Author Topic: Film Scanners?  (Read 7059 times)

Chris Bartleson

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Film Scanners?
« on: December 21, 2018, 22:13:51 »
For those of you that scan your own film, I am looking into eventually scanning my own film, currently, I am just shooting 35mm, but who knows, I might shoot medium format in the future. What scanner would you recommend? I am currently looking at the Epson line and possibly look at saving for an Epson V800, but I am open to other options.
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charlie

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Re: Film Scanners?
« Reply #1 on: December 21, 2018, 22:48:41 »
I've got a V700, it does a decent job with 35mm & MF negative film but leaves something to be desired for slide film, not as much dynamic range as a dedicated film scanner so its easy for shadows to get blocked up and highlights to blow out. It's been a while since I compared to scanning with my D800, they're pretty comparable with a slight edge to the V700 if I remember correctly. 

I'd suggest to look into scanning with your dslr as well.

Chris Bartleson

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Re: Film Scanners?
« Reply #2 on: December 21, 2018, 23:54:23 »
I've got a V700, it does a decent job with 35mm & MF negative film but leaves something to be desired for slide film, not as much dynamic range as a dedicated film scanner so its easy for shadows to get blocked up and highlights to blow out. It's been a while since I compared to scanning with my D800, they're pretty comparable with a slight edge to the V700 if I remember correctly. 

I'd suggest to look into scanning with your dslr as well.

I have looked into that, Nikkor 40mm macro lens plus the Nikon es-2, it's a tempting idea, the only problem I haven't found a solution for is both inverting the colors and removing the orange color cast in color negatives, I don't think that it's an issue with black and white negatives, but color negatives would be an issue.
Nikon D7100 - Nikkor 18-105mm VR | Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 | Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 | Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D
Nikon FM - Nikkor 105mm f2.5 AI-s
Nikon EM - Nikon Series E 50mm f/1.8 | Nikon MD-E Motor Drive

pluton

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Re: Film Scanners?
« Reply #3 on: December 22, 2018, 01:53:35 »

Color negs are the bane of the DSLR method. The Photoshop processing to get decent color and tonality seems very laborious with results not certain. Some claim to copy with DSLR and invert color in Silverfast or Vuescan.
Keith B., Santa Monica, CA, USA

Chris Bartleson

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Re: Film Scanners?
« Reply #4 on: December 22, 2018, 03:22:45 »
Color negs are the bane of the DSLR method. The Photoshop processing to get decent color and tonality seems very laborious with results not certain. Some claim to copy with DSLR and invert color in Silverfast or Vuescan.

Yup, after I found out that, I nixed that idea, so my current option is the Epson V800, willing to hear about other options that I could do.
Nikon D7100 - Nikkor 18-105mm VR | Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 | Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 | Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D
Nikon FM - Nikkor 105mm f2.5 AI-s
Nikon EM - Nikon Series E 50mm f/1.8 | Nikon MD-E Motor Drive

Frank Fremerey

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Re: Film Scanners?
« Reply #5 on: December 22, 2018, 12:40:12 »
Color negs are the bane of the DSLR method. The Photoshop processing to get decent color and tonality seems very laborious with results not certain. Some claim to copy with DSLR and invert color in Silverfast or Vuescan.

Yes. DSLR is great for slides.
You are out there. You and your camera. You can shoot or not shoot as you please. Discover the world, Your world. Show it to us. Or we might never see it.

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Frank Fremerey

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Re: Film Scanners?
« Reply #6 on: December 22, 2018, 12:41:30 »
Nikon Supercoolscan 9000 was the best I tried so far. With calibration and RAW. Wow
You are out there. You and your camera. You can shoot or not shoot as you please. Discover the world, Your world. Show it to us. Or we might never see it.

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Bent Hjarbo

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Re: Film Scanners?
« Reply #7 on: December 22, 2018, 13:24:16 »
I use a Nikon Coolscan IV ED (LS-40 ED)
It is only for 35mm film, but does a good job on color negative film.
I use a DSLR (FX) for slides, faster as ok results.
I guess that the Coolscan is available on the used marked.

Birna Rørslett

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Re: Film Scanners?
« Reply #8 on: December 22, 2018, 13:31:28 »
I'm using Nikon Coolscan 4000ED and 8000ED, plus Agfa and Epson scanners for less exacting work. Negative scans are a breeze given the proper scanning software.

