advertisement


Scanner for 35mm slides and negatives

In the past I've used Minolta, Nikon, an Epson flatbed and Polaroid - the latter, when working well (with Vuescan) gave the best results. I loaned the Polaroid to a friend, and it's not yet returned, but I don't have a computer that could interface with it now, and the last thing i want to do is scan more slides.

I have a slide copier that I can attach to my camera, though I think that it will crop the slide as my camera has an APS-C sensor, though I'm not sure that I've actually tried it.
 
In the past I've used Minolta, Nikon, an Epson flatbed and Polaroid - the latter, when working well (with Vuescan) gave the best results. I loaned the Polaroid to a friend, and it's not yet returned, but I don't have a computer that could interface with it now, and the last thing i want to do is scan more slides.

I have a slide copier that I can attach to my camera, though I think that it will crop the slide as my camera has an APS-C sensor, though I'm not sure that I've actually tried it.
I made my own, by taping a white acrylic square to the front of my Macro lens hood, and buying a strong daylight bulb. Blue tac the slide to the inside of the acrylic, focus and bingo. Once I'd played about a bit, the results were quite respectable! And it's free :)
Here's one from Tehran '76, taken on an old Cosina SLR.
miles J by John Dutfield, on Flickr
 
  • Like
Reactions: jfs
Paul,

A used Konica-Minolta Elite Scan 5400 is likely pretty cheap now. I used one for years and it's excellent with 35mm film — B&W or colour, negative or transparency — but it's as slow as molasses in January.

It's unlikely the bundled software will work on a newer computer, so whatever it costs be sure to factor in the cost of Vuescan.

Joe
 
I am playing with a Noritsu LS-600 scanner ATM. Here's a couple of old shots I have scanned.

FUJI HR200-24-1-25

This is a guy called Mike Thackwell in an F2 Ralt at Thruxton in 1984

27846-20-1

and this is a guy called Ayrton Senna (before he was famous) in an F1 Toleman in 1984
 
Paul,

A used Konica-Minolta Elite Scan 5400 is likely pretty cheap now. I used one for years and it's excellent with 35mm film — B&W or colour, negative or transparency — but it's as slow as molasses in January.

It's unlikely the bundled software will work on a newer computer, so whatever it costs be sure to factor in the cost of Vuescan.

Joe

Joe,

The 5400 is on my wish list (as well as the Nikon Coolscan IV RD) , but I can't find one for sale at the moment. I suspect they don't come on the market that frequently, but I'll be patient for a while and see.

I'll certainly be getting Vuescan Pro as soon as I've managed to source a machine.

Paul
 
I am playing with a Noritsu LS-600 scanner ATM. Here's a couple of old shots I have scanned.

Patrick,

Just had a look at second-hand prices on ebay; the average is about 1000€ so well outside my budget. It produces excellent results though! Probably a machine aimed more at the 'pro' market.

Paul
 
Paul,

The 5400 is on my wish list (as well as the Nikon Coolscan IV RD) , but I can't find one for sale at the moment. I suspect they don't come on the market that frequently, but I'll be patient for a while and see.
I bought a Konica-Minolta Elite Scan 5400 ages ago and it is a great 35mm film scanner, though it is slow. I've also used a Nikon CoolScan IV at work and it's also an excellent film scanner and slightly faster.

I'd be hard pressed to say which is better in practice, but the Elite Scan does have slightly higher resolution. I think the DMax of the two scanners are in practice pretty much the same. If in your place I'd buy whichever comes up first at a decent price. Servicing and parts may be hard to come by, so don't pay a lot in case the scanner goes kaput after a while.

Joe
 
Meantime you can be selecting the slides and negatives you want to digitize, I suspect that will be a bigger task than actually scanning the images.
 
Inspired by this thread, I've got a slide out (a deliberately difficult velvia slide that never scanned well) and looked at a few ways of reproducing it digitally, with my camera. I got my old Ohnar Zoom slide copier, but it suffers, as expected from the magnification factor of my APS-C sensor so, I can't capture the whole frame. Also, the quality wasn't as good as I was expecting. Great for picking out a small detail, but not great for the overview. Next stab at the problem was using my 90mm lens with an extension ring, but that was difficult to position, then I tried my Zeiss 50mm f1.4 with extension tubes, and that was ok, but bizarrely the best one is my Fuji 16mm with an extension ring which resulted in an incredibly close focus position but a really nice sharp image. I need to get a setup where I can control the camera angle and working distance from my lightbox, but the results so far are really as good as my scanners ever were.

slide copy - pompideu by Jem Hayward, on Flickr
 
+1 for Vuescan. In professional mode it takes a while to get the settings that suit you, and you have to adjust for film type, but you can save the settings in an .ini file and the results are excellent. It does take time. I got an ex-dem V800 from Parks for about £400, only scanner I will ever need.
 
