Scanning negatives 35mm and medium format

ShawWellPete

ShawWellPete

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My wedding photos were taken by a friend 12 years ago who was a trainee photographer at the time. He gave me the negatives so I could order reprints if I wanted to. I thought I had lost them but they appeared recently at my Mum's house who had obviously been given them for safe keeping.

I would like to get all the negatives scanned as there are many more photos than we have in the album, I am also not that keen on some of the processing he did which now looks a bit dated. There are at least 100 frames in medium format and 35mm.

Any ideas the best way of getting them scanned as a reasonable quality file? I had a quick google and one company was quoting £4 a frame for medium format scan into TIFF which seems a bit pricey, the JPEG was half the price.
 
Get a film scanner like an Epson V500 and a copy of Vuescan. It'll pay for itself considering the amount of negs you want to scan in. You can do about 24 raw scans in about 20 mins, just organise them and process the TIFFs when you need them for printing/sharing.
 
Yes do them yourself, a bit soul destroying but worth it.
Wonder how many more people will look at wedding and portrait images and come to the same conclusion "I am also not that keen on some of the processing he did which now looks a bit dated"
(Goes for instagram etc as well)
 
You might want to try this place:

http://www.treasured-memories.org.uk/products_52.html

They do a scanning package of 50 35mm negatives at 4000dpi for £35 (70p each but add 60p extra for 120) and charge an extra 45p (+60p for 120) for each extra image so all in all thats not too bad compared to prices most places charge and they use a Coolscan 9000ED which is probably the best film scanner ever made. The price are for 100% Jpegs but they will do 16 bit TIFF's for another extra charge (25p per image). I would email them for a quote. I have used their sister company which transfers cine film and they did an excellent job.

Be wary of places offering prices such as 20p a scan, I used one of those companies and although the scans were o.k, they were extremely soft and the level of sharpening they required to even come close to the original just increased noise, plus there was a distinct lack of shadow detail in a lot of images and quite a few negatives had very low saturation compared to the original (Kodak Ektar looking so unsaturated just looks wrong!)

Plus getting someone else to do it will likely save you money as it will probably cost less than a scanner which you might not use very much afterwards.
 
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^ there is a strong market for used flatbed film scanners though.
 
There seems to be a strong market for decent film scanners, full stop.

When Nikon Coolscans are selling for more than they were new on eBay, you wonder why they don't restart production.
 
If you're only going to do these films then I wouldn't buy a scanner Pete. It's time consuming, soul destroying stuff.

I'm pretty sure Peak Imaging will scan films even if they've been developed elsewhere and their service is excellent.
 
Kev M said:
If you're only going to do these films then I wouldn't buy a scanner Pete. It's time consuming, soul destroying stuff.

I'm pretty sure Peak Imaging will scan films even if they've been developed elsewhere and their service is excellent.
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Err... Have you ever seen Peaks prices for scanning??

They want £2.20 per 120 image and £1.25 per 35mm image, so assuming that he has 50 120 negs and 50 35mm negs then that comes to £172 + postage!

And its fairly vague about the actual scanning resolution, it just says 'opens up to a 25mb jpeg file'.

I've had to stop using Peak for my E-6 developing as their prices have just become unusable, I've switched to getting all my E-6 done by 'The Darkroom' who have just as good quality for a cheaper price.
 
s162216 said:
And its fairly vague about the actual scanning resolution, it just says 'opens up to a 25mb jpeg file'.
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If memory serves me well, that's about the size of an A4 page at 300 dpi with 8-bit per channel RGB.
 
Musicman said:
If memory serves me well, that's about the size of an A4 page at 300 dpi with 8-bit per channel RGB.
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The "opens up" is a bit of a mad thing. If it's 25MB RGB uncompressed, and 8bit per channel, then it's 25/3=8 megapixels(ish)
 
s162216 said:
Err... Have you ever seen Peaks prices for scanning??

They want £2.20 per 120 image and £1.25 per 35mm image, so assuming that he has 50 120 negs and 50 35mm negs then that comes to £172 + postage!

And its fairly vague about the actual scanning resolution, it just says 'opens up to a 25mb jpeg file'.

