Film Scanning - what are you using to scan your 35 negatives... ?

[Einst_Stein]

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I have film scanners, includ8ng Polaroid A45, , LeAfscan 45, Epson, but now use digital camera. 
The biggest advantage of digital camera is speed. IQ wise, digital camera is good enough, though on professional hands, scanner might be better.

[Martin B]

On 10/13/2023 at 8:51 AM, ianman said:

Plustek opticfilm 8100 8200i

Same here for 35 mm negatives. Scanner includes SilverFast 8 (or now maybe version 9?) software which has pros and cons. I do not recommend to use this scanner for slides within a slide holder frame. The height of these holders is different between varying frame types, and you can get blurry/unsharp scans when the focus point of the scanner is not on the slide film plane. The scanner's focus can not be adjusted. The scanner works very well with high detail for negatives. Color negative scanning is not easy with the SilverFast software judging from my own experience. I encountered several times yellow banding with color negative scanning on the side of the frame when the film plane was a bit bent and not fully straight in the holder. I did not see this issue with my Epson V850 scanner and the Epson scanner software for example.

Alternative scanner software are Vuescan and digitizing negatives directly with a digital camera using Negative Lab Pro which is a LR plugin. I have no experience with either so far but read good reviews. 

Edited October 19, 2023 by Martin B

[Martin B]

On 10/13/2023 at 9:28 AM, TomB_tx said:

Epson V850 - but only do B&W. I typically load & shoot short rolls - 20 exp. Can scan a roll with one click using Epson Scan, faster than doing a contact sheet, and results are fine for computer viewing, etc. I still use an enlarger and wet prints for an exceptional shot. (Often my short rolls are just to test a camera.)

Also using a V850 but mainly for medium and large format based negatives. Tricky part with the Epson V-series scanners is to calibrate it for the correct focus height. The focus point of the scanner is a few mm above the glass plate which is not well documented in the manual unfortunately. Therefore Epson included the adjustable "feet" in 5 positions on the included holders. The photos below share the difference in an enlarged area of a B&W negative scan. Each number represents one position of the adjustable height of the holder. The image gets sharpest in middle positions 3 and 4 on my scanner. This might vary between scanner units of the same model. 

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This is likely the root cause for many reviews out there which complain about not getting sharp 35 mm based scans with Epson V-series scanners. Most of the time people will just put the negative onto the glass surface or use a holder without adjusted correct scan height. 

Edited October 19, 2023 by Martin B

[Steve Ricoh]

1’s and 0’s, essentially. You don’t want them all the same if you can avoid it. 😊

 

[250swb]

On 10/19/2023 at 2:09 PM, Martin B said:

This is likely the root cause for many reviews out there which complain about not getting sharp 35 mm based scans with Epson V-series scanners. Most of the time people will just put the negative onto the glass surface or use a holder without adjusted correct scan height. 

No not really the case. It's because the light source for 35mm is so diffuse with an Epson flatbed that it's like printing a 35mm negative with a cold cathode head on the enlarger instead of a condenser head. Combined with a low resolution anyway and it doesn't work as well as a Plustek 35mm scanner (or a digital camera). You can use Betterscanning film holders that offer infinite adjustability as opposed to the Epson full steps of adjustment and fine focus doesn't ultimately make any difference to the poor quality of Epson 35mm scans. 

[Martin B]

16 hours ago, 250swb said:

No not really the case. It's because the light source for 35mm is so diffuse with an Epson flatbed that it's like printing a 35mm negative with a cold cathode head on the enlarger instead of a condenser head. Combined with a low resolution anyway and it doesn't work as well as a Plustek 35mm scanner (or a digital camera). You can use Betterscanning film holders that offer infinite adjustability as opposed to the Epson full steps of adjustment and fine focus doesn't ultimately make any difference to the poor quality of Epson 35mm scans. 

My scanning works perfectly fine with correctly adjusted Epson holders.

