Slide scanner advice???

I am very pleased with the Primefilm 1800u, especially considering that Costco had them on sale for $99 at the time. I had read many discussion groups on scanners, and have come to the conclusion that a lot of these younger folks just "have" to have the best and finest (read most expensive) when in fact other products are just as good. One thing about them that again I had read and has proven to be true, clean the slides very well with one of those old radioactive brushes, or every speck of dust will show up. All of the Berk shots on the "Berks are Beautiful" thread I scanned yesterday from negatives on the 1800u. It does a fine job on slides, too.

 

Yes, it was offered on the Costco website and there was a $6.95 shipping and handling charge. Some of the others discussed on those kid forums were HP and another Japanese camera manufacturer, and man, they were thousands of $$$. I have not tried to print from any of these scans, as I didn't buy it for that, but at 1800dpi I'm sure they will print just fine. The first scans come out huge, so I use IRFAN to resize them, and to sharpen them. IRFAN's sharpening feature is (as the kids say) sweeeeet. It really enhances the images. The ones from this scanner are SO much better than scanning prints on my old (Mustek) flatbed. Oh, and it's small. With some custom work you could make it fit in some computer cases. It would stick out the back some.

If you want to see some slides that I scanned "quick and dirty" take a look at this site, the airplane albums. The train stuff shot at Steamtown in1995 was kind of an abberation. I used Costco Kirkland film and that was a mistake. Still, these are better than my original prints.
Jim's Photos-Webphotos

[ 11. June 2003, 00:41: Message edited by: fitz ]

 

what resolution are you scanning at. When I scan slides the file size gets huge.

 

I got a HP Precision Scan Jet last year for a gift. It does slides and is also a flat bed. I have no complaints. I am not at that particular computer, but I will post the info later. I love the results and I edit with adobe photoshop. IMHO scanned slides still beat the resolution you get from a digital camera.

I will post more later.

 

I bought a Microtek two or three months ago for $170 at staples. Recently I saw it there for $140. I am getting very good results with it.

It is a flat bed scanner with the built-in capability of handling slides and negatives up to 4x5 inches. This was a requirement for me because I am in the process of scanning a 160 slide set I took at the 1964-1965 New York Worls's Fair. They are 70mm (120 film).

I usually scan at maximum resolution (600 dpi) .

Here is a sample from the NY World's Fair set.

 

I waited quite a while before a scanner came out that could do all I wanted at a price of under $200. Prior to this, it seemed that to get the ability to scan larger slides and negatives, there was an automatic price jump to about $400.

 

Coaltrain, My PrimeFilm 1800u scans at 1800dpi, and yes, the files are huge. I then, as stated, open them in IRFAN, resize to 800 X 600 pixels and save as jpgs. That usually results in a file under 100k bytes. If it requires further shrinking, I use the software that came with the flatbed and increase the compression of the jpg file, resulting in smaller filesize.

 

I have an Olympus ES-10 transparency scanner. It's a great unit if you can find one used. It has a resolution of 1770ppi, which will give a 4.2 megapixel, 2400x1600 image.

 

As a newbie to this forum, I'm not sure how to address this issue.

If you want to print any larger than about 5 x 7 inches, you'll need a fairly high resolution scanner. I've got the Minotla Dimage at 2880 dpi, and it does a good job on slides, less so on negs. I used to have a Nikon Coolscan at 4000 lines, and it was fabulous--but it died. The Minolta was about $250; the Nikon ten times that, which is why I didn't replace it.

I'm a professional writer/photographer/designer, so my needs are perhaps higher than usual. And yes, either of these scanners produces HUGE scans at max resolution--but there's no substitute for pixels.

I've never seen an internal scanner, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

My best advice--wait a few months. Prices are coming down, resolutions are increasing, disks are cheaper every day.

Pete

 

Pete, welcome to Trainboard. Great album on Railimages! Of course, I have to take issue with your avatar (as you can tell from mine). It was a great rivalry and a wedding made in Hades.

 

Chaps, this is very interesting and relevant (for me) as far as it goes, but I have two very specific problems: firstly I want to scan 120 roll film size colour transparencies (either 6x4.5, 6x6 or 6x9) rather than 35mm and secondly I am in the UK and trying to find out about the purchase of a scanner in the UK - most of you are in America and the information you have given is about equipment available over there.

