Film Scanners

[andym91]

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My experience, mainly for Black&White scanning is as follows...

I have scanned thousands of negatives over the last few decades and my main observations are:

 

1.Film development is crucial to get right, lower contrast and grain is what to aim for irrelevant of which film-dev combination you choose.Each have their preferences but what's good for enlarger printing is not necessarily good for scanning.

I can't stress how important this is.

 

2.I personally don't do any corrections at the scan, I do all in LR or PS.Never use USM!

3.Choice of scanner is on one hand important but not critical.

Flatness of the negative, perfect focus and cleanliness are fundamental must haves.

I personally scan with Epson flatbed scanners since 15 years and after trying Nikon and Minolta I come back to Epson.

4.A good scan is only the first step to a beautiful print , that's where the real work starts 😂😊👍

Best

 

Andy

[bags27]

Can't say enough about the latest version of Negative Lab Pro, for both color (obviously) and even B&W. I'm very, very happy with camera scanning, using the terrific Essential Film Holder and my CL with the Sigma 70 macro. My workflow for both 135 and 120 is super quick and (I feel) accurate. 

I had planned to buy the Plustek 120 Pro, but no longer motivated. 

[RayD28]

I have been using Silverfast with an Epson V600.  I just got a Plustek 8100 and tried to use my currently installed Silverfast and when I try to download the driver I get a message that I have to download a new version of Silverfast.  Do any of you use Silverfast and have two scanners that it recognizes?  If so, would you please provide me some guidance?  

I spent two hours googling and reading but still can't get it to work.  Very frustrating.  

Edited December 3, 2020 by RayD28

[jwr50]

1 hour ago, RayD28 said:

Do any of you use Silverfast and have two scanners that it recognizes?  If so, would you please provide me some guidance?  

It's different versions of the Silverfast program that runs each scanner.  You have to download the version for each scanner (using the license number that came with the scanner), and then when the Silverfast homepage opens up,  you can select in a drop-down menu which scanner you want the software to drive.

I run both an Epson V850 and the Plustek Opticfilm 120 Pro on the Silverfast 8 Ai Studio software.  Once I downloaded the version for each software, it works flawlessly for me on a Windows 10 machine.  One of the criticisms of Silverfast is that they charge you separately for each version of the software, but the appropriate version of Silverfast (actually, the license number) was bundled with the V850 and the Plustek 120 Pro when I bought them.

Also, I make sure I have whichever scanner I am not using is turned off so the software isn't confused about which scanner it's supposed to drive.

Make sure  you have both versions of Silverfast (the version appropriate to the scanners you have) downloaded to your computer, and make sure the scanner not in use is turned off and it should work fine for you.

Edited December 3, 2020 by jwr50

[RayD28]

7 hours ago, jwr50 said:

It's different versions of the Silverfast program that runs each scanner.  You have to download the version for each scanner (using the license number that came with the scanner), and then when the Silverfast homepage opens up,  you can select in a drop-down menu which scanner you want the software to drive.

I run both an Epson V850 and the Plustek Opticfilm 120 Pro on the Silverfast 8 Ai Studio software.  Once I downloaded the version for each software, it works flawlessly for me on a Windows 10 machine.  One of the criticisms of Silverfast is that they charge you separately for each version of the software, but the appropriate version of Silverfast (actually, the license number) was bundled with the V850 and the Plustek 120 Pro when I bought them.

Also, I make sure I have whichever scanner I am not using is turned off so the software isn't confused about which scanner it's supposed to drive.

Make sure  you have both versions of Silverfast (the version appropriate to the scanners you have) downloaded to your computer, and make sure the scanner not in use is turned off and it should work fine for you.

Great information!  Thank you.  

[philipus]

Thank you for this. It's really nice, I think, that Plustek is committed to film scanning like this. Does the updated model have autofocus?

 

On 10/15/2020 at 10:04 PM, jwr50 said:

I've been using the new (really, updated) Plustek 120 Pro for about a month now.  I've been scanning both 35mm and 120 film using Silverfast Ai Studio, and I can say that I have been getting excellent scan results -- as good or better than I used to get on my old Nikon Coolscan.  It's slow, but that tends to be the nature of hi res scanning anyway.  In my view, short of a drum scanner, the Plustek 120 Pro is probably the best that's out there now.

[jwr50]

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55 minutes ago, philipus said:

Thank you for this. It's really nice, I think, that Plustek is committed to film scanning like this. Does the updated model have autofocus?

 

No, the Plustek 120 Pro does not have an autofocus function, but it does have a software-based manual focus capability which is easy to use.  The film holders are pretty robust and seem to do a good job of holding the film strips consistently, so once you get a focus you are satisfied with, it seems to stay in focus. 

[250swb]

3 hours ago, jwr50 said:

No, the Plustek 120 Pro does not have an autofocus function, but it does have a software-based manual focus capability which is easy to use.  The film holders are pretty robust and seem to do a good job of holding the film strips consistently, so once you get a focus you are satisfied with, it seems to stay in focus. 

Just to add to this the first batch of Plustek 120 scanners had a problem with the film holders that had been incorrectly manufactured. These were all replaced free of charge, but some of the original scanner reviews using the faulty film holders have been left on the web and don't reflect how very accurate the scanner really was/is. But the problem was if you had a very curly film and while the film holders are extremely good Plustek have added a focus feature in the new model to address this.

