mirage From Portugal, joined May 1999, 3120 posts, RR: 16 Posted (3 months 2 weeks 6 days 20 hours ago) and read 1586 times:
Hi,
I, and everybody else who was into uploading pictures to Airliners.net before the digital photography boom, had a scanner to digitilize negatives, the HP S20. Nowadays this scanner is not working so I was wondering what are the best film scanners today? I would like to scan old negatives so any help is appreciated.
mirage From Portugal, joined May 1999, 3120 posts, RR: 16 Reply 2, posted (3 months 2 weeks 5 days 23 hours ago) and read 1532 times:
Hi Gary,
Thanks for your reply, hope you're fine. That's a start, now I have something to research, because after 10 years without touching a film scanner I'm a kind of lost between all the brands and models.
dendrobatid From United Kingdom, joined Nov 2004, 1605 posts, RR: 64 Reply 3, posted (3 months 2 weeks 5 days 22 hours ago) and read 1529 times:
Luis
Unless you have a huge number to scan I would go for a flat-bed too.
I do have a dedicated slide scanner but the quality I get with a flat-bed is almost as good but, importantly it is very much faster.
Mine is a Canon 9950F which will also scan roll film (and larger). I have not looked for a while but I bet it is discontinued but there is probably a more up to date one or, as Gary suggests, Epson do a few.
mirage From Portugal, joined May 1999, 3120 posts, RR: 16 Reply 4, posted (3 months 2 weeks 5 days 21 hours ago) and read 1524 times:
Thanks Mick,
My preference is a dedicated negative scanner, even a second hand in good condition, in Ebay, would be good for me. Epson has nice ones, V700 and V750 but they are expensive. I do have a large collection of negatives, would like to scan some again, to improve them.
dendrobatid From United Kingdom, joined Nov 2004, 1605 posts, RR: 64 Reply 5, posted (3 months 2 weeks 5 days 20 hours ago) and read 1518 times:
Luis
I have a Konica Minolta Dimage Scan Elite (there is a Mark II Version which is faster) and the results are superb, up to 5400DPI though I rarely scan above 2700
I have seen them quite cheaply on e-bay though they are still sought after.
ckw From UK - England, joined Aug 2010, 530 posts, RR: 18 Reply 6, posted (3 months 2 weeks 5 days 16 hours ago) and read 1502 times:
The Nikon Coolscan range is worth looking at, though I think most models are discontinued.
One thing to beware of with older scanners - they may not have drivers for Windows 7 or later. I think most will work anyway, but worth doing some googling on potential issues before buying.
Jez From UK - England, joined Feb 2005, 67 posts, RR: 1 Reply 7, posted (3 months 2 weeks 5 days 8 hours ago) and read 1487 times:
I use an Epson V500 which seems to work very well for a reasonable price. It has ICE which I find is a big help. I scan at 3200 dpi and after a bit of straightening, cropping etc. it will turn out an 11-12 Mp image. I tried scanning at higher resolution but found it didn't really give me any extra detail.
mirage From Portugal, joined May 1999, 3120 posts, RR: 16 Reply 8, posted (3 months 2 weeks 4 days 20 hours ago) and read 1462 times:
Thanks for your feedback, the point about the drivers is very important indeed, I'm using Windows 7, some scanners I had a look don't have drivers for Windows 7, no option.
I wasn't expecting the Nikon Coolscan models to be so expensive, Colin.
dcaviation From United States of America, joined Aug 2011, 165 posts, RR: 0 Reply 9, posted (3 months 2 weeks 4 days 19 hours ago) and read 1458 times:
I've been using this scanner for my negatives and I like it. Quality of the scans and speed of the scanner is not bad.
ckw From UK - England, joined Aug 2010, 530 posts, RR: 18 Reply 10, posted (3 months 2 weeks 4 days 16 hours ago) and read 1441 times:
Quoting mirage (Reply 8): I wasn't expecting the Nikon Coolscan models to be so expensive
Well the top end models certainly are (8000, 9000) - and I must admit I'm surprised to see how well the older models have held their value (unlike DSLRs ).
I'd look for a IV or 4000 at a good price. This will run under Windows 7 - from memory, what I did was download (free) the software for the Nikon V, which works just fine, just a few of the later features aren't available.
mirage From Portugal, joined May 1999, 3120 posts, RR: 16 Reply 13, posted (3 months 2 weeks 3 days 17 hours ago) and read 1379 times:
I agree, one thing I must have in a dedicated film scanner is the ICE technology, to remove dust and scratch, because it was the lack of ICE and the insane time I spent in photoshop to manually remove dust and scratch that made me quit film photography and move to digital, back in 2003.
I like the Nikon Coolscan IV but it's not easy to find them for sale, at least in ebay, in case there are more reference websites for this kind of sales, please share.
dendrobatid From United Kingdom, joined Nov 2004, 1605 posts, RR: 64 Reply 15, posted (3 months 2 weeks 3 days 8 hours ago) and read 1366 times:
Luis
Don't ignore the Konica Minolta Dimage Scan Elite and have a look for some reviews.
Most reviews put it better than the Nikon and it should be cheaper (one went on Ebay in the UK a few days ago for £220, about Eu 300)
The problem could be if it breaks but I think Sony will repair them
I had a Nikon one before, a Coolscan IV and it was nothing like as good as the Konica one.
granite From UK - Scotland, joined May 1999, 5542 posts, RR: 67 Reply 18, posted (3 months 2 weeks 2 days 5 hours ago) and read 1280 times:
AIRLINERS.NET CREW HEAD SCREENER
Hi Luis
Yes, think it does.
I found the Epson software not very good. To the general public it would be good but you know how us aviation photographers are
VueScan let's you select the type of film that was used and fixes colour casts and stuff. Still a lot to play with. They do let you have a free trial so you can make up your mind.
This print was scanned with the flatbed and VueScan:
ckw From UK - England, joined Aug 2010, 530 posts, RR: 18 Reply 19, posted (3 months 2 weeks 2 days 3 hours ago) and read 1272 times:
The latest version of Vuescan can support ICE - but it may depend on the scanner as ICE is a hardware function (in essence it does an additional infrared scan to detect dust).
mirage From Portugal, joined May 1999, 3120 posts, RR: 16 Reply 20, posted (3 months 2 weeks 1 day 20 hours ago) and read 1244 times:
I was looking at dedicated negative scanners but now I changed my mind, I can't afford to spend big money only to scan some negatives, I have a big collection but my idea is not to scan everything again, only a few here and there. So I'll look into flat bed scanners able to scan negatives, with decent quality, and ICE.
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