It is difficult to get into this subject; I know a fair amount about, for instance, digital still cameras or medium format film cameras - I know who makes them, I know what models they produce and I know their functions and capabilities and their prices - but information about scanners seems much less accessible and many websites are frustratingly obscure.

The choice seems to boil down to a flat bed scanner with a 120 roll film adaptor or a film scanner which takes roll film as well as 35mm.

I think the film scanner option is out, firstly because they are very expensive and secondly because we do not yet have ANY form of scanner at home and I would like all my family to be able to scan any kind of text material as well as photographic prints and negs or transparencies.

So, it looks like I would have to go for a flat bed scanner with a suitable adaptor to hold my 120 trannies but again the range of models with this capability (as opposed to purely 35mm slides) seems very limited AND they are expensive.

Is there anyone on Trainboard who could expand on what has been said already in this thread with specific relation to medium format trannies and also are there any UK members who have such a scanner or who know about the market and could give me some purchasing advice?

Even after a relatively short time of looking into this, I am beginning to think that as far as medium format railway photography that I want to scan and either email to friends or upload to this site is concerned, I might have to abandon shooting transparencies and take colour prints which it would be a whole lot easier and cheaper to find a normal flat bed scanner for, but I am loth to abandon the idea completely partly because of the superb quality and resolution of my 120 colour trannies and partly because of the very variable and sometimes indifferent processing and printing standards of the high street photo processors over here. I will certainly not abandon colour transparencies for general photography and I love my very old third or fourth hand Hasselblad 500CM so much that I would never go back to 35mm, except maybe for rail colour transparency photography if a 35mm trannie adaptor was a cheap and feasible possibility as an add on for any flat bed scanner I had already bought.

I'm sorry this is somewhat long and rambling but it is so difficult to get hold of the necessary information (the store clerks in the high street retail photography chains are considerably worse than useless) that I am becoming very frustrated and any information, thoughts or advice that any of you could give me would be REALLY welcome and appreciated.

Ben

 

Thanks Boxcab - I know Alan very well (actually from pre-Trainboard days); everyone is so friendly and hepful on TB that I'm sure anyone who does have the expertise will impart it.

Meanwhile I have got a little further with my inquiries just this morning when I had a close look at an Epson scanner in a department store and found an assistant who actually knew something about the workings of the equipment; the method of scanning 35mm trannies seems to be that you place them under what is effectively an inverted light box built in to the lid of the scanner; there is no slot or anything, you just place them on the bed in the right place. The "light box" actually looks quite a bit wider than a 35mm strip, almost wide enough for a 120 slide, so I am going to pop into this shop, which is near where I live, again, with a sample 120 slide, and see if it would fit, perhaps with some very careful paring down of the edges of the surrounding film material and even slicing a few micro millimetres off the actual image if it was just sky, foreground or some other non essential part of the photograph, just to get it to fit in the space and stay flat.

Maybe this project will be feasible after all!

Ben

[ 02. October 2003, 11:55: Message edited by: Ben ]

 

Ben,
Although I am working mostly in digital now, for many years the only cameras I owned were Rolleis (120 film, 2-1/4 x 2-1/4 format). Back in 1964-1965 I did a slide series at the New York World's Fair. I have been wanting to digitize that 160-slide set for some time. Recently, for that project, I bought a Microtek flat-bed scanner. (I am writing this from work, so I don't have the model number.)

I chose it because it had the the ability to handle film, built-in, not an extra-cost attachment. Also, it is capable of handling up to 4x5 transparencies or negatives. The software that came with it is also excellent.

Here is an example from that projece (which is now about 1/3 done). The film was Kodak High-Speed Ektachrome, ISO 200.


[ 03. October 2003, 13:43: Message edited by: Peirce ]

 

Thanks Peirce - I did actually read the earlier posts you put up on this thread and saw your picture before; I am aware of the comments you and others made about the Microtek - the trouble is that this is not a widely known make in UK and I would think it would be virtually impossible easily to find one to examine - strange, you may think, in London, the greatest and most important city in the world, but shopping is actually quite difficult for obscure items in whatever area one is interested in.

Thank you, though, for your comments.

Ben