I've had to stop using Peak for my E-6 developing as their prices have just become unusable, I've switched to getting all my E-6 done by 'The Darkroom' who have just as good quality for a cheaper price.
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Err.. well they never charged my that much when I had scanning done there but that was a couple of years ago. Given that there are 100 images I'd say £1.72 per image isn't that bad for a professional job given the amount of time it can take to get a decent scan at home.

I guess it depends how much you value your time.
 
Kev M said:
Err.. well they never charged my that much when I had scanning done there but that was a couple of years ago. Given that there are 100 images I'd say £1.72 per image isn't that bad for a professional job given the amount of time it can take to get a decent scan at home.

I guess it depends how much you value your time.
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You must be really slow at scanning then. Once you've got the right settings in your software (which is easy as you can just google them/ask around here) it's a simple matter of loading the negatives and letting the scanner do its thing.
 
Not really. I've got an Epson 4490 with the standard ****** negative holder. Negatives are cut in strips of three frames and the negative holder only shows two. By the time you do a proof scan then the real thing at a decent resolution It's the best part of five to ten minutes for two frames. Then you have to reset the strip and repeat for the third frame. Repeat four times for one roll of 120.

35mm is probably a piece of **** and 100x quicker but seeing as 35mm is for girls I haven't had the need to scan any.;)

Even if you bog off between strips you can't get much productive done because you have to keep coming back to the scanner.

I still maintain that scanning is a soul destroying activity and the least enjoyable part of film photography. Given that Pete isn't a film photographer so there isn't much point in him shelling out for a scanner to sit around gathering dust or lose money selling it on. He should consider those costs, plus the time spent away from his family and fire it off to someone else to do.
 
I started scanning a roll of 35mm at 11AM. I've scanned in 22 frames (the rest are bin material) and of the 22 keepers I have actually finished processing 6 and am currently uploading to Flickr. Thats an average of over an hour an image.
 
What's your workflow? Because unless you're doing some Leibovitz style retouching (and looking at your flickr, that doesn't seem like your style) an hour an image is insanely long.
 
It doesn't take me that long with an Epson v700.

I've scanned and PP-ed (sharpening, colour and levels) 36 slides since 9 am today. But I've also taken my 4 year old son to school and back, made lunch, kept him entertained for an afternoon and cooked and eaten a spaghetti bolognaise.
 
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Kev M said:
snip
Even if you bog off between strips you can't get much productive done because you have to keep coming back to the scanner.

I still maintain that scanning is a soul destroying activity and the least enjoyable part of film photography. snipped
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I'm with you there. For a couple of months now I've loved playing with 35mm and MF film cameras as a complete antidote to DSLR and I find scanning the negs so ditchwater dull that I'd rather pay the local shop to dev my film and put it to CD which I can then play with. Rather like copying your collection of vinyl LPs to digital format. That's 35mm anyway. As to MF, my first films are still waiting to be collected, having been dev'd and printed. Let's see what I can produce before thinking about how to get the results onto the 'puter.
 
FruitFlakes said:
What's your workflow? Because unless you're doing some Leibovitz style retouching (and looking at your flickr, that doesn't seem like your style) an hour an image is insanely long.
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Load the ******* curly negs into the holder (5mins wasted!), prescan, accidentally click on the image and have Silverfast randomly change every setting, reset to correct settings, set black and white points, any curve adjustments and crop. Scan it at 14x8@300dpi output (don't know what that works out as at scanner level) which takes a while as TIFF. It's then loaded into PSP automatically. Realise Silverfast has failed and actually scanned it as a positive despite it clearly saying negative in the dialog and displaying a negative preview, re scan having changed settings and changed back, reload in PSP Remove every dust spot, apply any additional PP required, straightening etc, export as high res 100% JPEG, back to silverfast and next frame, repeat as above! :thumbs:

Dust removal is the killer, and I should note the film referred to here was for aclient so EVERY dust speck no matter how small or trivial was removed. My Flickr images are not so meticulous (although I would clean them up to the same standard for printing or if anyone wants to use them).
 
