[Racer X 69]

I finally got my lazy butt going today on a project that I have been putting off for far too long. Sorting through a bazillion slides and negatives and scanning the good ones to digital files.

So I drag out my flatbed scanner, find the slide and negative scanning masks, pick a couple pictures to get started with and I run into a significant stumbling block. Well actually there were a number of hurdles, like getting a scanner designed for Winblows XP to actually work on my Winblows 7 machine, but I made it happen, and now to the root of this thread.

Even though the scanner is older, it still does a great job of straight up scanning. I scanned a few items and even at very high resolution it works great.

But when I scanned a negative, it produced some serious moire. Not just a little here or there, the entire image has it. So it won't be possible to take the resulting scans and massage them in Photoshop. I'd be dead and gone a very long time before I ever processed all the pictures that I wanted.

And searching the interwebs, there is a multitude of scanners, from very cheap to very expensive. Scanners that a Caveman could use, and scanners that pop out results faster than Coca~Cola pops out soda pop off of their assembly lines and require a college degree to operate.

So can anyone lead me in the right direction to a scanner that is reasonably priced, that will produce scanned copies of my 35mm slides and negatives, without a whole bunch of fuss? I want something that will produce results equal to or better than my digital camera gives me. I don't need assembly line speed or automated results popping out copies at 2,000 pictures a minute.

And surely some of you have already gone through the trial and error process of wading through the myriad choices offered today.

Thank you in advance to anyone willing to toss their 2¢ in here!

[Miguel]

I want something that will produce results equal to or better than my digital camera gives me.

Good luck on that, especially working with 135mm format materials (you didn't specify what your requirement is, so I'm assuming 135 film here) and not involving a drum scanning interface.

You also mentioned reasonable costs which is ambiguous. What is your budget?

I'd recommend you find a used Konica Minolta Dimage Scan IV for under $150. It is better than the Epson flatbeds you can find around that price. I have both. Flatbed for 135mm film is inferior to a dedicated film scanner. Also spend the $75 on VueScan software that will work on anything pretty much.

Scanner hardware hasn't improved significantly during the past five years, so something used in good condition should work well.

M

[twitch]

I use a Plustek 7600 and can highly recommend it (or the 7400 or the 8**** series) for your needs. It's not super fast but it does a fantastic job of producing quality scans. My 2c is that the IR dust/scratch reduction feature is not worth paying extra for.

Here's a couple of scans from it:

[amoringello]

I have the Epson V500. Its a few years old, but it has slide attachment for 35mm, as well as some medium and other formats.
I separates a row of slides into individual photos.

Sadly, the software is like something written over the weekend by a first year high school intern.
For every scan, you need to re-adjust the settings for color balance. It takes two to three scans for each set. The software is non-intuitive and difficult to use.
Most advanced features like scratch fixing and whatever "ICE" is, are useless.
I spent two days scanning a few dozen medium format slides and am now looking into spending another several hundred dollars to just have someone else do it for me!!!!

Unfortunately, that seems to be a common issue with most scanners. At least those under $1K. They have great features, and produce nice results... but the software is so G.D. abysmal that you just want to throw it out the window.

All I can say, is if you buy a scanner, be sure you can return it if it doesn't fit your needs. And be prepared to try a few of them.
Hopefully someone has a good suggestion and you can bypass the trial and error phase.

If you don't need long term use, or if you have less than 1000 negatives, you might look into scanning services.Dunno what 135 negatives will run though. But it might be worth the lack of migraines of the crap passed off with today's scanners.

[Racer X 69]

Good luck on that, especially working with 135mm format materials (you didn't specify what your requirement is, so I'm assuming 135 film here) and not involving a drum scanning interface.

Actually, I did.

So can anyone lead me in the right direction to a scanner that is reasonably priced, that will produce scanned copies of my 35mm slides and negatives, without a whole bunch of fuss?

You also mentioned reasonable costs which is ambiguous. What is your budget?

I guess that reasonable to me would be somewhere South of $200 to $300.

I want something that will produce results equal to or better than my digital camera gives me. I don't need assembly line speed or automated results popping out copies at 2,000 pictures a minute.

Surely there is something available that will produce a copy of a 35mm slide or negative with the same image quality and detail that can be had using a digital camera that doesn't involve using a copy setup like this:



Then again, maybe that is the avenue I should pursue. I have seen the bellows setups going for about $150 or so. All a person would need to do is set up decent lighting, and a way to quickly and accurately insert and remove the slides or negatives. Once the focus is set it shouldn't change from one shot to the next, so after getting the exposure set up the process should go easily.

