live about 2 hours drive away from the nearest public dark rooms which are always booked out and I currently don't have the option of building my own dark room. I have been shooting on digital but I have a very basic Pentax K-x and I am not getting the results I want (I do plan to get a better digital camera in future).

I also have a collection of beautiful and quirky film cameras that are gathering dust because I don't have the opportunity to shoot film. I have been wondering if I were to get a good scanner that did negatives if I could go bac to shooting film and then just process the film myself and scan the negatives into the computer? Would I be right in thinking that this method would give me some of the film quality I have been missing? I would like to be able to do some digital processing and I know that doing so would alter the appearance of the final image but would it still be more filmy than a straight up digital image?

The Scanner I am looking at is the Epson v500 not the best I am sure but best I can manage on my tiny budget. I am hopeful that this will give me a way of shooting on film again but I would love some advice on what the scanned negatives really are like how close do you find the image to be to film? Is it noticably different to digital?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!
 
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I've moved the thread into the Film and Conventional section for you... there'll be someone along any moment to confuse the living daylights out of you :)
 
Thank you so much, I am looking at some old thread now, very confusing lots of various views and it seems your workflow and software is pretty important also. I should also make clear that I shoot in both 35mm and 120mm so I need something that would work for both!

Also I'd like to be able to print up to a decent size if possible, of course I have the option of using the negative but how large a print could I hope to make from a scanned negative?
 
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The V.500 is about the cheapest option that will do both 120 and 35mm, but I understand it's not the best at 35mm. A V.700 is quite a bit dearer, but should do a better job, and will go up to LF as well. I have a Plustek 7500i for 35mm, and then bought a V500 that I use for 120. I did originally plan to sell the Plustek, but I'm keeping it for now.

I've got A3 prints on my wall that I scanned on the Plustek from 35mm Kodachrome and Ektachrome at 3600 dpi, and they look great.
 
Hi Shimada, welcome to the best bit of Talkphotography.

I find the V500 perfectly adequate for my needs both for 35mm and 120, it does a fine job for not very much money and should you want to move onto something a bit more fancy you probably won't lose a lot of cash when selling it on.
So, no excuses get that old film camera out, get some film in it and get shooting. We will expect to see the results though.

Cheers

Andy
 
Another vote for the V500. You can see on some of the threads in this section the great results some get from scanning film using a variety of scanners and the V500 seems to do a very capable job.
 
I am very pleased with my V500. It has served me very well and since buying it I have pretty returned to exclusively shooting film
 
Jao said:
I am very pleased with my V500. It has served me very well and since buying it I have pretty returned to exclusively shooting film
Click to expand...

Wot he says, me too! I'm not a great lover of the scan routine so usually I get my 35mm snaps "dev and cd" but this limits the resolution. My 120 fillum I scan exclusively.
 
Another vote for the V500

Anyone noticing a trend here?
 
Hello everyone, thank you so much for all your advice I managed to get a display model Epson V500 yesterday at my local currys for a very good price so I just went for it. It was a steal so if I want to get something better in a year or so I will hopefully have had my moneys worth! The main thing is it will allow me to shoot on film again!

Now I just need to sort out some chemicals and I'll be sorted, I wonder does anyone know any good reasonable postal services for B&W neg development just until I get my processing set up sorted?

Perhaps this is covered else where in here so I will go for a look!

Thank you again everyone!
 
I can't recommend any where for b&w as I've always done it myself but the sticky at the top is a good place to start.
 
The V500 is pretty good for the price, I bought one used for £65 including shipping.
It needed a good clean of the glass, take a good look at yours and make sure its spick and span.

I will be upgrading in the new year and maybe a V700 for me.
 
Whenever asked I always suggest starting at an Epson 750 then work your way down the numbers until you get to one that meets your needs and budget - on this threads feedback the sweet spot seems to be the 500.
 
One of my work colleagues bought the v700.

When he saw my v500 scans he concluded he'd spent too much money.

Could be he wasn't getting the best out of it but it seems the v500 is perfectly good enough for general use.
 
AG is very cheap for black and white and do a good job but can be very slow. Peak are generally accepted as excellent, as are several others.
 
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