I hear the quality is significantly better with dedicated scanners for slides and print film. I think this is the direction I am currently headed towards. What's your feedback on dedicated scanners? Or those scanners with a dedicated unit for photo's like HP?
I have had no problem scanning 35mm slides with an HP ScanJet 5300Cse. I use the HP ScanJet Slide Adapter (about US$20) and scan at 1200 DPI. The 35mm image area is small enough that the file size is 5-7MB. When you expand the image to 4x6, the resolution drops to about 300 DPI with the same file size, which is fine for most work. I use a USB port, but I don't think that would make any difference. Hank [ 15 April 2001: Message edited by: Hank Coolidge ]
It is true that flatbed scanners are capable of producing acceptable scans of slides. I had been scanning my slides similarly using my flatbed Microtek X6 using the optional LightLid (basically a scanner lid with a built in light source) and scanning at 1200dpi. My reason for doing this was, I couldn't justify spending US$1000 or more for a dedicated film scanner. I have recently purchased a low priced film scanner that is a good alternative, and well worth the price if you do some shopping. The scanner is the Acer ScanWit 2720s, and I bought mine through Ebay for US$295. I now use two scanners, the Acer for slides and my Microtek X6 for prints. I must say that since switching to the Acer scanner, I would never go back to scanning slides on the flatbed. The combined cost of both was less than US$500, which is still much less than the price of most low-end dedicated film scanners. To see samples of scans from both scanners, visit my website at the address below. All photos on the site were scanned using one of the two scanners.
That's quite the site you have, very well done. I did read your post about the scanners in the $3000 digital camera wait. I appreciate the effort you put in. To me, it appears I should buy a dedicated scanner. Now correct me if I am wrong: I thought I saw one that handles film negative as well as slides, is this the case? I know the dedicated units handle slides, but do they work with negative film as well?
I am very pleased with the results I get from my Canon CanoScan FS 2710 dedicated film scanner. It will handle 35mm slides (mounted and unmounted), 35mm negatives and also has an adapter to allow the smaller APS films to be scanned. For internet use I usually scan at 680 d.p.i which gives me an image size of around 800x600 after cropping and a file size of between 100-200 kb depending on content/colours etc. Slight cropping is necessary to remove the rough edge caused by the slide mount. I have found that even on correctly exposed slides/negatives the scanner tends to give a darker image but this is easily corrected using the bundled Canon software (or any other software of your choice)by increasing the highlights/midtones/shadows as required. When printing directly from the scanner to my inkjet printer the automatic settings give a very good result with no requirement to intervene manually. The FS 2710 was not cheap (about £500) but I am very pleased with what it can achieve and it is also very easy to use. It has now probably been replaced by a newer model and will no doubt be much cheaper in the U.S. I have no experience of using a flatbed scanner for films/slides so cannot compare the two methods. If you would care to look at my site you will find that most of the prototype photos have been copied from 35mm slides using the FS 2710. (The model layout photos were taken using an Olympus digital camera) Best wishes, John.
Kevin, I have a cheap Mustek scanner (actually on the second one) and I have always been happy with it. I submitted a photo to Altamont Press last week, just for viewing on the site, and Rob Carlson said it was "flat" and commented that most scanners produced such images. Heck I guess I'm not that critical. I think YOURS are super, by the way.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by rsn48: That's quite the site you have, very well done. I did read your post about the scanners in the $3000 digital camera wait. I appreciate the effort you put in. To me, it appears I should buy a dedicated scanner. Now correct me if I am wrong: I thought I saw one that handles film negative as well as slides, is this the case? I know the dedicated units handle slides, but do they work with negative film as well?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Thanks for the comments, I'm glad you enjoyed the website. To answer your question about negatives, you are right. Most slide scanners are in reality "Film Scanners", capable of scanning both positive transparencies as well as color reversal film (negatives). While I can only speak for my Acer scanner, it is capable of scanning both slides and negatives. It comes with two film holders. One holds up to four mounted slides, the other holds a 35mm film strip up to six frames. I have tried scanning negatives on the slide scanner, but have had trouble getting images I was happy with. Since I also have the flatbed scanner, I have found it to be more forgiving requiring less post processing work than negative scans. However, don't get me wrong as it should be very capable of being used to scan negs. I just haven't had the patience to learn how to do it well enough yet. Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions and I will try to help.
Greetings! I have just purchased a Canoscan D660U flatbed scanner, which comes with a light in the lid and a holder to allow one to scan 35-mm slides and negatives. Maximum resolution for slides and negs is 1200x1200. I am not finding an advantage in scanning negatives for which I have prints available, but I have thousands of black and white negatives that will be fun to scan. I am very happy with the scanner's performance when scanning 4x6-inch color prints. It's got good control of the scan process, the image is sharp, and it's fast. This is my third scanner. Before this, I had an HP 3300c which had some driver problem that prevented scanning after I had scanned 3 or 4 images. Before that, I had a Umax Astra 2200, which supposedly could scan up to 4x5-inch transparencies, but the driver just plain didn't work and customer service was a joke. Rob P.S. The D660U cost about $150.
We got the Hewlett Packard ScanJet 3300C, and it seems to make good enough photos to post, but we haven't needed to try transparencies. I usually set at 600 for posting here.