I use a Plustek 7600 and can highly recommend it (or the 7400 or the 8**** series) for your needs. It's not super fast but it does a fantastic job of producing quality scans. My 2c is that the IR dust/scratch reduction feature is not worth paying extra for.

That is one brand I have looked at. How is it for speed? The specs on the Plustek webpage sound pretty fast.

Here's a couple of scans from it:

The images you posted here look pretty good. Are they from 35mm slides or negatives?

I have the Epson V500. Its a few years old, but it has slide attachment for 35mm, as well as some medium and other formats.
I separates a row of slides into individual photos.

That is a bit like the flatbed scanner I have now, but mine only does one slide or negative at a time.

Sadly, the software is like something written over the weekend by a first year high school intern.
For every scan, you need to re-adjust the settings for color balance. It takes two to three scans for each set. The software is non-intuitive and difficult to use.

I feel your pain.

Most advanced features like scratch fixing and whatever "ICE" is, are useless.
I spent two days scanning a few dozen medium format slides and am now looking into spending another several hundred dollars to just have someone else do it for me!!!!

I want to avoid that. Since there are many images that are not worth using, I don't want to pay for wholesale conversion, and wind up paying for converting shots that I would not print in the first place.

Unfortunately, that seems to be a common issue with most scanners. At least those under $1K. They have great features, and produce nice results... but the software is so G.D. abysmal that you just want to throw it out the window.

My experience with just about all the TWAIN interfaces has been like this. The preview windows are usually too small, and can't be resized. Some offer the ability to zoom in and out, but they are cumbersome, and often don't have the little hand for grabbing the preview image to move around quickly, and zooming with some is by clicking, with each click only changing the zoom level just a tiny bit.

And the preview window with the one I am currently struggling with doesn't even show a true representation of the final result. I can only see what I get after waiting for the bulb to warm up, then preview (in the tiny window) then scan, and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait . . . . .

All I can say, is if you buy a scanner, be sure you can return it if it doesn't fit your needs. And be prepared to try a few of them.
Hopefully someone has a good suggestion and you can bypass the trial and error phase.

That is why I mentioned this in my original post:

And surely some of you have already gone through the trial and error process of wading through the myriad choices offered today.

If you don't need long term use, or if you have less than 1000 negatives, you might look into scanning services.Dunno what 135 negatives will run though. But it might be worth the lack of migraines of the crap passed off with today's scanners.

Again, I am reluctant to package up my slides and negatives, and ship them off somewhere, where I have no control over the process, only to find that I have paid someone to digitize stuff that I might have not bothered with myself.

Thank you fellow Pentaxians for your comments and suggestions, it has been helpful!

[stevebrot]

Sadly, the software is like something written over the weekend by a first year high school intern.
For every scan, you need to re-adjust the settings for color balance. It takes two to three scans for each set. The software is non-intuitive and difficult to use.
Most advanced features like scratch fixing and whatever "ICE" is, are useless.
I spent two days scanning a few dozen medium format slides and am now looking into spending another several hundred dollars to just have someone else do it for me!!!!

I use EPSON Scan with my V700 and while the interface sort of sucks, it is not much worse than VueScan or Silverfast or Nikon Scan. I have used them all and they all have their quirks and none is particularly good. If you are patient and knowledgeable, you should be able to extract all that your hardware is capable of.

As for taking a long time and effort to do a good scan. Welcome to the world of digitization. Getting a good scan is sort of a black art. The trick is to extract enough information to be able to work with the results in post-processing using Lightroom, Photoshop, or some other software tool. I have a general flow that I use for low resolution "proof" scans that requires a minimum of time. A high quality scan for printing might take a couple of hours to get right.

Slides are fiendishly hard, especially Kodachrome. Probably about 25% of my slide archive are essentially not worth scanning due to who knows what factor. They look great projected and dead on the the display monitor, even if scanned with the Nikon 5000 ED. I have actually heard of people paying to have laser internegs made just to get a basis for an easier scan!

In regards to trying a lot of scanners and such...I would suggest that a person do careful market research first and seriously consider that the less expensive flatbed units are inadequate for 35mm. The EPSON V700/V750 are barely usable for 35mm, but really shine for medium format. That assumes, of course, that you take care to make sure your negatives are flat and your carriers dialed in.


Steve

(...has both a Nikon 5000 ED and EPSON V700 and likes both...does not know what he would buy if in the market today...)