Sorry guys, I thought I had subscribed to this thread but hadn't so didn't see the replies. I found a local company in Sevenoaks who were reasonable and, as it unlikely I will need to do it again, was happy to let them get on with it. Waiting for the results now...
 
I don't understand why it costs more for a TIFF file than a JPG. Does the scanning software start up with JPG by default and they charge you more for the operator to go and check the TIFF option instead? And the cost of that manual labor to push a mouse button reoccurring for subsequent scans you may have? My scanner scans the same speed if I select either JPG, TIFF, DNG or RAW as the output.
 
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It's probably just an excuse to extract more money from the customer. Hope the results are good Pete.
 
what sort of resolution would you scan 6x6 negatives at?

The only reason i ask is that i sent a couple of rolls off to Ilford for their develop and scan service. Now their hi res option was a scan at 3000x3000 pixels. I didnt think much of it at the time so just ticked the box and away they went. But thinking about it now thats actually a smaller resolution than my much smaller sensored D300. I got the scans back today and theyre indeed 3000x3000 jpg's and look fine but they defenitly dont look as detailed as my shots that i did at the same time on my D300 for comparison.

Im thinking of getting an epson v700 next payday as £15 a scan per roll is a bit much especially if theyre ending up lower res than my digital, it seems to defeat the point of having a MF camera.

Anyway, after all that waffle! what would you recomend as a good resolution for a 6x6 negative? Im sure i saw a thread on here before covering this with someone showing a link to a photo from a drum scanner and how much you could zoom in on it, but i cant find it now.
 
I scan on my flatbed at 2400dpi which gives me a 6x6 of 5500x5500 pixels, which I find strikes the right balance between working on it in photo editing software & archival. That's already 30 megapixels. For scanners that can output 4800dpi scans, that's approximately 11,000 pixels on each side, giving a final output of 121 megapixels. This is where the benefit of medium format always was, and evidently still is - that wider area gives so much more flexibility and enlargement potential.
 
On a flatbed don't bother scanning past about 2400 dpi as although the CCD may be able to resolve 6000 dpi or whatever, the actual optics in the pathway (especially the high pass filter) limit the actual resolution that it can resolve.
 
s162216 said:
On a flatbed don't bother scanning past about 2400 dpi as although the CCD may be able to resolve 6000 dpi or whatever, the actual optics in the pathway (especially the high pass filter) limit the actual resolution that it can resolve.
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Yay!


I was wondering who would be first to say this :)

Not disagreeing by the way!
 
Cuchulainn said:
Yay!


I was wondering who would be first to say this :)

Not disagreeing by the way!
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Thats actually one of the many reasons why the Nikon Super Coolscan 9000ED is/was so special - it actually very nearly reached its claimed DPI at 3900 out of the claimed 4000.
 
Yes, I've upgraded to a V500 and it's nice, but for 35mm, the Coolscan 4000 I use still beats it easily. I'd love to have access to a 9000 for medium format. My day job is optics research, so I'm well aware of the difference between optical resolution and ccd oversampling :)
 
so what would you say is the better scanner to buy then?

The Epson v700, Epson v750 or the Coolscan 9000f (im assuming that was the one you referred to)

Theres quite a huge price difference between the epsons and canon

*edit* ahh its the nikon coolscan in the mail above :) my bad
 
s162216 said:
On a flatbed don't bother scanning past about 2400 dpi as although the CCD may be able to resolve 6000 dpi or whatever, the actual optics in the pathway (especially the high pass filter) limit the actual resolution that it can resolve.
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I believe I read a few times somewhere that on Epsons (V500...V750) it may be beneficial to scan at 4800 dpi and downsize it to 2400 in PP. The difference is not large but apparently it is there.

I was trying to use it on my V500 but have not yet seen a standing out difference (though I am still trying to get some kind of reasonably priced solution to keep films flat).
 
dalex_257 said:
I believe I read a few times somewhere that on Epsons (V500...V750) it may be beneficial to scan at 4800 dpi and downsize it to 2400 in PP. The difference is not large but apparently it is there.