Inspired by this thread, I've got a slide out (a deliberately difficult velvia slide that never scanned well) and looked at a few ways of reproducing it digitally, with my camera. I got my old Ohnar Zoom slide copier, but it suffers, as expected from the magnification factor of my APS-C sensor so, I can't capture the whole frame. Also, the quality wasn't as good as I was expecting. Great for picking out a small detail, but not great for the overview. Next stab at the problem was using my 90mm lens with an extension ring, but that was difficult to position, then I tried my Zeiss 50mm f1.4 with extension tubes, and that was ok, but bizarrely the best one is my Fuji 16mm with an extension ring which resulted in an incredibly close focus position but a really nice sharp image. I need to get a setup where I can control the camera angle and working distance from my lightbox, but the results so far are really as good as my scanners ever were.

I've photographed film. Used a Leica 60mm/f2.8 Macro R, popular for this, ultra-sharp and plenty quick, mine cost £375. £35 lightboard and a film holder made of a bit of card and masking tape. You have to reverse the rgb.
 
Meantime you can be selecting the slides and negatives you want to digitize, I suspect that will be a bigger task than actually scanning the images.
Derek,
I was fairly ruthless in selecting and keeping only my best slides, so I will be scanning all of them. I've kept all my negatives, and many of the associated prints have been put in albums etc. so, as you suspect, sorting through these will certainly be the bigger task.
Paul
 
Derek,
I was fairly ruthless in selecting and keeping only my best slides, so I will be scanning all of them. I've kept all my negatives, and many of the associated prints have been put in albums etc. so, as you suspect, sorting through these will certainly be the bigger task.
Paul

I found it far easier to scan the lot, and do the sorting and rejecting once they were digitised and on screen. Sure, it takes a long time, probably 1.5 to 2 hours per film, but you find a way of accommodating it after some practice.
 
With a Vuescan Professional licence you are able to use the software across PC Mac & Linux. When I dug out my old Nikon scanner even with the right SCSI card in a PC it was difficult to get going due to later versions of windows not really supporting SCSI. I had an ancient Adaptec SlimSCSI card for a laptop, put this in a very old Thinkpad T60 loaded Ubuntu and it worked perfectly.
 
+1 on Vuescan (I have professional and recommend it). My scanning duties are taken care of by an Epson V700, which is pretty damned good. A Nikon Coolscan V or Minolta 5400 would have been better, but I missed the boat on those. I've seen great results from V500 - which is newer and cheaper - and not a looooong way behind the V700.

It's bloody time consuming to get right.
 
That's why I went with the Noritsu; sure it's much more money, but it scans a 35mm film in about 30mins and gets very high resolution results without any messing about. The only manual bit is feeding the neg strips in 4 by 4 (if they are cut that way like mine). If you have uncut rolls it will just suck the whole thing in in one go, and scan the images whilst you listen to an LP.

The epson flatbeds are OK for 120 and sheet film, but 35mm results aren't great IME.

I figured my time was worth the extra cost.

Which ever way you go, there is a learning curve to getting set up and figuring out a workflow.
 
If you do buy Vuescan get the professional option, that offers free updates for life. I bought a copy when I got my first film scanner around 20 years ago and haven’t paid for an update since then.

Be aware that fast scanning isn’t really an option - particularly at high resolutions. If you’re scanning mainly colour negatives and slides consider a scanner with built in dust and scratch removal, it will save you a huge amount of time in post production.

Same here. Used Vuescan back in the day first with a Minolta Scan Dual then a Canon FS4000 film scanner and it's very good. You can even export the scan as a DNG raw file.
 
I found it far easier to scan the lot, and do the sorting and rejecting once they were digitised and on screen. Sure, it takes a long time, probably 1.5 to 2 hours per film, but you find a way of accommodating it after some practice.
eternumviti,
I'm going to start with my slides and, as Patrick says, figure out a workflow. If this all goes to plan then I'll follow your advice and scan all my negatives - at least that way the job is complete and I can sell the scanner on without worrying about having missed something out.
Paul
 


advertisement


Back
Top