[250swb]

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3 hours ago, Martin B said:

My scanning works perfectly fine with correctly adjusted Epson holders.

That’s fine, but for myself and a lot of other photographers our ‘good enough’ limit has yet to be reached. It’s always going to be a problem recommending something that is good enough for one person but maybe not be for the next. But the Epson scanner for 35mm is two generations behind other methods of scanning film and that is a big difference when it comes to digital capture.

[Dr Cron]

This is the core of my current DIY scanning set up for 135 and 120 film.  

Nikon D800E, with 200 f/4 micro on wimberley lens plate (for 135) and 85PC/E tilt-shift for 120.

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Novoflex Castel-L macro rail with Wimberly QR clamp attached and Swarovski head QR plate on bottom.
Swarovski Pan-tilt tripod head and centre column from spotting scope setup.
Delta hide clamp attached to centre column.
Negative supply 135 pro carrier/advancer and base; 5x7 light panel.
Lego mask for 120 film.

The hide clamp/centre column/head /macro rail combo, when the clamp is clamped to a table, works in exactly the same way as a copy stand, but with the additional bonus that it can be easily put away when not in use.  And solid enough, obviously, to cope with the heavy DSLR/tele macro setup (I sold my 60 micro-nikkor some time ago... that would probably be better but this works totally fine).

Camera settings:
Manual exposure, MLU, 3 second delay, WB set to 5000K, usually about 1/8" f/11.  Shooting full frame at slightly less than 1:1 for 135, double- and triple-checking that I've got the entire frame in the viewfinder properly - VERY easy to get this wrong, even for full rolls at a time...

Other setup aspects:
With 135 film, I use the optional masks in the Negative supply advancer for B&W for a bit more of a film border if I want it.  For colour, however, I swap back in the original ones, to prevent colour casts/light leaks from the film rebate.  For colour neg I'll also include a shot of some film rebate in case I need it for inversion, though Negative Lab Pro sees to all that.
With 120 film, I do it all manually, making a stitch of two frames per film exposure to increase resolution.  I simply move the film along by hand and replace the Lego mask which sits directly on top of the film to keep it in place, weighed down with coins.
At one end I have the film rolls in a ziplock bag, and at the other end they come out into a large bowl once scanned.

 

[thighslapper]

On 10/19/2023 at 2:09 PM, Martin B said:

Also using a V850 but mainly for medium and large format based negatives. Tricky part with the Epson V-series scanners is to calibrate it for the correct focus height. The focus point of the scanner is a few mm above the glass plate which is not well documented in the manual unfortunately. Therefore Epson included the adjustable "feet" in 5 positions on the included holders. The photos below share the difference in an enlarged area of a B&W negative scan. Each number represents one position of the adjustable height of the holder. The image gets sharpest in middle positions 3 and 4 on my scanner. This might vary between scanner units of the same model. 

This is likely the root cause for many reviews out there which complain about not getting sharp 35 mm based scans with Epson V-series scanners. Most of the time people will just put the negative onto the glass surface or use a holder without adjusted correct scan height. 

I thought long and hard about scanner versus the macro lens/photographing option.

As I have mostly old slides, negatives and prints that I wanted to digitise for posterity and also to compile a book of photos for our 45 year University reunion I opted for the Epson V850. The original image quality is often suboptimal (probably inebriate) and there is only so much you can get out of 35mm even if finely grained and well exposed so I feel the marginal quality benefits of other methods for these are not worth it. The great advantage is than once set up, you can load 12 slides, press a button and go and do something else.

Getting optimum quality has been a week of research, testing and fine tuning .... and as you say setting the right height adjustment is critical .... and that varies slightly between thicker Gepe glass mounted slides and cheapo card ones. So does calibrating the scanner to get a correct ICC profile which makes a difference to the final scan colours. After a fair bit of testing I also found 4200dpi to be the best resolution ..... I suspect this has something to do with the higher res lens changeover after 3200 and is in fact better than 6400dpi. Double sampling the scan and Multiexposure (available using Vuescan) also improves the output and as it's all automated the extra time involved isn't a burden. Dust removal works very well, even for the cruddiest slide ..... which is one less task in processing later if I was to do it all manually with a macro lens.  

