[Wheatfield]

I
One shop I deal with , Just Cameras in mississauga will scan strips for you. They recommend not cutting the negatives becasue they (at the time I got my K10D) charged a fixed price to load a strip, any length.

This is a point that bears repeating. Most film printing equipment has trouble with strips of negs with less than three frames, and very few, if any printers can scan a single frame.
The Noritsu digital printers that I have run will not run a single frame, and often would reject a two frame strip.
Something to consider if you are taking your film to a lab for scanning, since there is a good possibility that they will be doing the scan on the printer, not a dedicated scanner.

[Clarkey]

@ Goohsin - I too deal with Just cameras in Mississauga, and have recently gotten a bunch of APS scans done, which were via the minilab. However I was talking to Ray there and he mentioned that they now use a Nikon coolscan 5000 for dedicated 35mm work- this would give you wonderful quality. Not sure about cost however, although they were running a special on scans (film/prints) at present.

I did also investigate renting a scanner - there is a weekend rate from both Vistek and Henrys from the downtown Toronto location if you wanted to investigate further.

[ptxbillyk]

I bouoght my own scanner, a Minolta Dimage II and scanned all my shots (about 20,000) with the scanner. it was slow, about 4 years, but worthwhile.

I scanned all shots using 8bit JPEG, and found that the quality was good, compared to the film I scanned.

I also cataloged all the neg's so that If I want to go back and take higher quality scans (i.e. not 8 bit jpeg) I can.

with respect to shops that scan, as others have commented, you need to clearly specify what quality you want, because if you are not careful you get really poor quality 1 MP scans.

One shop I deal with , Just Cameras in mississauga will scan strips for you. They recommend not cutting the negatives becasue they (at the time I got my K10D) charged a fixed price to load a strip, any length.

Wow -- scanning 20,000 in 4 years. I think that is a great achievemet! After doing mine for a year I am still scratching at the surface. I reckon I must have taken a similar no. of shots in my 45+ years of photograhing. I need to assign moe time to the task.........

[Mike Cash]

I also cataloged all the neg's so that If I want to go back and take higher quality scans (i.e. not 8 bit jpeg) I can.

I do my file naming based on the number strip the processor attaches to the negative and keep the scans from each different camera in their own folders. I keep the negatives in their original sleeves, but I buy white adhesive labels and write on them the camera used, the film type, and the month/year I took the photos.

[Lowell Goudge]

I do my file naming based on the number strip the processor attaches to the negative and keep the scans from each different camera in their own folders. I keep the negatives in their original sleeves, but I buy white adhesive labels and write on them the camera used, the film type, and the month/year I took the photos.

I name the files the same way, and use archival pages to store the negatives in a big book, by the same strip number.

I have a database of film, process date, strip number etc, and have sorted the shots by date taken (year and month)

I now have all my shots in folders by date.

[barondla]

Tried scanning when first entered digital photography. Borrowed a Minolta Diamage 3 entry level film scanner. Didn't even know how to sharpen in PS yet. Minolta did a good job. Had a harder time with color negs. They were lots grainier than my slides, mostly K25 (oh how I miss that film), K64, or Ektachrome 100.
Scans of neg film were also noisier. The advanced instructions said that you could multiscan the same shot to reduce noise. That would really add to the project time. Want to try using K20D and multiexposure to do this. Have the Pentax bellows and slide attachment. Tried using K10D once before knowing about multiexposure. The shots came out okay. Not sure they matched my film output.
Would love to try a better scanner. It would have to use some form of Digital Ice. Scratches and dirt were far worse than even darkroom work! Almost came to the conclusion that film should stay in analog domain and digital should stay digital. In other words print them in the medium they were shot in.
thanks
barondla

Check out POINT & SHOOT CONTEST #7 WINNERS in P&S forum. Also enter P&S contest #8. Any camera type except slr. Any brand. Any subject.
thanks
barondla

[petez]

Depending on how many frames you need to scan, you may be better off sending them out for a drum scan rather than investing the time/$ for a scanner.

