Scanner recommendation

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m1pui

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Pui
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Looking for a quick bit of guidance regarding a scanner. I'm looking for something to go through and scan old family photo's and perhaps get a some made into a photobook for family & old friends of parents.

I've got an (2009/10 model) HP Photosmart Premium C309G which has a built in scanner, only specs I can about the scanning side of it are;

- Resolution: up to 4800 x 4800 ppi optical (depends on model); 19200 ppi enhanced (software)
- Color: 48-bit color, 8-bit grayscale (256 levels of gray)

Basically just wondering if I'd get good enough results from the all-in-one or would I see much improved results from shelling out on a dedicated scanner?

Namely have been looking at the following;
- Canon LiDE 110 - for £70 mainly thinking it's the cheap and cheerful option, but is it going to be any better than the printer/scanner?
- Canon 9000F - £160, but would have to be ordered online which isn't ideal for me.
- Epson V500 - Also about £160 but can go and buy this from a shop tomorrow which appeals a lot!

Any advice is hugely appreciated :)
 
I have an Epson V500, it's superb for scanning everything from slides to 2 1/4 square.

At that price I'd go for it.
 
:plusone: V500. I think it's great though mine was £125 which I considered a bargain a couple of years back. £160 is still cheaper than some of the asking prices I have since seen.
 
Quality will be considerably better with a dedicated image scanner.

I previously owned the Epson 4990. Cant fault it, apart from scan time can be considerable (but I was scanning 4x5 film producing 1GB+ files).

Should be able to get one for less than £100.
 
I've read several reviews of Canon MFPs over the last few months. Most seem to suggest that Hewlett Packard are better at the scanner end of things.
 
If you want to scan negatives then either the canon 9000 or the Epson. Make sure you scan negs and slides rather than prints where possible!
 
I scanned all my negatives (a few thousand of them) with a Canonscan 8800F. Seemed to do a pretty reasonable job.
 
Thanks everyone

mark richards said:
if you are only doing scans of old photos , your better off using your camera.. better than buying a scanner & probably better results...mark
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Had a quick look into that after reading your post, sounds like a bit of a faff on with tripod/lighting/reflectors/softboxes to get decent results, unless there's a more ghetto way which I've not spotted on google.

jamiek said:
Quality will be considerably better with a dedicated image scanner.

I previously owned the Epson 4990. Cant fault it, apart from scan time can be considerable (but I was scanning 4x5 film producing 1GB+ files).

Should be able to get one for less than £100.
Click to expand...

Yeah, as I said in my post I can get that Canon 100 for £70, it's very compact which would be a bonus for moving it between home/work so I can use it wherever, but is the quality difference between that and all-in-one worth £70? Then (for my intended use) is a further £90 for the 9000/V500 worth the next jump or is it overkill?

alexhcowley said:
I've read several reviews of Canon MFPs over the last few months. Most seem to suggest that Hewlett Packard are better at the scanner end of things.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I never bought it with the intention of using the scanner! I needed/wanted a wifi printer, this was at CostCo for £90 last January and the cheapest I could get it anywhere else was around £190 so I took the plunge. The last scanner I had was a SCSI HP one and that was probably over 10 years ago so as you can imagine, my knowledge of them is near zero!

menthel said:
If you want to scan negatives then either the canon 9000 or the Epson. Make sure you scan negs and slides rather than prints where possible!
Click to expand...

Thank :thumbs: I have been mulling over that one too, I've got a few strips from my Holga and I'm sure there'll be loads of old negative strips laying around too. Some of my dad's photo's are, I think, from back when he was still living in Hong Kong and he came over here in 1960!

Thanks ChrisH & Dr_O too, I've reserved the last V500 at my local Argos so it's at least there for me whilst I decide in the next couple of hours :)
 
I had a quick go with the printer/scanner and this is what it's come out with


Dad02 by puihungma, on Flickr


Dad01 by puihungma, on Flickr

Well, they're jpeg versions of the TIFF files which came back at between 50-80 mb when scanned at maximum resolution (7559 pixels/cm). It did give me some warning that the files would be unnecessarily large though but I just ignored it and went ahead. I rescanned afterwards at the recommended resolution (79 p/cm iirc) but it pixelates a lot when you zoom in.
 
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