# What do you use to scan your 35mm negatives?



## rpt (Dec 16, 2012)

I have been scouting around for something to scan my negatives. I find that there are 5 mega pix scanners that are small and handy and then some flat bed scanners. Canon has a 9000F that I liked. However I read some folks say that the plastic attachment that holds the strips breaks off and canon does not carry spares for that! Has anybody used the 9000F? What is your experience?

Also what resolution do you scan at? Scanning at 4800 dpi would produce huge files I thought.

Thanks in advance.


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## pwp (Dec 16, 2012)

If you have negs & trannies and need a Premium (_with a capital P_) file there is still absolutely no substitute for a wet mount drum scan. Otherwise the Nikon LS 4000 and LS 5000 are very competent film scanners, especially when teamed with first class software like Vuescan or Silverfast. Since they have both ceased production, there is almost a black market for both the Nikon LS 4000 and LS 5000.

If your needs are humbler, the Epson V700 flatbed scanner will do a nice job. 

-PW


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## unfocused (Dec 16, 2012)

Not the answer you are looking for, but I send them out. I've used ScanDigital and DigMyPics. 

The investment in a high quality scanner, plus the heavy investment in time and effort to scan in hundreds of negatives makes it more cost-effective to have someone else do this. Now, understand, I'm talking about old negatives, as I don't shoot anything but digital today.

Scan Digital will scan specific negatives on a 35mm strip, which is great savings and convenience. They also occasionally offer Groupons. However, all scanning services take a couple of months to complete the work, so it's of no use if you are in a hurry.


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## sagittariansrock (Dec 16, 2012)

I've used both Canon flatbeds (suck) and the Nikon LS5000 (very good). 
The latter is highly recommended.
In general dedicated film and slide scanners are worth the time (to find them) and money, IMO.


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## jm345 (Dec 16, 2012)

I believe Canon just announced a new scanner for film. I didn't see the specs but I think the retail price is $250. If I can find more info I will post it here.


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## pwp (Dec 16, 2012)

You'll find a lot of info on scanners, including very detailed reviews here:
http://www.photo-i.co.uk/

New Canon film scanner? Hmmm. Maybe a flatbed with film scan capacity. Especially at $250.

-PW


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Dec 16, 2012)

If you still shoot 35mm, you might get a slide or film scanner, but if you are merely converting old slides and film to digital, just have them done for you.
I use a Epson flatbed photoscanner to convert my really old 120 film from the 1940's to digital. Its not as critical as 35mm, so my Epson photo 3170 does fine. It struggles with slides, but then, my old slides are not that great in any event.
I'd scan them at a high resolution, I made the mistake of scanning at too low a resolution, which means I need to redo them.
Cat photo and me in about 1945.


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## nonac (Dec 16, 2012)

I have a Nikon Coolscan V that I've had for 10-12 years. Excellent piece of equipment for slides and negatives. They no longer make them; however, you may be able to locate a good used one for a good price. Mine was about $600 new, 10-12 years ago.


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## Hillsilly (Dec 16, 2012)

If you're just doing a few scans and its not 100% crucial to get the best possible scan, I'd stick with a cheaper scanner such as the 9000F or Epson V600. I've never used the 5mpx ones you've mentioned, but I know they're cheap so why not give them a go? But if you're going to be doing a lot of scanning, I'd encourage you to get to the next step up or outsource it. Scanning is a very tedious and time consuming activity. I couldn't think of anything worse then spending a lot of time scanning negatives and not being happy with the results.

For what it worth, I do a lot of scanning and use a Canon 9950F (Hey...we're a Canon family!). This works well and was good for its time, but this model was discontinued years ago. Because I need to scan in many different formats, if I was shopping today, I'd look at the Epson V700 / Epson V750. For 35mm I typically scan at 2400dpi. At 2400dpi, on the best quality settings, it takes me just over an hour to scan 30 colour images. Its less than half that time for B & W. Higher dpi leads to much bigger file sizes and slower scans. 

If you get into it and you budget permits it, a quality dedicated film scanner is the best way to go. The quality of scans, ease of use and capabilities (eg scanning more slides in one go, scanning a while uncut roll of film, slide holders, different film sizes) improve as you spend more. You occasionally see used Nikon and Minolta film scanners sell for reasonable prices on eBay.


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## Zlatko (Dec 16, 2012)

For slides, I believe you can attach a Nikon slide copy attachment to a macro lens and photograph slides with your digital camera —
http://www.scantips.com/es-1b.html
Maybe the same or similar can be done for negatives?


