Scanning 35 mm film and slides

[Threeracers]

I have a huge amount of slides and 35 mm negs that I would like to scan onto DVD and archive properly. I recognise this is going to be a lengthy task and its not going to be something I want to do twice so I am considering dedicated film scanners.

This Minolta one looked interesting;

www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/90671/art/konica_minolta/elite_5400_ii_35_mm_film.html?srcid=867#

It’s 5400 dpi and won a “Best Scanner” award but I thought I would just ask on here before taking the plunge.

[pdV6]

I've done several hundred with a film/slide adapter for the lid of a conventional flatbed scanner and it was tedious beyond belief. ~£500 would be too much for me to consider buying a dedicated scanner, but it sounds like you have a lot more than me to get through... how much is your time worth?

[dinkel]

KONICA MINOLTA Scan Dual IV Scanner / set you back 325 euro's. I've seen some A3 prints which were pretty good. I'd buy one.

[Threeracers]

I looked at that one first, mainly due to the price – they list it at £219 here;

www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/41575/art/konica-minolta/scanner-scan-dual-iv.html

But the review of it was not very good. It is only one purchasers opinion to be fair but he only gave it a 6/10 and said;

“basic slide scanner, its cheap will scan 35mm negatives and slides.
The control software is horrible, clunky, hides important options, duplicates options its terrible, use vuescan instead. At this price you can't expect infra red cleaning so any dust or scratches need to be manually removed. There is a software clean up option but it mestakes bright highlights for dust and causes to much damage to the picture.
sharpness and clour satutation are not great and dynamic range is too low for recovering all the detail from E6 slides especially velvia 100F.
scanning negatives shows some banding in the sky due to a rather noisy CCD sensor.

Summary basic model, cheap but will not do justice to your E6 slides the scan elite 5400 offers far more in terms of sharpness, saturation, lower CCD noise and has infra red cleaning.”

Whereas the dearer one I mentioned in my first post got a 10/10!

To be honest my budget is directing me to the cheaper one but if the quality is not up to scratch I would hate to look back in years to come wishing I had shelled out for the better one. I really only want to do the job once. Decisions, decisions....

[LongQ]

You could have a look at the other current thread about scanning 6x7 slides where you should find some useful info.

I was attracted to scanning at max resolution as well but the main effect seems to be to produce enormous files which seems to be unnecessary for most purposes. Very unnecessary. Doubtful the film can really offer the resolution to justify the file size unless you want to pick small areas of the original and blow them up to A3 size.

However, if you really do want the huge files (and the impressive processing times to go with them ...) a flatbed scanner offering up to 16 slides or 24 negatives (assuming your film is cut to 6 frame strips) in a single batch has some attractions over a dedicated device taking a smaller number. Yuo can just set it in motion and leave it for a couple of hours - especially if you use the Digital ICE facility or similar!

I went for a flatbed as I have a few larger than 35mm negatives to scan. Glad I did since the results from the larger stuff has been excellent and I have a few older prints for which I have not yet found the negatives and the scanner produces excellent results from the prints as well.

Had I gone dedicated I think a carefully selected unit KM 5400 II unit from ebay would be the way to go - but prices are hugely variable and you have to watch the P&P.