Photo and negative scanners

Phil1974

Phil1974

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Hi all,
I would like some advice and recommendations on the best photo and negative scanners to convert a whole load of prints, negatives and slides to digital. I believe the slides and negs are all 35mm (normal P&S cameras from the 70s & 80s). I am running a standard Windows 10 laptop if that makes a difference. Also, and I apologise for my lack of understanding, but I assume the negatives contain the colour information of the printed photo? I'm not sure how the processing works as you can tell :)

TIA,
Phil.
 
If you are just trying to get digital copies to share on social media and maybe print a few 6x4 copies then the best all rounder is probably one of the Epson Perfection V series, most older versions can be found secondhand for not too much money and new they start at around £200 I think.

There are better dedicated scanners out there for 35mm but since you want to copy prints as well this is probably the most cost effective solution.

The bundled Epson scanner software is ok although I’d recommend Vuescan, it gives a little more control.

There are a lot of posts about scanning in this bit of the forum if you want to do a bit more research.
 
As Nick said. The requirement for scanning prints as well as negatives and slides limit the choices. I haven't tried Epson Scan for years (about 14 at a guess) and use VueScan with Epson flatbed scanners (several, over the years).
 
StephenM said:
As Nick said. The requirement for scanning prints as well as negatives and slides limit the choices. I haven't tried Epson Scan for years (about 14 at a guess) and use VueScan with Epson flatbed scanners (several, over the years).
Click to expand...

Would it be better to look at buying different bits of kit? One to scan the prints and one for negatives and slides? Willing to consider if it makes it easier and is fairly cost-effective.
 
This might be worth a read: https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/a-big-film-scanner-thread.709453/

What's your final output? If it's just for web use or printing in a small book (6x4 sized prints) then there are smartphone apps that will convert negs and you could use the regular phone camera to take a photo of the prints.

Will you need it once you're done? If you're a film shooter or thinking of becoming one, then investing in a decent scanner will pay dividends. But if this is a one off thing, that's another matter.

You don't mention budget... :)

Do you have any post processing software? (LR, Photoshop, Elements) Do you have a DSLR with the sort of lenses that could copy a negative (typically a macro lens or extension tubes). If so you could photo them with your DSLR and process them in photoshop. There's a Lightroom plugin called Negative Lab Pro that will convert negatives to positives in Lightroom, but there are lots of tutorials for reversing negatives in Photoshop or other software. If you have thousands of negatives though, this will take ages.
 
As Nick said, it will depend on the intended use of the scans. How big do you intend to print? I'm happy with the performanceof my earlier Epson scanners with A3 prints from 6x7 negatives, and my current V850 produced surprising good A3 prints from Kodachrome slides.

The really big issue to my mind is the warning flag raised by your "whole load of" phrase. To reduce the effort, you must reduce the number of times you have to load and unload the carriers. If print size won't exceed A4, I'd suggest that the most important consideration would be to choose a flatbed scanner that has holders that will take many slides/negatives at once. The cheaper Epson scanners are more limited in the area they can scan, and will be a more labour intensive solution.
 
It’s really a one-off project. My father recently passed away and I want to digitise the family photo collection. Basically there are hundreds of prints and negatives in old original Truprint folders that need to be scanned and put on the pc. I’d like to do a good job and ideally keep the scanner after in case I want to do some more. Budget I guess would be a couple of hundred but willing to go a bit higher if needs be. There probably won’t be too many prints and nothing I can foresee over A3 although an option of bigger is always better.
 
It's easy enough but slides do take a while to scan depending on the resolution.

This is why I bought a Kaiser slide duplicator from eBay secondhand for a tenner.

Just need a T2 mount for the camera and good to go.

Really only works on full frame cameras though due to the crop factor.
 
Phil1974 said:
Did you find it easy to use and did the process take long per slide? Not sure how much of a mission this is going to be [emoji1]
Click to expand...

The V550 is quite straightforward. It comes with a plastic carrier for negs as well as a carrier for slides. You can do 12 35mm negatives in one go (2 strips of 6) or 4 35mm slides.

Tip#1 - When you've turned it on, wait for the ready light to stop flashing before you access the software.
Tip#2 - I use Silverfast (rather than the Epson scan software which is pretty terrible - IMO of course!) Once you've gone through the pain of getting your first set of negatives, repeated scans are very quick.
 
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