I've tried several places but Calypso Imaging, Inc. was the best and least expensive by far.

You can send them 5 frames as a trial for ~$10 (see the standard scan test)

Calypso Imaging: Digital Scanning and Retouching: Santa Cruz Digital Imaging Services

Pete

[MeFirstO]

Hello everyone,

I'm new to film photography - I just had my first roll developed and scanned by a local company (Fuji X-Tra 400).

While the price was not too high (about developing @ USD 1.8 + scanning @ USD 5.2), i'm not very satisfied with the output. They can't have TIFFs (only JPGs) and the maximum size is 3-5 megs.

But that's not the biggest problem - all the photos are grainy / noisy as hell, when seen at 100%. I dunno if it's the scanner, the development or even the film (the photographer is out of discussion, of course ). The grain doesn't show anymore when I resize the photos for web display, so I wonder what happens if I have the chance to scan the film @4800x9600 / 48 bits - it will give me some more space for adjustments, right? Would it be possible then to have it printed like A3+ at decent quality?

Then... I was looking already at some scanners. There are two Canons (4400 - @USD 110, and 8800 - @USD 200) - both 4800x9600 / 48 bits, both with film scanning. Which would you recommend? Would the 4400 do the job, although half the price?

Regards,
Alex.

[Gooshin]

holy crap! necro thread!

an update to those that care

me and my buddy split the cost of a Nikon Coolscan 5000, so, problem solved i guess

[Adnan EROL]

do you have any films converted to digital via slide copier and K10d just to compare vs scanner?

[Gooshin]

do you have any films converted to digital via slide copier and K10d just to compare vs scanner?

digital will always be better at the pixel level

esp at the 10MP mark and higher


having said that, from my own experience this only matters once you go into LARGE prints,

for the average person whats more important is the dynamic range, and film has more of it (theoretically), and a dedicated scanner can pick up on it.


i dont have any of my stuff uploaded yet,

but here is my friends colour negatives on an epson 400 (??) scanner, he did some scans at school on the nikon coolscan 5000 and says they are much better

so you can imagine the improvement we'll see once we'll get that sucker in our hands

http://mischivo.zenfolio.com/p358465025

[Adnan EROL]

digital will always be better at the pixel level

esp at the 10MP mark and higher


having said that, from my own experience this only matters once you go into LARGE prints,

for the average person whats more important is the dynamic range, and film has more of it (theoretically), and a dedicated scanner can pick up on it.


i dont have any of my stuff uploaded yet,

but here is my friends colour negatives on an epson 400 (??) scanner, he did some scans at school on the nikon coolscan 5000 and says they are much better

so you can imagine the improvement we'll see once we'll get that sucker in our hands

http://mischivo.zenfolio.com/p358465025

I can't believe this photos are converted from analog film. I get disgusting standart scanning JPEGs at my local photo shop. And then some much bigger TIFF files which he calls high resolution scanning but again I don't get crisp images.

[Gooshin]

I can't believe this photos are converted from analog film. I get disgusting standart scanning JPEGs at my local photo shop. And then some much bigger TIFF files which he calls high resolution scanning but again I don't get crisp images.

ask him what model he uses

DPI is not the most important factor,

my friends epson is rated at a higher DPI than the nikon, but the nikon outperforms the epson

also the nikon does slides very well.

[Adnan EROL]

Actually I want to get same crisp images I used to get from K10D.
What do you think of this scanned one? it has noise like 800 or 1600 ISO,
I used 100 though.

[Gooshin]

Actually I want to get same crisp images I used to get from K10D.
What do you think of this scanned one? it has noise like 800 or 1600 ISO,
I used 100 though.

i dont see any noise

also digital noise and film grain are different

for one thing you'll never get that ugly banding you get with film, nor that blue tint in the darker areas thats so unpleasing to the eye.