[stevebrot]

Then again, maybe that is the avenue I should pursue. I have seen the bellows setups going for about $150 or so. All a person would need to do is set up decent lighting, and a way to quickly and accurately insert and remove the slides or negatives. Once the focus is set it shouldn't change from one shot to the next, so after getting the exposure set up the process should go easily.

Bellows with slide copier is a good solution. I have even seen some examples that allow strip feed of uncut film. The only problem is the orange masking on color negatives. Correcting for that is way beyond a simple white balance adjustment.


Steve

[Miguel]

Actually, I did.

Yes, you did and I missed it, sorry 'bout that.

Then again, maybe that is the avenue I should pursue

A bellow-type situation may work OK, but I don't think it will be any better than a film scanner. 135 film just doesn't have all that much information. I scan film and negs for clients, and that small format is a PITA. Consider this rig that I setup from my color enlarger from my color darkroom days; I use it for digitizing medium format slides and negs, and have extensively tested it with 135mm slides and negs..

1. Find a color head enlarger; Ensure the bulb works and that replacements are available.
2. Make sure the heat absorbing and color correcting glass is intact.
3. Turn it upside down and affix it to a table or something flat. Good tape works
4. Use the negative and slide carriers to hold the pieces you want to digitize.
5. Tape the carriers down so you can better automate your workflow
6. Setup a tripod directly over the work you are digitizing
7. Use a camera with a flat field macro lens and ensure that the full image frame fits into the viewfinder with a little margin for error. I've gotten good results with both 50mm and 70mm lenses.
8. Use Liveview to ensure accuracy in focus and exposure.
9. Use a remote and experiment until you consistently have a decent shot.
10. White balance can be a challenge, especially if you are dealing with mixed brands of slides. I deal with house brands from the 1950s whose OEM could be Ansco, or 3M, or even Kodak. The color dials on the enlarger can help you tweak the white balance, but I still have to fix things in software.
11. Shoot RAW for more forgiving choices.
There are Lightroom presets that offset the orange neg film color--research that one.
12. In my real world experience, finished scanned images from this approach are sometimes better than from my Minolta film scanner and sometimes not. It really depends on nature of the image, the amount of inherent contrast, and some color issues with old chromes. But both these approaches are better than 135mm scanned using my Epson flatbed, which does proportionally better on medium format film or larger as stevebrot aptly says above.

One of your biggest challenges will be dust management. I've seen that alone drive sane people to ship their precious materials to some sweatshop in India. Consider it!

M

[wildman]

I finally got my lazy butt going today on a project that I have been putting off for far too long. Sorting through a bazillion slides and negatives and scanning the good ones to digital files.

So can anyone lead me in the right direction to a scanner that is reasonably priced, that will produce scanned copies of my 35mm slides and negatives, without a whole bunch of fuss? I

I went through the same thing last winter except I probably had more stuff than even you had - everything from 19th century prints to to bw and color negs to slides in both 135 and 120.
I used a Epson V600. Perhaps not perfect but it got the job done. Results were good and consistent. Not perfect but what is.

I won't bore you with all the details look it up yourself:

Epson Perfection V600 Photo Scanner - Product Information - Epson America, Inc.

Typical scan......

[DSims]

I'd recommend you find a used Konica Minolta Dimage Scan IV for under $150. It is better than the Epson flatbeds you can find around that price. I have both. Flatbed for 135mm film is inferior to a dedicated film scanner. Also spend the $75 on VueScan software that will work on anything pretty much.

I'd recommend a used Minolta scanner too - I have the Dimage Scan Elite II. I also have a Canon 9000F flatbed for prints, older, odd sized family negatives, or when I don't need as much quality from 135 negatives/positives. It's a good yet economical flatbed.

I also like the Minolta software, but it has trouble running on the more recent OSes - so I've gone to adding VueScan as well.

[Racer X 69]

Slides are fiendishly hard, especially Kodachrome. Probably about 25% of my slide archive are essentially not worth scanning due to who knows what factor. They look great projected and dead on the the display monitor, even if scanned with the Nikon 5000 ED.

So far, just fiddling with the flatbed scanner I have, I have found the slides come out better than the negatives. I haven't had one slide show any moire yet, like the negatives have.

But yes, the flaws in the slides are showing up, in a big way.

In regards to trying a lot of scanners and such...I would suggest that a person do careful market research first and seriously consider that the less expensive flatbed units are inadequate for 35mm.

Even though I have only tried the flatbed thus far, it is apparent that this is the case.

