(stupid questions Pt17292) Film Scanners

Eirebear

I'm still tentatively making my first steps into B&W film, ive set up a little darkroom at home and shot, proccessed and printed with varying results.

As much as i am very much growing to love the different qualities garnered from different papers, films etc....lets face it, it aint cheap!

So i was thinking about investing in a film scanner, but i realised...i dont actually know what the hell it does!
I presume that i develop the film as normal, and then stick it through the scanner...which in turn digitises my negs like any normal scanner and i can edit as i see fit in whatever editing software i chose to use?

What are the benefits and drawbacks of this method? Is it worth my while?

Kazujo

I recently started shooting film. Haven't tried to home develop yet but did invest in a scanner that can do negatives. Did some research and settled on an Epsonv300, it's a flat bed with a light strip in the lid to backlight the negatives and has a holder for 35mm film and slides.

There are some shots I scanned with it from negative. Here

Got the scanner for under €100 from Amazon, it does a decent job on the negs (I haven't played with the software yet) and can scan normal stuff too.

DaireQuinlan

If you have the capacity to do prints then you're probably just as well off doing the print and scanning it. Even cheap as chips flatbed scanners will have no problem turning in a good scan of a 10x8. To get similar qualityy from a straight negative scan of 35mm you're looking to get a Nikon coolscan. 2nd hand, the entry level model, the V goes for roughly €700 on eBay the last time I looked. The only new one available nowadays is the 9000 which is quite expensive and has a waiting list.

-edit-

If you do a forum search for 'film scanner' you should get a whole pile of threads. Here's a post in another thread with a link to a few of the more useful ones.

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=63593981&postcount=10

Chorcai

I'd love to be printing my own stuff, but lacking in space to do so. I called into the local camera shop here and asked can they scan 6x6 negs, got a few funny looks but it turns out they can. I think about €5 for a CD I don't know how many scans that is but I said a roll is 12 exp.

Like Daire said stick with the print that way you can scan those as well. Maybe drop in your negs to get scanned.

scr33n

Au contraire Daire - I picked up a Minolta Dimage Scan Dual III for €150 recently and it does a fantastic job with 35mm negs (I used to have a CoolScan LS II but it's SCSI and I needed a USB one).

I also have a flat bed CanoScan 8800F which I use for Medium Format scans, it's not good at all for 35mm.

Eirebear

Cheers guys, ill stick with printing justnow then and keep an eye open for good quality second hand scanners.

As for local camera shops, unfortunately Glasgow has almost nothing in the way of shops, you Dubs (I know your not a dub Chorcai!) dont realise quite how lucky you are with the amount of shops you have at your disposal.

I've got Jessops, Calumet and one little independant place which is in the process of closing down.

DaireQuinlan

scr33n wrote: »

Au contraire Daire - I picked up a Minolta Dimage Scan Dual III for €150 recently and it does a fantastic job with 35mm negs (I used to have a CoolScan LS II but it's SCSI and I needed a USB one).

I also have a flat bed CanoScan 8800F which I use for Medium Format scans, it's not good at all for 35mm.

Actually, yeah the Minolta dedicated scanners were always on par with the Nikon ones apparently, particularly the last few. I've also got an 8600 for medium format and yeah, it just doesn't do the job for 35mm. I've directly compared 35mm scans done with my coolscan and with the canonscan at alledgedly the same resolution and the differences are quite apparent.