Film Scanners

[agent006]

Just looking at this

Some of the posh ones mention that they can scan negatives and films. Any idea what this one does? Any recommendations for either?

Ta muchos

[simpo two]

agent006 said:

Some of the posh ones mention that they can scan negatives and films. Any idea what this one does? Any recommendations for either? Ta muchos

It will send a nice image of your colour print to your PC/Mac. Whether it works for negatives as well is, I think, a software issue. Not sure if that would be supplied or whether you are expected to have it in your PC/Mac.

[130tdi]

It's a 35mm slide and negative scanner - not for prints.

About 5 years or so ago I bought a Jenoptik JS21, basically the predecessor to this one. The quality is pretty good, but scanning at high resolution (9600dpi on the JS21) used to produce a BMP file of over 300MB.

If you want to scan prints and slides/negatives, I can recommend a Canon 3000F which comes with a 35mm adaptor. Really good quality for general useage and a lot quicker than the JS21. I got mine from dabs.com for about £70

[luca brazzi]

I got one (about 15 months ago), about to post it on loan to another PHer. Not used it much, but quality is reasonable....not bad for the money. Software controls whether you see positive or negative.

You can borrow it when .Mark has finished with it if you like?

LB

[simpo two]

130tdi said:

It's a 35mm slide and negative scanner - not for prints.

Sorry yes, I was on the phone when I typed that. No thinking properly, doh.

[agent006]

So it makes no difference if you give it an undeveloped film, or a set of negatives fresh back from boots?

[te51cle]

agent006 said:

So it makes no difference if you give it an undeveloped film, or a set of negatives fresh back from boots?

The scanner you are looking at is for developed 35mm negatives and slide films. You do not put undeveloped film in these machines.

Also note that the 9600 dpi quoted is an interpolated figure, the real resolution is only 1800dpi which is fine for full frame enlargements up to A4 size. You will start to notice artefacts and jagged diagonal lines if you want to enlarge beyond that size - or do enlargements of a smaller part of the 35mm frame.

You'd probably be better off with something like the Canon LiDE 80 which is a 2400dpi flatbed which would have higher resolution, ability to scan slides negs and prints, and includes decent image manipulation software (Photoshop Elements 2) in the price.

[agent006]

Would i be right in thinking that scanning negatives will give better quality results than scanning prints of said negatives?

[simpo two]

agent006 said:

Would i be right in thinking that scanning negatives will give better quality results than scanning prints of said negatives?

(Hopefully my brain is back in...)
Yes, scanning from the negatives should give the best results because prints have already lost a generation of quality. (However I imagine a brilliant print would be better than a crap neg scan, if you see what I mean!)
Note that colour negatives have an orange layer in them, so somewhere in your process you will need to remove this and also invert the colours... make sure you have the ability to do this, otherwise you won't get the result you want.