Silverfast does a great job for the Nikon scanners. I reserve it for the big 8000ED however, as it is more time-efficient to run batch scanning with the smaller 4000ED with its extra slide magazine (50 slides). I have dedicated computers for the scanners and they are running older versions of Windows to maximise scanner compatibility. Image scans are automatically transferred to network storage devices from which I can fetch the scans and process them during otherwise idle time.

JJChan

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Re: Film Scanners?
« Reply #9 on: December 22, 2018, 14:45:45 »
I had LS30 and picked up cheap LS5000 which was ‘not working’ actually just needed mirror cleaned. Used LS30 for many years - good but color, speed of scan and quality better with LS5000.

LS5000 reviewed nicely byThom http://www.filmbodies.com/articles/coolscan-5000-review.html

I bought Vuescan but it loads drivers that enables old Nikonscan to work in Windows10. Nikonscan still easiest to use and brings pretty reasonable quality scans with only a little tweaking needed. Kodachrome actually looks ok and ICE ROC (and GEM and DEE - not sure what they do) actually work with Nikonscan.

Before LS5000 I tried Epson V800 in an effort to get faster scanning. It is as slow but worse, if your film is not ‘in focus’ - need to tweak slide holders - the whole lot needs to be done again. I never had the time or patience to adjust it and ended up giving it to a dentist friend of mine who uses it to scan xrays into digital patient files. When it worked it produced nice images though less contrasty than Nikon.

I have not tried DSLR but it has got to be faster although probably less tweakable and error correcting as the old Nikon scanners.

JJ





CS

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Re: Film Scanners?
« Reply #10 on: December 22, 2018, 16:07:27 »
Nobody has mentioned the Minolta scanners.
Carl

Bent Hjarbo

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Re: Film Scanners?
« Reply #11 on: December 22, 2018, 16:11:41 »
I used a Minolta scanner with SCSI interface in the old days ;)

Birna Rørslett

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Re: Film Scanners?
« Reply #12 on: December 22, 2018, 16:12:17 »
Nobody has mentioned the Minolta scanners.

Perhaps few of our members use one? Only read about the Minolta scanners myself, never actually seen one of them.

Matthew Currie

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Re: Film Scanners?
« Reply #13 on: December 22, 2018, 16:51:36 »
It's been a while since I scanned any film, but I have a Coolscan IV-ED which made quite decent slide scans.  It takes either strips or mounted slides, and also originally came with a holder for single unmounted frames and film that would not otherwise feed, a nice convenience. 

I haven't updated the software to run with Win 10, so it's temporarily retired until I either fix the software or set up a dedicated computer somewhere else.  The Nikon software worked fine on XP and Win 95.  I know some people were not pleased with the native Nikon software, but I always found it reasonably competent, and easy to use.  It took some time to get the right settings for contrast and scan time and the like, but I found that after a few rolls, looking at the previews on a slide viewing screen, I could guess the settings pretty well.  I would caution, though, that the USB-1 interface on this scanner is pretty slow.  It's no big deal if you scan your stuff as it comes back, but it's a poor solution if you're catching up on a backlog of slides, as even bulk processing with no adjustment can take around 90 seconds a slide.

I also found that the now-discontinued Polaroid dust and scratch removal software (still available in archive I think) worked pretty well for old black and white film, which can't use the "ICE" feature of the scanner.  Again, I rather doubt it will run in Win 10, but it worked fine in XP. 

But if you're dealing with mounted slides, I suspect a good slide copier on a digital camera would work as well, and faster.  I have yet to set up a proper rig for DX but a bit of experimenting suggests it would. 

CS

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Re: Film Scanners?
« Reply #14 on: December 22, 2018, 18:15:48 »
Perhaps few of our members use one? Only read about the Minolta scanners myself, never actually seen one of them.

Been a long time since I used my Minolta. It did  good job, but Apple OS upgrades killed the  compatibility of the software that it was running, and rather than go for new software, since I was excited about shooting digital, I traded it off to a Windows user that I knew. Here's one of my favorites from that Minolta, shot with F100, 20-35 f/2.8, on Fuji Velvia 50, at the Japanese Garden in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.

Carl