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06/14/2010 09:47:10 AM · #1 |
I'd resurrect the old thread a few years back when I posed the same question... However, technology moves on and I finally need to get moving on this. Price range is $1000-$4000, but the biggest question is quality.
The results I've seen on negative scanners so far overall has been poor (less quality than taking the negative to a local photo lab for developing). I can't see why it cant be better. so if you know any scanners that do a decent job (i.e. a better job than taking the negative in for developing and then scanning in the result print), please point me in the right direction.
Last time I checked, I was looking at the Nikon 5000ED? Should I be looking at anything else?
Thanks. |
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06/14/2010 02:30:10 PM · #2 |
The 5000ED is great IF you only have 35mm film. Careful as there is a model identical to the 5000ED apart from having a single scan head so it's slower (maybe called V or something... it's been YEARS since I bought mine). If you need other film types then look at the 9000ED but it's double the price... <2K last I looked though.
I suspect those big lab machines can scan very well but I assume they are set to lowest res possible to make it faster.... If you know someone or ask they might know how to get it far better.
If you run 64bit os then that supplied Nikon driver and therefore Nikon4 scanning s/ware will not work... I swapped to Vuescan ("pro" version is < $100 and allows 16bit scanning among other things you will want over the regular version) and it works great - although the interface is pretty much 1991 calling so ugly (has it's own 64bit drivers or possibly it's able to flip to 32bit and use the Nikon driver - not sure what he does under the covers).
Other option is something like scancafe to offhore the scanning process.... I am doing that for the old 120/127 negs because I don't have a lot but it was not practical for me with bazzilion slides and negs on 35mm, so I just chug thu them while doing other stuff on the computer.... It's SLOW. |
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06/14/2010 02:33:48 PM · #3 |
| One thing to check is the dynamic range of the scanner. The higher the number the better. When I was looking a lot were rated between 3.5 to 4 which is less than what the film covered in the first place. |
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06/14/2010 03:07:44 PM · #4 |
Either the 5000ED or 9000ED are great machines, but *any* of the dedicated film scanners are going to be pretty slow. If you are scanning only negatives, you are in good shape with either one of them, as negatives rarely represent the density challenges that positives often do. The downside of scanning negatives is that your high-density (read high-noise) areas are the bright areas once reversed. That's a real bugger, and means that you will probably want to do multiple scans for noise reduction on critical images. This takes even more time. You can be looking at ten minutes or more to complete a multi-pass scan at high resolution.
A film scanner is pretty much a requirement for negs, unlike positives which can be very well recorded by a top-end DLSR with the right adapter. The real down-side to the DLSR method is the need of a custom adapter, and the lack of IR cleaning. The latter is actually a big concern. It's nearly impossible to eliminate all of the dust from the film stock, and spotting becomes old *really fast*. The whole exercise becomes a time trade-off between capture time and processing time. |
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06/15/2010 01:49:41 AM · #5 |
| You might look for reviews of the Plustek 7600i. I have been using the 7200i for a couple of years and have had very good results. I have had Nikon film scanners in the past (Coolscan 1000 and 2000), but Nikon quit supporting those and I got tired of looking for third party drivers when I upgraded operating systems. |
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06/15/2010 07:25:26 AM · #6 |
| You might want to consider one that support medium format film. I don't know if you are doing this for yourself or hoping to make some business out of it. I know that I had considered doing this and investing in one. (still deciding). But one that does medium format could draw in an additional customer base. |
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