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## dr croubie (Dec 16, 2012)

I've heard very good things about the Nikon Coolscan range, but then I also saw one on ebay last week get upwards of $5000.
Personally, I've got the Epson V750 Pro. They're not available in Australia, I got it via ebay second hand for a bit less than the v700 costs here new ($600 or so). Being on Linux, I've never used the Silverfast that it came with, I've got an iscan driver that lets me scan up to 3200dpi. This gives about a 15mp FF file, not many films resolve that high anyway and I tend to use high-iso B+W and/or expired cross-processed junk films. That said, I put a roll of Velvia 50 through my Mamiya 645 and got some very nice 40MP files (and I could get 10 of the same camera for the price of a D800).

Scanning 4 strips of 6 35mm in a batch is easy enough in the v750, then taking a huge 200mb file and cutting it down into individual shots is what takes me the time. The inbuilt holder that came with it is good enough for a triage-operation at least, and for snapshots. The 120 film holder, just because it's a holder, the negs can sag in the middle and affect sharpness. So I've bought myself a Betterscanning.com wet/dry holder. I haven't tried the wet-mounting yet, but even dry-mounting (using Magic Tape) has an amazingly good impact, it's just so much sharper and highly recommended to anyone who is serious (but on a budget).

I've read the i-photo review of the v600, and considering it's half the price of the v700 new, it's worth a look, but the v700/750 is just better for films. As for v700 vs v750, I don't think there's much real difference except the Multicoated glass (anyone ever tried both?)


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## sanj (Dec 16, 2012)

http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2012/11/11/using-a-dslr-to-scan-negative-film-by-stefan-schmidt/


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## rpt (Dec 16, 2012)

All, thanks for all your replies. I will take a look at some flatbed scanners available in India. Unfortunately I have not found any agency that does film scanning.


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## jm345 (Dec 16, 2012)

Here is a press release on the new Canon scanner:

"The CanoScan 9000F Mark II Photo Scanner provides consumers with an easy solution for all photo and document archiving needs. Capable of scanning a 35mm film strip with the film scanning guide and frame and Film Adapter Unit, precious photos from a family's history can be archived. The maximum optical resolution for the CanoScan 9000F Mark II Photo Scanner is 9600 x 9600 dots-per-inch (dpi) for film and 4800 x 4800 dpi for all other media. Equipped with Auto Document Fix, this feature analyzes and corrects to help ensure text characters stand out and are sharp and clear; and helps pictures to maintain their color, tone and contrast.

The CanoScan 9000F Mark II Photo Scanner will have an estimated selling price of $199.99"

http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/about_canon?pageKeyCode=pressreldetail&docId=0901e024807339ad#


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## PVS (Dec 16, 2012)

I moved from Canon 8800F to Plustek 7400 for 35mm, have to admit I'm quite impressed by the difference. I still use CS8800F for 120s, though.

Here's some insight of it's capabilities:
http://www.filmscanner.info/en/PlustekOpticFilm7400.html


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## dr croubie (Dec 16, 2012)

Mikael Risedal said:


> Zlatko said:
> 
> 
> > For slides, I believe you can attach a Nikon slide copy attachment to a macro lens and photograph slides with your digital camera —
> ...



The one quirk that you have to watch out for is that most Slides have a clear base, most colour negatives (and some B+W negatives that use C41, eg BW400CN) have a yellowy-orange base.
When you scan a Slide, or take a photo with a macro lens on a slide-duplicator, it's just like taking a photo, the colours are the same.
But when you scan a Negative, the scanner will automatically adjust for that yellow-orange. Your camera won't.
The easiest way to calibrate is to take the same photo on Film and Digital, then 'scan' the film with your digital. Adjust the film shot so that the colours are the same, save the adjustments (or remember them), and henceforth use it for every film shot.
Or just shoot Slides, or buy a real scanner, much easier.


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## rpt (Dec 19, 2012)

Everybody, thanks again for all the tips. Btw, I was wondering about the orange in the negatives.


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## paul13walnut5 (Dec 19, 2012)

I use to use a Minolta Dimage Scan Elite 5400.

I actually got offered more for it used that I paid new, was a very good scanner with 40MP output, great dmax and manaul controls and useful software suite.

I ran it on mac osX.4 and there were problems getting it to work well with anything beyond that without different patches etc.

It was gathering dust and I wasn't shooting film so much, but if you can get hold of one, and like a cup of coffee when you scan (16bit tiff files with 3 pass ICE could take a while) it's a great scanner. Reputed to work well on more recent OS's with Viewscan, though I would acutally run a PC with XP or a Mac with Panther to make the most of the Minolta software.


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## RLPhoto (Dec 19, 2012)

I have to do this all the time and the Epson v700 is the best I've used. It even had an wet plate option for the best quality you can get this side of a drum scan.