I was trying to use it on my V500 but have not yet seen a standing out difference (though I am still trying to get some kind of reasonably priced solution to keep films flat).
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That is actually true with some scanners, with the Plustek 7600i one very technically in depth review tested its resolution at 7200 dpi on a standard "1951 USAF resolution test chart" and found it resolved about 3250dpi but when the test chart was scanned again at about 3600 dpi the amount resolved dropped to 2600 dpi. They commented that it was very annoying as a single scan with multi-exposure and IR dust/scratch correction took about 15 minutes at 7200 dpi compared to about 5 minutes at 3600 dpi.

Review here:

http://www.filmscanner.info/en/PlustekOpticFilm7600i.html
 
s162216 said:
That is actually true with some scanners, with the Plustek 7600i one very technically in depth review tested its resolution at 7200 dpi on a standard "1951 USAF resolution test chart" and found it resolved about 3250dpi but when the test chart was scanned again at about 3600 dpi the amount resolved dropped to 2600 dpi. They commented that it was very annoying as a single scan with multi-exposure and IR dust/scratch correction took about 15 minutes at 7200 dpi compared to about 5 minutes at 3600 dpi.

Review here:

http://www.filmscanner.info/en/PlustekOpticFilm7600i.html
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That might throw some light on my glitch with my 7200 which changes colour at around the same place! It is certainly still resolving detail at around 3200dpi which is what I tend to scan at.
 
If anyone owns one or the other, is there that much difference between an Epson V700 and the V750? Seems to be about £130 / £140 difference in the two. Just wondering if the 750 is worth it.
 
essexash said:
If anyone owns one or the other, is there that much difference between an Epson V700 and the V750? Seems to be about £130 / £140 difference in the two. Just wondering if the 750 is worth it.
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Well I've the V750 and I'd be very surprised if you could see the difference between the two. IMO it's good for about 2400dpi which is about equivalent of a 5-6mp digital camera....although some say if you use all the tricks of a pro you can get better results, but I'm not going to spend my life over something that should automatically give the sharpest results for anybody that is reasonably competent.
 
The difference between the v700 and v750 is the silverfast software it comes with, I believe Ed has a v750 and thus experience of the silverfast software.

It's supposedly brilliant but I haven't used it. Multi pass/exposure scanning etc?
 
I thought the V750, in addition, also had anti-reflection coatings on the glass?

As for Silverfast, the multi-pass option can be configured in the software that comes with the V750. But you need an upgrade, I think, for multi-exposure.

Also, I think the fluid/wet-scanning kit is available to purchasers of the V750 (as a freebie from Epson - though it does not include any fluids). Not sure that is the case with the V700.
 
I'm probably wrong then, just going on what I've been told. I'd love to upgrade from the V500 to the V750, I've seen some wonderful things from that scanner from friends of mine. One thing at a time though eh :)
 
kartracer said:
I thought the V750, in addition, also had anti-reflection coatings on the glass?

As for Silverfast, the multi-pass option can be configured in the software that comes with the V750. But you need an upgrade, I think, for multi-exposure.

Also, I think the fluid/wet-scanning kit is available to purchasers of the V750 (as a freebie from Epson - though it does not include any fluids). Not sure that is the case with the V700.
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Yep. I think that's all true.

I decided the extra money wasn't worth it for my needs and got a V700.

The $80 Professional version of Vuescan does multi-pass scanning at a considerably lower cost than the versions of Silverfast that do; plus you get guaranteed free upgrades for life and the ability to save the scan to a RAW file with Vuescan.

While I'm still pretty happy with it, I must admit I'm feeling more and more inclined to get a dedicated film scanner for 35mm if/when I have the money spare.
 
Yep, I have a V750 and I got the free fluid scanning kit sent directly from Epson, although I haven't tried it yet.

As stated the differences between the V700 and V750 are the anti-reflection coating, Silverfast AI (which I upgraded to AI Studio, which is considerably better than AI, I also got a free upgrade to Silverfast AI Studio V8 but cant get it to work properly), and if you want it the fluid scanning kit is free which is not the case with the V700.

I have got an Epson 3700 (which I have to get off to a member on here as I said he could have it) and a Microtek i900 and the V750 beats them both hands down.
 
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