negative scanners

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone could make any suggestions as to the best negative
scanners I could purchase. I'm currently using a flatbed scanner but it only
scans 6 frames at a time at the most. I'm wanting something that will do a
lot more (36 perhaps?) and will get on with scanning while I do something
else. Time of the scan isn't really an issue.

I ask as I have thousands of negatives that I'd like to sort and
scan/digitalise.

Any thoughts?

TIA

T.

 

Well most consumer priced negative scanners only do a couple at a time. Even
if you get your negatives back without them being cut in to sections of 4 or
6 most won't handle all that many. Now you can get more expensive scanners
that will, but we are talking quite a bit more money.

LJC

 

Not what you are looking for but my new Canon Scanner will do two strips
of 6 for a total of 12. The quality is good for the price.

 

You might get more or better responses in the "rec.photo.35mm" group
where I'm sure they've discussed this in detail.

But, do you have a budget in mind?

Beyond that, I've only used my flatbed scanner for my older negs, but
I understand the Nikon Coolscan models are quite good. A friend of
mine has scanned thousands of negs through his Nikon scanner before he
switched to digital, and he never had a complaint about it.

 

I would suggest that the short list be limited to those models with Digital
ICE. When I began scanning old transparencies--that I had kept boxed up
and, presumably, free of dust--I was stunned to see all the dust spots on
them. It would have taken hours to clean each one up, and the results would
not have been nearly as good as those obtained with ICE.

The Nikons seem to represent the performance standard today for advanced
amateurs. If you have budgetary issues, I can recommend the PrimeFilm
PF3650 Pro3, which sells in the neighborhood of US$350, to be a good choice,
with Digital ICE3 and optical resolution of 3600 x 3600 ppi. For my own
amateur requirements it fit the bill just fine. And it exceeds the
resolution of the old Kodak Photo CD, plus it has a DMAX significantly
higher than the Photo CD did.

Its main fault is that it is slow--takes about 5 minutes per scan, at full
resolution and with ICE turned on. But I have found a way to minimize that,
by having my negatives developed and returned uncut, in a long roll. The
scanner can accept a roll of up to 40 frames, and can scan the individual
frames automatically. I just insert the roll, do a prescan (all at once)
and then have the scanner do the full scans on its own. I return in about 2
hours and everything is finished. That suits me better than having to
insert 4 or 5 frames in a negative carrier, and have to keep changing the
negative strips until all the frames are scanned. I can't think of any
other scanners that do full rolls in a single pass, and that feature seems
to overcome the scanner's long scanning times.

Of course, if you are scanning slides you must insert them one at a time.
The Braun (which is also a PrimeFilm scanner, rebadged for sale in the US
under the Braun brand name) has a setup for scanning a full tray of slides
at a time, but it sells for 4 times the price of the PF 3650 Pro3 (which is
sold in Europe under the "Reflecta" brand name).

Nikon has solutions for scanning multiple slides, but they are much more
expensive. If money were no object, I'd probably suggest Nikon. If,
however, you are burdened with minor financial inconveniences like
mortgages, college funds and car payments, and if you do not shoot photos
for a living, the PrimeFilm units will yield good results, with the benefits
of Digital ICE, Digital ROC and Digital GEM, all for a very low price.