Which scanner?

[idingsdale]

Hi All,

I'm know very little about photography myself so please be gentle with me!

My late grandfather was a photographer for one of the large Scottish newspapers and I want to scan and restore as best I can his lifetime's work. Almost all of the photographs will be black and white prints without negatives. They have been stored in a shed in boxes for the last few years so wont be in pristine condition!

There are probably going to be thousands of photos so I wanted to invest in a good quality scanner to help with the job. I cant spend a fortune (Sub £200) and I dont really know where to begin. I have seen some scanners that use IR to identify and fix scratches and dust marks, is this technology worth using? Are there any scanners out there that would feed photos automatically to speed up the process?

Thanks for any advice, suggestions or tips!

 

[joxby]

I think you're stuck between a rock and a hard thing, with no negs.
Although if your grandfather was really into printing, the prints might not look a lot like the negs they were taken from anyway.
In many ways, the choice for reflective scanned media is easier, but it can never be as good as scanning the neg.
Can't really recommend a particular scanner either, I would have thought any good quality hardware would make a decent job.
Feed photo's ?, well some have document feeders, dunno how that would work with a pile of different sized/thickness photo's.
This is a neg scanner question, but for photo's, its not a popular request.
Not much help...sorry.

 

[Blapto]

The best in your budget is probably the Epson V500, but don't expect stellar results.

Would you need the scanner after you've done the scans? You could buy a £500 scanner, do the scans and then sell it on ebay for £400 or so if it's a one off job.

How many pictures are there? You might be able to pay someone who has a nice scanner to do the scans for you. £200 for "thousands" is probably pushing it though.

 

[idingsdale]

Thanks, the Epson was one of the ones I was looking at. I don't actually have the photographs to hand yet, but I believe there are 3 or 4 large boxes full.
I wouldnt need the scanner after I was done as for day to day stuff I have an all-in-one Canon thing. Would the difference between a £200 machine and a £500 machine really be that significant?

 

[joxby]

A V500 seems like overkill, you'd pay extra for the facility to scan negs, but you're not gonna scan negs.
Is a v500 significantly better at scanning reflective material than an ordinary non neg scanning scanner
A Canoscan Lide 100 is £35, a v350 is £100 and it does film, which you don't even need.
Personally, I use a Lide 20, it cost £30 when £30 was worth something:shrug: dunno if its any good, I don't look too hard at those types of scans.
I think if it was me, and I wanted to spend £200 on a reflective scanner, I'd make sure the money went in to scanning reflective, and not something I wouldn't use.