UKC

Evenin' all,

I've a bunch of 35mm negatives and slides and some 120 negatives to scan.

I'd like to be able to remake some of the associated contact sheets, so I'm thinking a flatbed scanner...

If also like to boost the dynamic range of some of my negatives - I understand that this is now possible... Though I'm sure that the software will need a fairly heavy scan to work with.

With all this in mind, what can folks recommend? I'll be running it from an Apple laptop, looking at the images on a decent standalone screen (recommendations?) and making Inkjet printers and maybe even creating a new negative...

It's been 20+ years since I did any scanning and an totally out of the loop with what's worth getting. My budget is a couple of grand for scanner, software and the extra screen.

Any advice, insights and straight up recommendations most welcome !

A dedicated negative scanner will likely give better results than a flatbed.

Plustek are pretty much the leader in consumer grade negative scanners.  

Agreed. I also use Photoshop Elements to create the contact sheets; works really well.

P

I'd be really interested to hear if this is the case as it sounds as if it's creating 'new data' from something that simply isn't there at the image creation stage. 

Edit: typo.

If you have a digital camera and macro lens you could consider one of these.....

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nikon-ES-2-Kits-Camera-Black/dp/B076QFVHJZ/ref=asc...

I believe you can also get a none Niko version to fit my lens diameters

If you have a digital camera and macro lens you could consider one of these.....

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nikon-ES-2-Kits-Camera-Black/dp/B076QFVHJZ/ref=asc...

I believe you can also get a none Nikon version to fit my lens diameters

For example

https://www.amazon.co.uk/JJC-Digitizing-Adapter-Negative-Brightness/dp/B09N...

I always found decently good results at a low price with the Epson V60. Scan using silverfast, then convert the negatives using negative lab pro on lightroom. 

Always gave me really nice results, not the highest quality known to man but perfectly good for home scanning, especially medium format.

I actually have an old V60 that I am looking to get rid of if there was any interest!

I bought a plustek 8100 for the scanning, along with silverfast and get some really decent results!

Use a lab to scan 120. Scanners at this size were prohibitely expensive. 

I run a scanning company and what I would recommend would be based on how many you want to scan and whether you want to scan as an ongoing process?

35mm is a bit of a bugger to scan well on a budget but I can highly recommend a Minolta 5400 Dimage scanner. They're quite expensive second hand but they hold their price exceptionally well. 

If the 120 film is 6x6 or above then you'll get away with a flatbed scanner and I'd recommend buying a cheap Epson v700/750/800/850. This will also do OK with your 35mm scans but not great because of the resolution it maxes out at about 2300dpi). 

Once you have these, I would then pick out your favourites that you want to make big prints of and get them drum scanned. The Minolta 5400 does a very good job indeed but a drum scan trumps everything by some margin. 

As for creating new negatives - there are companies that offer this service but I would have to ask for what reason? I make enlarged negatives for contact printing processes. 

p.s. You don't need a new machine, you can get everything running on a cheap machine and also you don't need a new monitor. I use a MacBook Pro and the screen is more than good enough (mac screens are actually very good out of the box and can be great if you profile them). 

Give me an idea of numbers and how many you plan on printing large vs just using on the internet and I can probably help further

I presume you mean a V600 ... if so then, yes it's a pretty decent scanner for making scans for the internet and for small prints. Recommended for a good budget option! (and not much worse than the 700/800 if I remember correctly)

I used to know professional photographers who did this all the time before they went fully digital. They were scanning very very high res (although maybe these days it'd be considered medium res?) With a film scanner. They used to say how long the scanning process took over film and one of the immediate benefit going to digital cameras was the hours it saved scanning. Don't underestimate the time that scanning will take if you have many scans. Not sure a flatbed scanner will be anywhere close to OK. See if you can get it done by someone as profesional service, not sure how much it'd cost, shop around..

Thanks Tom. 20.years ago,. I'd scan slides/negs with a Nikon Coolscan / Silverfast / Photoshop, and take on average 17 mins per scan/retouch/put medium back into storage.

As I've not yet started the project, I'm still using that 17 min per image as a guide.

Thanks Tim. I've several thousand images to go through. I can 'read' a b/w neg easily enough off a light table but for making final choices for expo/book, I'd need to see positive images, hence need to remake or make for first time, contact sheets.

I haven't yet decided whether to go for enlarger prints or digital ones. That's going to depend on price/quality, and I need to see/touch more prints to decide. It's possible some of the prints will be up to 6x4 feet; the smallest would be 20x30 inches.

Final prints would be sponsored, but I need to make decisions on what will be used and for that, good scans will be needed. I will look into the Minolta for that. Preparing those final prints might well need drums scans, and those would be done commercially.

Any thoughts on a decent, cheapish screen? Is using one of those colour sampling spiders still a thing to help setting up the screen? As I said, I've been out of the scanning game for two decades.

Oh  I  forgot to add that 'drum scans' is the way to go for either 35mm or 120 or larger.

 Fantastic quality if that is the aim, but quite expensive in large numbers. The same with large prints. Labs have top notch printing machines & fully trained technicians to ensure maximum quality.

Yes was on holiday when I wrote that so wasn’t able to properly check but V600 it is!

For proofing I think a camera would do the job very well indeed and be a lot faster than scanning. 

If they're mostly 35mm then the Minolta would be a great choice and would do black and whites very well. 

Drum scans are great though and I'm happy to do a few free for you - have a look at drumscanning.co.uk

Screens are a bit of a minefield - the modern mac screens can actually be very good. I use my MacBook pro screen as my main screen and profiling it hardly did anything, it's that well made. 

I know Eizo's are the top of the line but NEC, LG, Dell, Asus, Benq all have good monitors. I would definitely recommend paying for someone to come around and calibrate the screen to get a really nice job. The advice they'll offer you and job they'll do will be worth more than buying a calibrator yourself and they'll help you keep it up to date I'm sure. 

Tim