All in all, the end results are more than adequate for my needs and the odd A3 print I have done so far looks perfectly acceptable.  

I'm currently running through a few rolls of 35mm negative and transparency film in a Nikon F after a nearly 35 year break from 'proper' photography and will see whether I can get results which I am satisfied with ..... if not I may have to try the other options.....

Edited February 7, 2024 by thighslapper

[Martin B]

16 hours ago, thighslapper said:

So does calibrating the scanner to get a correct ICC profile which makes a difference to the final scan colours.

Glad it worked well! I am curious - how did you calibrate the scanner with the correct ICC profile? I haven't done this but would love to learn how to apply this. 

[thighslapper]

Just now, Martin B said:

Glad it worked well! I am curious - how did you calibrate the scanner with the correct ICC profile? I haven't done this but would love to learn how to apply this. 

the V850 came bundled with Xrite i1Scanner software and both transparent and reflective targets ..... the disk was unreadable and the software download page missing but customer support sent me a link. (You need the reg codes from the supplied disk to activate it). You basically scan the target with any scanner modifying settings off .... load scan into the software and it compares it to the profile it has for that target and creates the ICC profile that you can load into the scanner software (Vuescan in my case). In fact only 5% of the target was out of gamut so the default rendering from the scanner is already very good. 

Like almost everything to with scanning the documentation is crap, the software unintuitive and it takes some head scratching to get everything working as intended. 

[Martin B]

8 minutes ago, thighslapper said:

the V850 came bundled with Xrite i1Scanner software and both transparent and reflective targets ..... the disk was unreadable and the software download page missing but customer support sent me a link. (You need the reg codes from the supplied disk to activate it). You basically scan the target with any scanner modifying settings off .... load scan into the software and it compares it to the profile it has for that target and creates the ICC profile that you can load into the scanner software (Vuescan in my case). In fact only 5% of the target was out of gamut so the default rendering from the scanner is already very good. 

Like almost everything to with scanning the documentation is crap, the software unintuitive and it takes some head scratching to get everything working as intended. 

It's > 5 years that I bought this scanner new - I remember it came with SilverFast 8 software, and I downloaded the Epson scan software, but I don't recall to have seen the Xrite i1Scanner software and the targets. I have to double-check, I kept the original discs. I agree, documentation was miserable. Took me a while to figure out how to use the negative holders correctly. The Epson scan software was and still is quite outdated the way it works - but it is working at least. I use this one mostly for document scans. 

[chris_livsey]

On 2/8/2024 at 1:12 PM, thighslapper said:

Like almost everything to with scanning the documentation is crap, the software unintuitive and it takes some head scratching to get everything working as intended. 

And the output frequently disappointing even after spending longer with the "after the event" software than it took to make a decent wet print.

(V850 sold and reverted to Plustek 8100 but then I'm not shooting 120 and 5x4 seriously now)

Edited February 16, 2024 by chris_livsey
Grammar Pedant

[Jeremy Bunting]

The Noritsu LS-600, while expensive ($4k or so in great shape), is incredible, and lightning fast. I scan a roll of 36 at 4000dpi/24bit in roughly 25 minutes, with pretty minimal intervention by me after I double check the cropping for each frame.

[fotomas]

Imacon 848

Not the fastes solution, but you have pretty good control on what you are doing.

[algrove]

On 10/13/2023 at 8:28 AM, Nachtmsk said:

Hi,

What are some good at-home options for scanning 35mm film?  Years back I used  Nikon Coolscan for my 35mm film. These days I have been using an adapter for my Nikon D850 with a 55 macro lens to scan my 35 negs by taking a picture of them. It works ok, but the scans do tend to be a little on the high contrast side.

