Negative Scanner

[towman]

Evening folks. First visit here - usually on GG or SPL. One of the questions I hate is "I have £xxx to spend, what is the best car", but..............

I would like to buy a scanner capable of handling prints slides, negs and 2.25 square b&w negs. I dont habe a lot of spare cash, so your recommendations for the best value rather than the best would be appreciated.

Sorry again for the dumb question, but I really dont have a clue.

Steve

[simpo two]

Hi Towman,
I have a cheap horrible flatbed scanner with no lightbox function - so I hold them up to the the light and use a macro lens

Ed Hasler's your man I think; he'll be along in a bit!

[ehasler]

Hi,

I use a dedicated Nikon film scanner (bet that surprised you Simpo! ), which is great, but probably a bit more than you're looking to spend.

To be honest, a decent dedicated film scanner is going to cost you at least £400-500+, but the latest flat beds do a good job with slide/negatives and are a fair bit cheaper.

You want one with a high optical resolution (above 3000dpi ideally for film), and a dust/scratch removing tool is very useful too.

Epson, HP and Canon seem to lead the way in flat beds and something like the Canon CanoScan 8400F, Epson Perfection 3170 Photo or Perfection 4180 Photo (all around the £150ish mark at Warehouse Express) should do the trick, although it would be worth confirming that your b+w slides will fit if they are an unusual size.

I've not used a flatbed scanner in years though, so I'm sure others will be along soon to give more uptodate advice!

HTH

[simpo two]

ehasler said:

I use a dedicated Nikon film scanner (bet that surprised you Simpo! )

I hadn't noticed; you'd covered it up with masking tape and written 'Canon' on in crayon

But what would be the difference between using a proper film scanner and a lightbox + macro lens? With the D70 that gives me roughly 300dpi resolution...

I suspect the scanner is better but I'm not sure why.

[ehasler]

simpo two said:

But what would be the difference between using a proper film scanner and a lightbox + macro lens? With the D70 that gives me roughly 300dpi resolution... I suspect the scanner is better but I'm not sure why.

Are you sure it's 300dpi? A decent film scanner will scan at 4000dpi, and produces an image of approx 5500 * 3900 pixels (20MPish) from a 35mm slide, so 300 dpi seems very low!

[towman]

Thanks for your help - much appreciated.

Steve

[simpo two]

ehasler said:

Are you sure it's 300dpi? A decent film scanner will scan at 4000dpi, and produces an image of approx 5500 * 3900 pixels (20MPish) from a 35mm slide, so 300 dpi seems very low!

Well, the D70 gives an image 3008 x 2000 pixels. A slide is roughly an inch wide, so... ah... bollox, you're right. Make that 3000dpi!!

Any views on equivalent quality though? Because if it's good enough, all he needs is a lightsource and a close-up lens/attachment... far cheaper than any scanner.

[V6GTO]

I have a Canon (Suprise, suprise!) Canoscan 5000F and I'm very happy with the results. Just had a quick look and most of the 35mm slides I've scanned are 1052x1504 and range 220KB upwards. It scans individual mounted slides, or strips of six slide or neg. film.
An example:- 1052x1504 & 762KB.


Martin.

[Dibble]

Steve - when you find what you wan, I'd recommend seeing whether it's available on Amazon.co.uk (from the actual site, rather than someone else selling through them).

I got a Sony CamCorder from there for Mrs Dibble's birthday for £430ish, plus carry case, extra battery and free tape.

Local Sony Centre quoted £699, just for the camera.

[Mr Sheen]

I know this thread is about scanners, but I use a Opteka High Definition Digital Duplicator for my slides, which fits directly to the end of my digital camera.

Depending on how many slides you have this could be a cheap option.

I have almost finished with it and will be selling it on soon, the results are very good.