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## Hillsilly (Dec 19, 2012)

Operating systems are a real pain. My 9950F won't work on a windows 7 or 8 64bit - Canon has only released 32 bit divers. Consequently, I've got an old Vista computer plugging away in the corner solely to run a scanner. As soon as that computer dies, my perfectly good scanner becomes obsolete. I've tried XP mode on Windows 7 and that doesn't work. The joys of working with ancient technology like film and scanners.


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## dafrank (Dec 19, 2012)

The Canon 9000 is a good flatbed scanner for slides and 35mm negs, one step under the Epson V-700 and V-750. It'll give great value for the money, but not the best you can do at home with a desktop scanner.

I use a Nikon Super Coolscan 9000 ED for 35mm and 120/220 film and an Epson Perfection V-750 for 4x5 and 8x10 transparencies and B&W negatives. They both do an excellent job fopr their formats. The Epson is not quite as good for the smaller formats as is the Nikon, but the Epson still does a wonderful job for a glass platen based consumer oriented flatbed scanner. I used to own a couple of very expensive drum scanners and used them to scan literally thousands and thousands of film images, and my experience has been that if you learn how to wring the last bit of quality from your film with these two scanners, you can produce digital files that are clearly just a fraction less accurate than with the drum scanners, especially so with the Nikon. If the Epson had a true and precise manual or auto focus feature, it would be even closer to the Nikon quality for smaller formats as well.

For some hard to pin down reason, I go back and forth with scanning software between VueScan, Nikon Scan and Silverfast, which I have installed on several computers with different enabling OS's, any which of one I can attach to and use the two scanners with. I tend to mostly use the Nikon Scan with the 9000 on an old 32bit Vista machine and VueScan on either that or one of my 64bit Win7 machines for the Epson. I never did warm up to Silverfast, despite its potentially deeper profiling options. So, I use it every once in a while to refresh my memory, but it doesn't seem to actually lead to a better scan than the other two, if I am careful and work with a well profiled monitor.

Well, that's what I use, if it helps.

Nikon stopped making their last two models, the 9000 (35mm and 120) and 5000 (35mm only) scannners, many years ago. Whether or not you can still pick up a good and clean Nikon 9000 or 8000 anymore at other than wildly exorbitant prices, I don't know. I've seen near new or "kind of new" 9000's go for as much as $5,000.00 or even more on Ebay and none (in decent condition) that go for less than about $2,000.00. The Epson V-750 and its slightly less expensive stablemate, the V-700 (the only differences are in the supplied accessories and better lenses in the 750) are still available, but who knows for how long? I'd try to buy one now, if I already didn't have one. As for getting a new Chinese slide scanner like the Plustek, or trying to snag a used Nikon 4000 or 5000, or a later model Minolta, it's a matter of the slightly better quality results of the used machines versus the convenience, warantee, modern software compatibility and the almost-as-good quality of the various Chinese models available today. The quality differences between them are mainly in the general precision of build, the whole lighting path, the optics and the electronics, with the stepper motors probably being about the same.

For a wild card, there's always the possibility of the getting one of the Hasselblad Flextight mock "drum scanners" (actually a very high quality CCD slide scanner, some of which take tranny's as big as 4x5) new for about $25,000.00 or more or taking a chance on a genuine good quality drum scanner. I'm not sure if any company any longer manufactures a real photomultiplier tube drum scanner, but if they do, it would cost a ridiculous amount of money and have gigantically expensive and hard to operate software limited to a very narrow choice of computer OS. A used one, being much cheaper, would be a better choice, but the same software incompatibility problems for those are much much worse, and the chance that the scanner is still in pristine condition is remote.

That's about it.

Regards,
David


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## paul13walnut5 (Dec 19, 2012)

@Mikael Risedal


> I think you get more out from Vuescan than your old software



I can't directly compare. If the Vuescan is even better than the Minolta software then great!

I looked into it at the time and I didn't get the impression that the ICE was quite so hot, or that Manual Focus was supported. This may be incorrect as I am thinking back about 3 years now, and even if correct then the situation may have changed now.

It's all academic now, as I very rarely shoot film and no longer have the scanner.

If the OP wants a good 35mm scanner then I can certainly vouch for the Minolta.


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## brianboru (Dec 19, 2012)

One vote for the Plustek OptiFilm 7400. I purchased mine a couple of months ago. It shipped with SilverFast SE+ 6.6 but had a free upgrade to SilverFast SE+ 8. I find the scratch and dust removal in SilverFast to be heavy handed and prefer to do that in Lr and Ps but the film profiles, Multiple Exposure and other technologies are nice.

The first shot is a scan from some 110 film from 1983, the other is a 100% crop from 35mm film circa 2000. (The lens was the not so great EF 25-105 f3.5/4.5.)


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