Help - scanner for one-off 35mm film capture

onefivenine

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Folks,

I have a small amount of 35mm negatives which I would like to scan - maybe up to a few hundred. I've been reading around a bit and the consensus seems to be that you should scan at 5400dpi?

Can anyone with past experience of doing this offer any advice or recommendations?

I'll be putting a scanner wanted ad in the classifieds soon - just in case anyone is thinking of selling one on.

Cheers!
 
Hi

I was in a similar position earlier this year and looked about for a scanner I ended up with the Epson 3490 Photo cost about £70 and must say I was very pleased with the quality it produced. The prints at A4 a very acceptable and on a par with those form my 5MP camera.
You don't say what you intend to do with the finished image files but I use mine to burn to DVD/CD and project through a home cinema System giving me the same sort of experience as the old slide projector but with the ability to use software to create all sorts of effects. I find the finished files ideal for this.

Hope this helps
 
Thanks Luffy.
I'm hoping for as high a resolution as possible. I'll probably want to crop, print, and maybe a small amount of post processing.
Also plan to shoot more B&W film and do the same with the negatives.
The Epson Perfection V700 looks great but £349 :eek: is a stretch too far! Maybe something in between.
 
on the epson 3490, i have the same scanner, i havent used it to scan negatives, but it comes with a plastic thingy to put them in, which lines up with the use of pegs into holes. its a cracking scanner for anything i've tried.

unfortunately, moved house, and havent seen a negative in months! otherwise i wouldve been happy to upload/email you one. if i do happen to see one soon (unlikely) i'll keep you in mind.
 
Hi lmaolmao - thanks for the input. No doubt they're hiding in an unpacked box somewhere!

If anyone has got an example of max res scan that they could share that would be great.

There was a post not that long ago with B&W scans of a train/underground station in China or somewhere else in Asia... but I haven't managed to find it yet to ask the OP about it!

Edit: Just found the thread - they were Liquid101's photos:-
http://www.avforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3844999&postcount=6

Liquid101 if you're reading, what scanner did you use for these? The quality was very impressive! :) (Just PM'd you!)
 
If you want cheap then look for an old film scanner. Unless your image quality requirements are very low the only flatbed scanners really worth using for 35mm scanning are the Epson V700 and V750. You should be able to buy an older slide scnner for a very reasonable price on ebay.

I've just bought one of the Epson V700 scanners to replace a Canon FS2710 film scanner, which wasn't giving me the results I wanted. I'm still toying with the Epson to work it out and am probably getting far from perfect scans (haven't tried the height adjustment feet so might not be optimum sharpness for one thing) but I'm pleased with the results so far. I know that it's out of your price range but here's a few scans from the first set of slides I've put through it:



fully automatic scan of a transparency, resized and unsharp masked in Paint Shop Pro.



another transparency, adjusted in Paint Shop Pro for straightening, levels adjust, saturation, de-dusting and unsharp mask



another transparency, adjusted in Paint Shop Pro for straightening, levels adjust, de-dusting and unsharp mask

All of those are clickable and on the flickr page are large 3000x2000 versions of the images if you want to pixel-peep at any. There are a few more on there too:

Epson V700 scans
 
Great, thanks Paul - this is very useful. I've just been looking at all your scans. :thumbsup:
The quality is tremendous, nice shots too. I especially liked the 2nd shot of the church on your flickr.

It looks like the V700 is the scanner to have but I'm wondering whether the V350 (4800dpi) would be 'acceptable' (compared to your V700 at 6400dpi). It does seem like quite a downgrade but it is about 1/4 of the price of the V700.

Still mulling this one over! Thanks again for your help. :smashin:
 
No problems, I kinda wanted to post up a couple of these shots anyway. :) The quality has certainly been a pleasant surprise to me although it does naturally depend on the quality of the original film - I scanned a set of negatives from Christmas years ago and they don't look fantastic, rather odd colours and exposures in a lot of them but the prints came out a bit like that too. I'll need to work on my technique for those difficult films.

A quick look on google and flickr suggests the V350 might offer reasonable scans from 35mm and I found a few photos on flickr scanned using it:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bovinemagnet/322974941/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bovinemagnet/324672871/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bovinemagnet/323526840/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bovinemagnet/323011903/

which look fairly good for such a cheap scanner. I think it really depends on your wallet and your expectations, but this looks like a reasonable cheap option.
 
Funny I thought of the same thing after seeing your scans!
Could only find the same 4 examples. Nothing on pbase.

Might try some other sites but in any case, I think the v350 will be fine. I want the scans primarily for web use, maybe prints but probably no more than A4 or maybe a rare A3 depending what I dig up.

Looks like I'm settling on the V350 though.

Cheers again for the advice. :)
Dave
 
I thought I would post my experience with the v350 (as the owner of those photos on flickr).

Someone on flickr asked me about the v350 my reply is here http://www.flickr.com/photos/bovinemagnet/322974941/

I think personally it does a great job.

Likes:
Easy to use.
Not too slow (not to fast either)
The price.
The negative feeder.

Dislikes:
I spend a lot of time fixing the resulting images, ie dust, scratches, etc. (I don't use the automated fixes in the epson software. maybe i should)
I ruined one negative in the feeder. (it was not completely flat)


It scans photos quite well too.

This one was a photo print I scanned in.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bovinemagnet/335046061/

Paul
 

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