Bellows with slide copier is a good solution. I have even seen some examples that allow strip feed of uncut film. The only problem is the orange masking on color negatives. Correcting for that is way beyond a simple white balance adjustment.

If I can come up with the gear needed this may prove to be the best solution, as the set up is not dependent upon keeping up with the ever changing Winblows operating systems, and drivers becoming outdated.

Yes, you did and I missed it, sorry 'bout that.

It's all good. I skim through stuff and miss things all the time!

A bellow-type situation may work OK, but I don't think it will be any better than a film scanner. 135 film just doesn't have all that much information. I scan film and negs for clients, and that small format is a PITA. Consider this rig that I setup from my color enlarger from my color darkroom days; I use it for digitizing medium format slides and negs, and have extensively tested it with 135mm slides and negs..

1. Find a color head enlarger; Ensure the bulb works and that replacements are available.
2. Make sure the heat absorbing and color correcting glass is intact.
3. Turn it upside down and affix it to a table or something flat. Good tape works
4. Use the negative and slide carriers to hold the pieces you want to digitize.
5. Tape the carriers down so you can better automate your workflow
6. Setup a tripod directly over the work you are digitizing
7. Use a camera with a flat field macro lens and ensure that the full image frame fits into the viewfinder with a little margin for error. I've gotten good results with both 50mm and 70mm lenses.
8. Use Liveview to ensure accuracy in focus and exposure.
9. Use a remote and experiment until you consistently have a decent shot.
10. White balance can be a challenge, especially if you are dealing with mixed brands of slides. I deal with house brands from the 1950s whose OEM could be Ansco, or 3M, or even Kodak. The color dials on the enlarger can help you tweak the white balance, but I still have to fix things in software.
11. Shoot RAW for more forgiving choices.
There are Lightroom presets that offset the orange neg film color--research that one.
12. In my real world experience, finished scanned images from this approach are sometimes better than from my Minolta film scanner and sometimes not. It really depends on nature of the image, the amount of inherent contrast, and some color issues with old chromes. But both these approaches are better than 135mm scanned using my Epson flatbed, which does proportionally better on medium format film or larger as stevebrot aptly says above.

I hadn't considered this, but I also have a color enlarger. I may just take a look at that. Great suggestion!

I went through the same thing last winter except I probably had more stuff than even you had - everything from 19th century prints to to bw and color negs to slides in both 135 and 120.
I used a Epson V600. Perhaps not perfect but it got the job done. Results were good and consistent. Not perfect but what is.

I won't bore you with all the details look it up yourself:

Epson Perfection V600 Photo Scanner - Product Information - Epson America, Inc.

Typical scan......

Thanks wildman. It looks like you had good results, especially with a flatbed scanner.

I'd recommend a used Minolta scanner too - I have the Dimage Scan Elite II. I also have a Canon 9000F flatbed for prints, older, odd sized family negatives, or when I don't need as much quality from 135 negatives/positives. It's a good yet economical flatbed.

I also like the Minolta software, but it has trouble running on the more recent OSes - so I've gone to adding VueScan as well.

Yes, the issue of keeping up with the ever changing operating systems and trial and error with drivers can be maddening. That is what I went through yesterday with the flatbed I have. It has been a great tool, and still works perfectly, even after over 10 years of use and abuse.

Thanks for the input DSims, and everyone else too!

[tuco]

You'll be hard-pressed to match today's digital cameras with small format film, IMHO. It takes medium format and up. I can scan 35mm film optically at 4000dpi ( which the commodity flatbeds can't do) and they still fall short of my digital camera. But my medium format film is pretty close.

[stevebrot]

I haven't had one slide show any moire yet, like the negatives have.

Moire? I am almost afraid to ask...are you scanning directly on the glass?


Steve

[Colbyt]

So can anyone lead me in the right direction to a scanner that is reasonably priced, that will produce scanned copies of my 35mm slides and negatives, without a whole bunch of fuss? I want something that will produce results equal to or better than my digital camera gives me. I don't need assembly line speed or automated results popping out copies at 2,000 pictures a minute.

And surely some of you have already gone through the trial and error process of wading through the myriad choices offered today.

Thank you in advance to anyone willing to toss their 2¢ in here!

Scanning for what purpose would be my first question to you.

I bought one and haven't really learned to use it properly. But I might have a couple of cents worth of input.

[tuco]

Moire? I am almost afraid to ask...are you scanning directly on the glass?


Steve

Yeah, I was wondering that myself. It sounds more like Newton Rings.