I've been reading some reviews on B&H about Epson scanners for 35 and 120 film and they have been getting pretty good reviews.  It looks like a third party app (Vuescan) is needed if you use a Mac, which I do but I have used Vuescan before and it works fairly well.

So my question - what are you using to scan your 35 (and 120 if possible) negs these days?  I'd like to put my M6 to good use and shoot some more film!

 

Thanks
Mike

Yes, I use my M11 with 85 APO Macro lens on a copy stand (B&H) and put film into a Korean light box which comes with metal 135 and 120 film holders. Works like a charm. I also use an M6 for film and sometimes a Barnack 1931 1C..

 

[Mr.Prime]

I am fairly sure that there's great results to be obtained with more than one method, so I came to the conclusion that it's more appropriate to choose your method based on what you are comfortable with. You'll end up spending some real time on the scanning and image clean-up so you may as well choose a method that you like and don't get overly concerned about the 'best'. As everyone has different approaches there will always be varying opinions on what is 'best'. 

Good recommendation above to look at older scanners, from the hey-day. I had a Minolta scanner once that did a nice job of my slide collection but wouldn't interface with any of my current computers and nowadays I want my electronics to be mostly up to date.

Personally, I don't want to establish a digital camera set-up for the scanning job. I don't have the equipment to hand, and I just don't want to go to the trouble of using film only to use a Bayer-digital camera at the end of it. This is really just a personal preference, which I've voiced before and want to add here that I don't mean to push my preference onto anybody else but it gives some context to my post about my experiences with what I'm using for scanning. 

I have an old Epson flat-bed for 120 film, and I've had good results but most of my stuff is 35mm and I enjoy using a dedicated Plustek scanner. I've only used it with negative strips so don't know if slides would be an issue yet. It's easy to set up and put away, isn't very fussy about ambient light, tends not to attract dust into the mechanism, has a small footprint, isn't particularly delicate or sensitive to what's going on around it. I can take it out of the pouch, plonk it down on the kitchen table with my lap-top and I'm scanning within a minute.

The Plustek came with SilverFast8 software (for my iMac) and so I made the effort to learn how to use it. The built-in film profiles do what they should and have given me good results with Ilford and Kodak films. I don't know if SilverFast is the best. I upgraded to version 9 and the Customer Service people recently helped me port it all to a new computer - I can report excellent experience dealing with them. Silverfast 9 is currently set up to work with both of my scanners.

My skills are not that high, I end up with exposure errors too often with my Leica M cameras and sometimes I have to adjust the scan settings to increase exposure, or add a bit of contrast. In general, the results from a properly exposed negative are very good, but unforgiving of poorly exposed negatives. If you go down this path you might like to know that I have recently found Ilford HP5 does slightly better at 3600dpi than it does at 2400dpi (subjectively) whereas Ilford FP4 is fine at 2400dpi or higher. I use mostly 2400dpi and then, when warranted (e.g. I plan to crop or enlarge, or show my gf a shot of herself) I'll use 3600dpi or even 7200dpi (rarely, as files are 45MB).

Sometimes I like to make a 'contact sheet' of my 35mm negative strips on the flatbed and then do the 'real' scanning on the Plustek. Having the contact sheet image up on the computer screen whilst I'm running the negative strips through the Plustek allows me to pick and choose.

I find that working with film is harder than working with a digital camera, it requires more work, is more error prone and you can't correct mistakes because you don't see the images until much later and scanning requires time and cleaning up. I don't think I want it any other way ! 🙂

Edited April 16, 2024 by Mr.Prime

[250swb]

28 minutes ago, Mr.Prime said:

I am fairly sure that there's great results to be obtained with more than one method, so I came to the conclusion that it's more appropriate to choose your method based on what you are comfortable with. You'll end up spending some real time on the scanning and image clean-up so you may as well choose a method that you like and don't get overly concerned about the 'best'. As everyone has different approaches there will always be varying opinions on what is 'best'. 