[Martin B]

On 12/3/2020 at 1:29 PM, RayD28 said:

I have been using Silverfast with an Epson V600.  I just got a Plustek 8100 and tried to use my currently installed Silverfast and when I try to download the driver I get a message that I have to download a new version of Silverfast.  Do any of you use Silverfast and have two scanners that it recognizes?  If so, would you please provide me some guidance?  

I spent two hours googling and reading but still can't get it to work.  Very frustrating.  

Had exactly the same issue two years ago, and I wrote a how-to-do-this procedure about it. I am using the SilverFast 8 SE version for my Epson V850 and the SilverFast 8 Ai version with my Plustek 8200 Ai. The Ai version of the software has the little advantage that it is able to handle 16 bit B&W scans (in regular scan mode without HDR) whereas the bit cheaper SE version only has the option to scan 16 --> 8 bit in B&W. Practically, I don't see a difference between both when scanning for B&W. I could have upgraded my SE version to the Ai version to be used on my V850 scanner, but since I felt this as ripoff to do so, I underwent the process to install both different versions to work in parallel. The procedure below is nowhere mentioned in any manual provided by SilverFast or on their support site. It took me hours to figure it out and several attempts to get there. 

1. Do not install Silverfast 8 from the CD - the versions are not the most actual ones, and you can only run Silverfast 8 for two (or more) scanners with exactly the same updated version. Do not try to install from the CD and do not use the update function within the program at this point - it won't work correctly and will only lead to hiccups with the other version.Also, you need to install both Silverfast 8 versions into the same hard drive directory to make them work in parallel.

2. Download the most actual versions directly form the Silverfast home page. To do this, registration of the software is a requirement. After registration, you need to enter the provided serial number which came with the original CD of the program - do not lose this number! This allows you to get on the Silverfast website with downloadable software versions for the specific program version which was purchased most likely in combination with the first scanner. Download the latest version into a directory to install from on the hard drive. Repeat the whole process for the Silverfast version of the second scanner - register it also, enter its serial #, and download again the latest version - it must be the same version code as the first one! - of this specific Silverfast 8 version.

3. Choose any of the two (or several) downloaded Silverfast 8 programs to be installed in a provided directory. After installation, select the other version to have it installed into the same directory as the earlier installed version. Then start the program with the provided Silverfast 8 desktop link - it will open the start page (assuming the scanner(s) are turned on) and have both scanners in the drop-down list to select from. After selection, the specific version of Silverfast 8 fitting to one of the scanners will start after the scanner unit is turned on.

4. Updates in the future. I didn't experience this myself yet, but I asked this question to the support team of Silverfast. Supposedly you can run from now on the internal update function which will now automatically recognize that two (or more) Silverfast versions were installed in the same directory. I was told that there is no need to download the latest upgraded version again directly from the homepage.

Update to point 4: It worked once with an earlier update of SilverFast but for whatever reason it gave a hiccup with the latest version to install. I had to reset my whole Windows system to the point before I attempted to update that both SilverFast programs for both of my scanners worked again. At this point, I simply don't update the versions anymore to avoid further hiccups. 

Overall, setting SilverFast 8 up for multiple scanners is a pain in the neck. 

Edited December 9, 2020 by Martin B

[RayD28]

Thanks for the details. I use only silverfast 8 for both devices. I called support and they walked me through a similar sequence of steps as you list.  But I cannot have both scanners on at the same time.  So far only a couple of problems that were fixed by closing and reopening silverfast and turning the scanner off and on. 

Thanks again for the details. 
 

Ray

[P1505]

Hope it’s ok to hijack this thread instead of starting a new one.

I have about 500 negatives in pretty poor condition I need to scan, to print no larger than A4. For a photobook Im doing. The negatives were shot at the wrong ISO as my camera failed in the heat of Cuba. So... yeah. I’m getting quotes to have them scanned by a lab on Flextight and Noritsu scanners, but it looks to be £350-£500 plus a long wait.

What I’m unsure of is if the negatives are poor to start with (overly contrasty) is the more expensive lab scan worth it, or should I buy my own scanner? And if I buy my own, for smaller scans is an Epson or Plustek better?

Once I’ve scanned this batch, I’ll sell the scanner. I’m done with film.

All advice welcome, desperate to get this book done.

[Knipsknecht]

Hmmm, I‘m not an expert in this matter, but I would suggest to use a DSLR or a DSLM with a Macro lens (1:1 ratio) and a copy stand. You will find quite a lot of information here in the forum as well as on the Internet (lots of YT videos!) concerning “scanning” your photos with a digital camera and then tweaking the corresponding RAW files.

Especially with “difficult” photos (wrong ISO in your case) you have much more leeway to work on the files and get results that you like.

But if you don’t have a digital camera or if this appears to be too difficult or cumbersome to you, I suggest it’s better to talk to a really good lab. Depending on the part of this world you’re living in I think you can get some good advice here in the forum who you could talk to!

[P1505]

I have looked into this. By the time I buy a lens, stand, light, film holder, conversion plugin - Im at scanner money easily.

[Mr.Prime]

I’ve been quite happy with Silverfast with a Plustek 8100 for 35mm. I would love to have the new pro scanner to cover 120 roll film. Their new pro scanner looks to have all the performance and features that I would have asked for. The price looks spot on given what it does but it would be a luxury purchase for me as I just won’t have enough film to put through it. Instead, for 6x6 I am thinking about cobling together something using my CL and my fathers canon ef-s 60mm macro - somehow.