Slide scanner

dtokez

dtokez

dtokez

Associate
Joined
10 Jan 2009
Posts
1,849
Anyone own or have experiences with slide scanners?

I'm going to get my dad one for his birthday and not sure what too look for?

Got up to about £100 to spend for a decent quality one

cheers
 
(previously posted on another thread)

The cheap scanners that have proliferated in the last year or so are basically digital cameras. They're probably good enough for most uses.

My opinions:
(digital camera) scanners
pros - cheap, easy to use, may have hardware enhancements to cope with the compressed dynamic range of negatives
cons - negatives aren't always flat, so the 'camera' might not acheive good focus across the whole negative.

flatbed scanners
pros - cheap, easy to use (if they have the software), keeps negative flat
cons - might not have hardware enhancements to cope with the negatives compressed dynamic range, resolution might be interpolated

film scanners
pros - designed for one purpose to ensure best results
cons - expensive, usually slow because of need for quality



Slides have a wider (normal) dynamic range than negatives so some of the above isn't as critical.

Dynamic range can be very simply described as the spread of colours available.
If the human eye has a dynamic range of 0 to 10, then a good slide film/DSLR/monitor might be 1 to 9. A photographic negative might be 3 to 7.
A negative captures the full dynamic range by compressing it to fit and when a print is made the photo paper expands it again. The compression and expansion means a loss in quality.

If the slides themselves don't have glass to flatten the film, focus issues could still be a problem. If they do have glass there could be other problems introduced eg reflections.

I do have a film scanner but it's old - it uses SCSI connection because at the time SCSI was fast!
 
I have a nikon coolscan III scsi and it scans negs and slides very nicely. By all accounts if you need the best quality a film scanner is the best solution.
 
pardon my ignorance mate but what is a film scanner - is it the flat bed style ones?

i guess its something that's only going to get used once really so may as well get the best quality i can without spending silly money
 
Slides are actually fairly easy to scan, but it's important to get a way to calibrate, otherwise you will spend your time fiddling around trying to get the "right colors" out of your scans. Also, if you have "volumes", being able to scan in a batch (more surface) is quite important.

Personally I use an Epson 4990, with a self-made film holder. I scan from 35mm to 8x10 inches film with the scanner, and over the years I can say it's probably as good as it will ever get. 120 film and 4x5 slides still blow away most digital cameras, while 8x10 is so large it still makes my 16GB machine crawl to a halt if I try to scan it at 4800dpi :-)
 
Decent film scanners are rare and expensive, the Plustek 7400/7600 are about it today. The higher end Canon and Epson flatbeds with slide adaptors are more flexible in what you can do with them (they function as normal scanners for a start). I looked at them recently as I shoot a lot of film, but in the end decided I was better paying to get it scanned as a decent scanner of either type is £200 basically and the software another £50 on top...and it's time consuming. Paying £10 a film on top of developing for scanning seemed better value.
 
PermaBanned said:
Surely by that logic after 20 roles the scanner would have paid for itself?
Click to expand...

Yes it would in pure cost terms but at about 30-40 minutes of my time per roll though, that calculation is different for everyone of course but 12 hours or so scanning film isn't something I'll terribly enjoy.

Given that I might shoot 50 rolls of 35mm a year and some 120 too for personal stuff, that's £500 a year to get it done vs £250 of kit and a few days of my time in total. I'm happy to pay that over the course of a year.

Obviously that'll change if you have old slides you want to scan (more expensive to scan after the fact than if you do it when you're having it processed), if you have loads of free time, are on a budget or actively enjoy the process somehow.
 
what do you think is my best opinion then guys? Slightly confused right now!

I've got up too £100 too spend. I will probably end up in the FS section when we have finished with it.

cheers
 
Given the lack of availability of proper film scanners, especially at that price, and the often questionable quality of the cheap camera scanners, i'd say go with a flatbed. Which one? Haven't the foggiest, the Epson V330, CanoScan 5600F and the Canon LiDE 700F might be worth a look but it is very hard to find decent samples from each.
 
Cheers mate, i was kind of thinking the same. I went to jessops yesterday and they had one for 190 cant remember what it was and im on my mobile atm but it wasnt a flat bed type, woman said it was 9600dpi but that doesnt mean too much to me lol

Anyone else got experience with scanners?
 
Wasn't a flatbed? What was it then?

As far as flatbeds go you don't go over 4800dpi, if it says it can it's just interlacing and as such the resulting quality isn't really worth it.

Another that might be worth a look - the Epson Perfection v500, does MF as well, gets a lot of recommendations and can be had for around £100 used (one just went for £95 on TP i think).
 
Probably the Plustek OpticFilm 7400 Film Scanner, a dedicated film and slide scanner. It's 7200dpi BTW
 
Tomsk has got it, that's the model they showed me.

am I right in thinking all the dedicated ones are for just 35mm film?

thanks I just googled the Epson one, they look the nuts!

Thing is I'm running out of time I need to get one by a week monday so time is of the essence lol.

I like the look of the Canon ones, plus we have always used Canon cameras which we love (apart from the 7d but thats another story...lol)

Canon CanoScan LiDE 700F - that one is higher res by the looks of it so you think in general that would be the better one?

thanks for the help
 
dtokez said:
Canon CanoScan LiDE 700F - that one is higher res by the looks of it so you think in general that would be the better one?

thanks for the help
Click to expand...

If by 'higer res' you mean 9600dpi - it won't be, it will be interlaced, so not really worth using at that level. Even if it was the file sizes would be huge. Doesn't mean it won't scan well at 4800 or even 2400dpi but almost everything i've read points to the Epson models being superior.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom