Film Scanners nowdays

Factual Questions
1

Is there anything out there nowdays for 35mm slides and negatives that is

  1. Compatible with Windows 7
  2. Has Digital ICE
  3. Doesn’t cost a zillion dollars?
2

Are talking about a typical flatbed scanner that can also be used to scan slides & negatives or something more specialized?

3

Epson Perfection V700 Photo scanner.

Costs between $415 - $599. Purchased one about six months ago. Haven’t scanned slides/transparencies, but it is highly rated for that.

4

Whatever can produce decent quality on negatives and slides. (preferrably 2400 and better yet 4000 dpi). I also have some prints to scan but I’d consider two different units if that was the best way to do it.

5

I have heard of the V700; I’ve heard mixed reviews about the quality. Is the V750 worth the extra cost or not?

(Probably should have put this in IMHO)

6

The V750 includes fluid mount capabilities, which I didn’t need. It also costs $200-$300 more than the V700.

I guess it really depends on what you need to do. I am extremely happy with the V700, though. Very fast and very high quality for a scanner in that price range.

Note that neither one can accommodate an automatic document feeder (ADF). Well, they couldn’t at the time I purchased mine.

7

My brother just got a V330and he’s pretty happy with it. I’ve gotten about 20 emails from him in the last month with scans from our father’s slide collection, and they look great.

8

I was going to recommend the Nikon LS-50, but WTF happened? They’re going for over $1200 on eBay. I bought it three or four years ago for $500. Has the demand for film scanners really gone up that much?

9

I looked at various scanners for this task, but ended up deciding to just send the slides off to a service that did this for me. That was cheaper (for a limited number of slides) and certainly easier for me.

This service is available through CostCo, or there are lots of others available.

10

It’s probably because the supply has gone down.

11

That’s what I’d assume, but I’m shocked at how much it has gone up in price.

12

I’ve been looking around, and I’ve noticed that:

  1. Vuescan will support a lot of scanners under Windows 7 that are no longer supported by their manufactures.
  2. Decent slide scanners are insanely priced, except for SCSI models.

I have Adaptec SCSI cards lying around from previous computer builds so you get what I’m thinking- Good idea or no? What DPI do I need to capture all the detail on consumer 35mm negative or slide film that was shot with decent (SLR) equiprment? 2400? 2900? 4000? 5400?

13

I highly recommend the Canon Canoscan 9000F. I resurrected all my old slides this way and the scanner driver software lets you “de-age” older faded slides.

14

I am kind of wondering now if I should just pay someone to do it, at least for my slides and negatives. The going rate seems to be about a quarter a slide and they probably have better equipment than I could ever afford. For a couple of hundred dollars I could pay someone do it with zero investment of my time, rather than spending more than that for a scanner and then spending countless hours scanning. I could just get a cheap flatbed with ICE for the old B/W photos then that I don’t want to take out of my mom’s scrapbooks en masse.

15

OK. I’ve been searching the web for hours and hours and trading email after email with scanning companies trying to get the answer to a simple question. What resolution do Fuji Superia/ Kodak Gold 200 negatives and Ektachrome/Kodachrome 200 and 400 films need to be scanned at to capture all the detail available on the originals, assuming handheld comsumer SLRs if it makes a difference. If I know the lines/mm of the films is there a simple conversion, or is there more too it than that?

16

Odds are the limiting factor is the quality of your film camera/lenses, or the quality of your photography.

I own a Canoscan 8800, approx. $200 nowadays. I selected it as one of the few consumer scanners that let me scan my 120 large format negatives. What I see more than anything is the flawed state of my negatives. My pictures from the top of the WTC have water spots on them, thanks to cheap developers years ago. Someday I’ll have to dig up some Photoflo and wash them, see if that fixes it.

It claims 4800x9600 optical resolution, then can interpolate for higher resolution. Optically, a 35mm neg (1"x1.5") would give a 70Mpixel image. Whether the actual resolution is that good - still, it’s better than anything most computerized photoprocessing would produce today on paper, I’m sure.