35mm Negatives

DampDog

DampDog

DampDog

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Having a little sort out and I have quite a few 35mm negative that I'd like save and get digitised before they get to old to do anything with. What would be the easiest/cheapest way to get them converted to digital images?

I've seen various "scanners" for slides/negatives ranging from £30 to several hundred. Do they scan them as a negative or convert them to a viewable image. Jessops has now disappeared from the high street and I'm not clued up enough to know of anyone else who may scan negatives or what sort of cost might be involved.
 
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Boots? Not sure if they do negatives. It's not going to be pro quality but it will be there.
 
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Depends how many you have. If the negatives are cut then you'll pay a fortune for a proper lab to scan, and any high street place will most likely use a flatbed scanner.

You could get a cheapo single slide scanner, quality won't be great and it will take ages. Actual optical resolution of most of these is barely 1000 DPI.

Next step up is a flatbed with a film scanner, something like the Canon 8800F or 9000F. ok quality, lets you save as 16-bit TIFFs etc, will scan 12 negatives in one batch. Actual optical resolution of most of these is around 1600~1800 DPI. A well scanned and adjusted negative from one of these can be printed up to about 10x8 inches. You're looking at around 150 quid.

Next step up is a dedicated film scanner. Any new scanner from the likes of Plustek, the 8200i for example. Come with better software like Silverfast, optical resolution jumps to about 3000dpi, better dmax etc. Most don't have automated feeders or can't scan more than one frame at once so it takes a while. 250-350 quid for one of these

Next step up is something like a 2nd hand Nikon Coolscan. Amazing quality, probably the best prosumer film scanners ever made. Downside is no support, you need to hack drivers to get them to work on WinXP and above. Expensive. Coolscan IVs go for 500 quid plus, 5000EDs can reach 3 grand.

All scan the negative and turn it into a viewable image.
 
Thank you, don't know what I'll do next. But at least I know more than I did this morning.:)

I've not finished sorting what I've got yet. I don't think it's going to be an enormous amount so I may try Boots first just to see what cost may be involved and what quality I can expect.
 
Used to use Nikon Coolscan back in uni, it's much better than my flatbed and that's what I would try and get hold of.
 
Another vote for the Coolscan, if its within budget. At uni we have multiple Epsom flatbeds, a couple of Coolscans and then a Hasselblad Flextight. Obviously the 'blad is by far the best, but unless you have a spare £10k+ to blow then its a bit expensive :p

The Coolscan is still much much better than the Epsoms though
 
I know for a fact that the large Asda here has pretty much identical equipment to what we used to use in Jessops (worked there for a while), and generally charge very very cheap prices for any film work. I can't tell you what the scan quality would be like but I wouldn't reckon they'd have any less training than we had at Jessops (aka, virtually none)
 
A friend mention he thought ASDA did it last night. If it's cheap enough I'll try a few films and see what the quality is like. In truth they're not that important but I would like to save them before they get lost again.
 
DampDog said:
A friend mention he thought ASDA did it last night. If it's cheap enough I'll try a few films and see what the quality is like. In truth they're not that important but I would like to save them before they get lost again.
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I've used a flat bed for exactly this sort of stuff, mainly photo's I took while I was growing up 90% of which are rubish shot on disposable cameras but I still want them!
 
Funny this thread should pop up as only yesterday I was looking into this as I also found a lot of negs that I would like to have digitised. I was looking at a device called Reflecta x7-Scan Film Scanner which seems to suggest it will scan images in (various size film types) at 3200dpi. Any thoughts?
 
I actually popped into ASDA this morning and enquired. They will scan negatives for 30p odd each and stick them on a CD/DVD for £1 (I think the 30p is per strip as opposed to per negative.) At that money I will give them a try. Some of the old photos I have are not that good a quality anyway, so it just a matter of preserving them so they don't get lost or forgotten about.
 
Good news, hope it works out well. Please let us know how you get on as I might do the same. The machine I mentioned above is about £130 so not too bad.
 
antc said:
Funny this thread should pop up as only yesterday I was looking into this as I also found a lot of negs that I would like to have digitised. I was looking at a device called Reflecta x7-Scan Film Scanner which seems to suggest it will scan images in (various size film types) at 3200dpi. Any thoughts?
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That and other similar (cheap) devices are basically digital cameras taking a photo of a backlit negative.
 
antc said:
Ahhh right ok. So would you say they aren't really any good then?
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IMO They're fine if all you want to do is show the pictures to family and friends on a screen of some sort, for emailing or posting on a social website.

Personally I would invest in a proper film scanner (to replace the ancient SCSI device I already have) and time (including the time film scanners can take to scan one negative - sometimes minutes) to post-process any negatives.
 
Got a bit of an issue at the moment in that I've got 3 storage boxes of negatives that were my fathers.

He did some motorsport photography in the 70s and from the little portfolio book he had with some prints of his there are some really nice shots that I'd like to get reproduced as canvas/posters.

Firstly I'm hoping that the negatives for those shots are in there, else all I've got to be blown up is a slightly smaller than A4 copy of each so quality won't be great :(

Secondly I need a way of going through all the negatives I have and seeing which is just normal family type stuff where whilst I'd still like it in digital format the quality isn't as important, and which is the motorsport stuff that I want to get done 'properly' to be able to reproduce them at a reasonable quality.

So thinking maybe get a cheapy plustek type scanner to whizz through them quickly to see what their is, then depending on what I find either invest in something better or take them down to somewhere proper that can process them for me.

Other option is to dump the lot on someone to catalogue everything, but I reckon a lot of the stuff there I don't necessarily want so that would just be wasted cost.
 
Ev0 said:
So thinking maybe get a cheapy plustek type scanner to whizz through them quickly to see what their is, then depending on what I find either invest in something better or take them down to somewhere proper that can process them for me.
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If you have already have a flatbed scanner use that to get your previews.
You could probably do about 4 strips at once.
 
Nah got nothing at the moment, just moved house so finally got some space to start sorting them all out.

Really hoping some of the good shots are in there as badly want to get some made into some nice canvas or something.
 
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