Current picks on film scanners?

[wide.angle]

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I suddenly came into the market for a film scanner due to an inadvertant handling error by a 2yr old, which ended use of my Minolta ScanDual III. Haven't looked at film scanning technology in a while. Recommendations?

 

Just for giggles, anyone tried using the M8 yet to digitize slides?

[stunsworth]

Scott, if you want a dedicated film scanner Nikon seem to be the only game in town unless you want to spend a lot of money.

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The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[Zurenborger]

if you use XP try and find a coolscan III 2700dpi but perfect for any film type including B&W, and I reckon they can be got cheap.

[thrid]

Another vote for the Nikons.

 

 

I have the SCS5000ED and a 9000ED is in the mail. The entry level SC5000 costs about $600 and is a very good unit.

 

I think these are the best scanners short of a IMACON, which costs an arm and a leg. One of my favorite features is the LED light-source, which is rated at 100,000 hours. The fluorescent iin my old Minolta died and can no longer be replaced.

 

My only complaint about the Nikon 5000 series is the lack of a glass negative carrier. They sell a separate holder that does a better job than the strip feeder, but you need to make sure your negs are really flat to get the most out of it. Quite often I've pressed my negs under a stack of books for a few hours.

 

You can get a glass carrier for the 9000 series.

 

Other than that these are killer units.

[Never Satisfied]

Hi Scott, I use the Minolta Dimage 5400, the 4.8 D-Max is great for really dense negatives but I've recently had a play with the Nikon 5000 and the results are just as good, if not better and are available for about $600USD. Both scanners are being run by Vue Scan soft ware, which is great regardless of which scanner you end up with, cheers Andrew.

[John Maio]

Another vote for the Nikon Super CoolScan 5000ED. Works great on my Mac, either as a PSCS2 plug-in using Nikon's software, or with Vuscan shareware.

 

Here's a recent sample:

 

http://www.leica-camera-user.com/other/9881-malts-rock-n-roll.html

[LADP]

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Another recommendation for the SCS 5000 ED. I just got one, and although I am new to using it (and scanners in general), it is quite easy to use out of the box. I have just purchased the FH-3 filmstrip holder on eBay, and am waiting for it to arrive.

 

Now I just want to get some better software to run the scanner (SilverFast).

 

Quite a few folks here also recommended the Nikon CS 5 ED too, so I'm sure that's a good alternative at a lower price point.

[cpclee]

I use the Minolta 5400 (ver. 1) and am really pleased with it.

 

Whatever scanner you end up buying, make sure that you acquire professional scanning software to drive it. Most manufacturer's bundled software leaves a lot to be desired. I tried both VueScan and SilverFast and preferred the latter. With certain slides VueScan would produce artifacts with my scanner which SilverFast did not. SilverFast (in particular, SilverFast Ai) can be easily calibrated so that scans come out with color matching the original slide perfectly. (Most of the time, I only need to sharpen the slides slightly and apply very minor brightness/contrast adjustments for them to look perfect.) SilverFast also makes it easy to do high bit-rate scans. Most scanner's hardware can read more than 24 bits of data, but the bundled software truncates the information to result in 24-bit files. SilverFast can retain all that information to give you 48-bit files.

 

My regular workflow is to scan my slides at 48-bit, using 16x oversampling and grain dissolver. That takes quite a bit of time (about 20-30 minutes per slide?) but produces a very high quality scan good for archival.

[wide.angle]

Thanks for all the info!

 

Chris, after hearing yet another proponent of Silverfast, I decided to download it and try the demo with my "broken" scanner. To my complete surprise, I discovered that it was not my scanner that was broken, but my software. I have been using VueScan, and the scanner would seemingly crash mid-scan, etc. The demo of Silverfast did not have any problems scanning. Looks like a solution for now! (Though there are so many features and buttons in Silverfast, the interface is daunting).

[cpclee]

Glad to hear your problem is solved.

 

Yes SilverFast does include many features which can be daunting. I devoted a weekend to learning its color management settings as well as the prescan interface. After that, the software became second nature to use.

 

If you do go ahead and purchase SilverFast, consider getting a version that enables IT8 calibration. It will come with a calibration slide. Once your scanner is calibrated (and you only need to do this once), you will get accurate color without needing to tweak each picture individually. With slides, my pictures come out looking dead on most of the time. You will also need to calibrate your screen to really benefit from IT8 calibration. I personally use ColorVision's Spyder2Express.

 

On the other hand, IT8 does not really benefit negatives because there is no standard of reference.

 

Some useful info here:

 

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/sf5_contents.htm

[likea]

Having considered Coolscans and Minolta, I settled on a Microtek ArtixScan 120tf. It's a multi-format scanner, which was important for me because I shoot 35mm, 35 mm panoramic (24 x 65 mm) with an Xpan, and medium format. The ArtixScan does them all at resolutions up to 4000 DPI. I print up to 13 x 16-24 inches so I like high-res scans. The software bundled with the ArtixScan (ScanWizard Pro) is adequate enough. They also include a full copy of SilverFast, which is better. However, I prefer VueScan. Scans are fast, can be automated, and provide incredible fidelity. Heavy duty film holders are included for all formats, including Xpan. The entire scanner package ran about $1500. The device is very heavy duty and high quality. I'm totally satisfied with this decision and recommend it without reservation.

[guywalder]

I have to swim against the flow a bit here. My 8000ED scanner is infuriating! It is capable of very good scans, but has driven me mad with auto focus problems (it wont batch scan more than 20 or 30 slides before the AF completely fails), and I lost count of how often I waited half an hour or more for a single ccd (because of banding with the 3 ccd 'normal' option) 16x oversampled scan only to find that the glass holder had resulted in newtons rings

I no longer batch scan, and when using the glass holder I run a basic scan (not preview!) to check for newtons rings before turning up all the quality options.

Incidentally for all but critical work I use a slide copy adaptor and a macro lens on a D2x to digitise slides, a bit of a fiddle, but faster than the scanner!

Guy

[frc]

If your budget is limited and you come across a secondhand Minolta Scan-dual IV, buy it.

I've got one that's in constant use for over two years, it's never let me down.

Quality will be a bit better than your previous scanner, if you want a leap in quality the new Nikons are possibly a better choice.

[hiddenplace]

I used Minolta Scan Multi Pro for 2 years and I totally satisfy the results. It can scan 135 neg/pos as well as 120 format films. I also owned 5400 before. The scan speed of Scan Multi Pro is significant faster. Both scanners can dig out a lot of information form the films. As Scan Multi Pro is 3 times more expensive than 5400, I think 5400 is a very good choice of 135 shooters. It can be found on ebay only USD300-400.