Scanning negs?

Dr.Louis

Hey all, thinking about buying a neg scanner- would have to be a cheaper one than the ones I'm seeing (€1000+). Multi format is a must too. Any ideas what should I look out for on ebay? Or is there a cheaper line in the shops that I'm missing?

It's knida new territory for me- so any info would be deadly!

CraggyIslander

Could try a good flatbed scanner with film adapters. I've got a canoscan 9950F for scanning slides, excellent results so far. Has adapters for just about every format.

Dr.Louis

actually that sounds like a good option... do you mind me asking how much it was? and where you got it?

Zillah

I scanned negs for a year in college, then I bought a digital SLR. If its at all possible I cannot reccomend getting a dSLR enough, the jump in convenience is staggering.

Dr.Louis

I have a nikon D70s hehe- but I still use film quite a bit, I love the dark room too much to ever leave it behind!

The scanner is just so i can experiment tbh, which is why i dont need a top of the range one...

magicbastarder

i got a canon 8400f (for scanning 120, but it'll take 35mm no bother) for €175 from komplett.ie

Dr.Louis

oo cool! do you have any examples of what you've scanned? would love to see what kinda results you get...

DaireQuinlan

All my medium format stuff from my "nescaffenol" set on my flickr feed was scanned using an 8600f. The scan quality is good, but can't be compared to a dedicated film scanner. my nikon coolscan is miles ahead of the canon, despite the canon claiming 4800 dpi versus the nikons' 4000. OTOH my coolscan was 650 second hand and the canon was 180 from komplett so go figure ... To get a medium format dedicated film scanner unfortunately you're talking in the thousands.

Dr.Louis

cool thanks!

its funny- the whole thing that got me thinking about neg scanners was the idea of coffee developer- i really want to experiment with that side of things! nice photos btw thanks again!

DaireQuinlan

Thanks !

for your one stop shop for recipes and advice if you want to start dunking your negatives into a fresh albeit stinky brew, we have a flickr group set up for just that purpose:

Homemade soup

TJJP

I killed my Nikon LS30, and bought a canoscan 8600F instead (E200 in store in town). I never used the nikon as much as I had thought I would.

Gone all digital now so Canon flatbed is fine. I can get reasonable 10x8 from 35mm. While the Nikons are a good unit, you're limited to 35mm film.

Canon scanner has adpators for 35mm, 6x6/6x7/6x8 and I also constructed a mask for 110mm neg.... Software kit enclosed is good too. Amazing to get 6x7 prints from old 110mm.

Would be slightly cautious of used Coolscan, they don't like transport much and the software can be a pain to get going under XP (SCSI issues).

Really its a balance between spend and how much you will use the scanner.

Redundo

I have an epson 4490 and am quite pleased with the scans that come out, both Med Format and 35mm. I don't know how it compares to the Canon, but it's another fairly good quality flatbed for scanning film with not much money.

DaireQuinlan

Yeah, the 4990 and the earlier 4490 are meant to be pretty good. The canon was less than half the price though. I've no intention of scanning 35mm on it, so its more than up to the job of doing MF film. The negative is so big you can get away with a bit of softness in the scan. For 35mm I have a coolscan V, USB so no scsi issues :-) Its frankly astonishing how much detail it can pull out of a negative at 4000 dpi.

CraggyIslander

here's one i scanned from a 35mm slide on the canon 9950F. Scanner was around 400euro when I bought it last year, but strangely enough dont see it on komplett,ie or pixmania.com anymore....... ahh here we go. 422Euro at technikdirekt.de

magicbastarder

TJJP wrote:

Would be slightly cautious of used Coolscan, they don't like transport much and the software can be a pain to get going under XP (SCSI issues).

my coolscan has lasted six years, only maintenance needed was a mirror clean - and the SCSI issue just involves installing winaspi, if memory serves.

Dr.Louis

Wow- thanks a lot guys! Really appreciate it! From the looks of things, I'm probably going to buy a flatbed scanner- I'm not going to need perfection for what I want to do with it anyways!

Oh- and once I do a few rolls with the coffee- I'll join the flickr group! Thanks again!!