Good recommendation above to look at older scanners, from the hey-day. I had a Minolta scanner once that did a nice job of my slide collection but wouldn't interface with any of my current computers and nowadays I want my electronics to be mostly up to date.

Personally, I don't want to establish a digital camera set-up for the scanning job. I don't have the equipment to hand, and I just don't want to go to the trouble of using film only to use a Bayer-digital camera at the end of it. This is really just a personal preference, which I've voiced before and want to add here that I don't mean to push my preference onto anybody else but it gives some context to my post about my experiences with what I'm using for scanning. 

I have an old Epson flat-bed for 120 film, and I've had good results but most of my stuff is 35mm and I enjoy using a dedicated Plustek scanner. I've only used it with negative strips so don't know if slides would be an issue yet. It's easy to set up and put away, isn't very fussy about ambient light, tends not to attract dust into the mechanism, has a small footprint, isn't particularly delicate or sensitive to what's going on around it. I can take it out of the pouch, plonk it down on the kitchen table with my lap-top and I'm scanning within a minute.

The Plustek came with SilverFast8 software (for my iMac) and so I made the effort to learn how to use it. The built-in film profiles do what they should and have given me good results with Ilford and Kodak films. I don't know if SilverFast is the best. I upgraded to version 9 and the Customer Service people recently helped me port it all to a new computer - I can report excellent experience dealing with them. Silverfast 9 is currently set up to work with both of my scanners.

My skills are not that high, I end up with exposure errors too often with my Leica M cameras and sometimes I have to adjust the scan settings to increase exposure, or add a bit of contrast. In general, the results from a properly exposed negative are very good, but unforgiving of poorly exposed negatives. If you go down this path you might like to know that I have recently found Ilford HP5 does slightly better at 3600dpi than it does at 2400dpi (subjectively) whereas Ilford FP4 is fine at 2400dpi or higher. I use mostly 2400dpi and then, when warranted (e.g. I plan to crop or enlarge, or show my gf a shot of herself) I'll use 3600dpi or even 7200dpi (rarely, as files are 45MB).

Sometimes I like to make a 'contact sheet' of my 35mm negative strips on the flatbed and then do the 'real' scanning on the Plustek. Having the contact sheet image up on the computer screen whilst I'm running the negative strips through the Plustek allows me to pick and choose.

I find that working with film is harder than working with a digital camera, it requires more work, is more error prone and you can't correct mistakes because you don't see the images until much later and scanning requires time and cleaning up. I don't think I want it any other way ! 🙂

I can see where you are coming from, but don’t necessarily agree with any of it. But the negative you have is what it is, under exposed or over exposed, under or over developed etc. and trying to compensate by using scanner software (Silverfast etc) instead of post processing software (Lightroom etc) is a strange way to do it.
 

Trying to create the final image in scanner software you lock into a scan settings that cannot be undone unless you re-scan it all over again, and you are using pretty dumb software to adjust the image compared to Lightroom etc. And in any case the best scan to do is one that is low contrast and avoids any clipping at all, and it may look horrible until you adjust it in Lightroom. But doing it that way doesn’t junk any of the information available from the negative, it remains pristine for you to go back to time and time again if you want to re-interpret the image a day or two later.

Edited April 16, 2024 by 250swb

[Mr.Prime]

I have a gap there with no image processing software other than Photos. It means my scanner software does some of the heavy lifting it wasn't perhaps best at. I don't use image editing software often enough to justify a hefty subscription fee.

Also, Photos doesn't do fine rotations.

I am in need of some decent image editing software and just today I came across a thread on this forum about 'Nitro'. 

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[trickness]

Negative Supply setup with my SL2 and 100mm R macro APO 2.8 & Elpro, Negative Labs plug for developing. Just got it set up yesterday, a little fiddly and obviously $$$, but good results.

Ordered a Valoi Easy35 to see if it’s any simpler, have a Sigma 70 APO macro on the way as the Valoi doesn’t do E60 with step up/down rings.