Film to digital scanner

mobi

Senior Member
Can someone recommend me a good film to digital scanner?

I have seen some products in Amazon UK. Most have mixed reviews and price varies from £30-£100.

I am not too worried about quality.

Any recommendation based on personal experience of any of these products?
 
It has been a couple of years since I have used one. I did have a flatbed scanner that had an attachment that worked pretty good. I also have a dedicated film scanner that I did not like at all. I think it all depends on how many you have to do or if you plan on shooting film now and scan to digital. I think if you don't plan on doing a lot then I would send it out and have it done. Probably more cost effective and the quality would probably be better.
 

STM

Senior Member
The best scanners are unquestionably dedicated ones. Flatbed scanners are generally designed for scanning photos, documents, etc, with the added benefit of scanning negatives. They generally do a passable job in my opinon but not for a scan which will be printed above an 8x10. Epson offers some like the V700 but my Nikon completely blows them out of the water. If you are looking for the highest quality, a dedicated scanner is really the only way to go. I would not waste my money on some cheap ones. You get what you pay for is certainly applicable here. I use a Nikon Super CoolScan LS-8000 because it lets me scan my Hasselblad negatives in addition to 35mm. They are OOP but can be found on Ebay or other sources for reasonable prices. Although if you are looking at £100 scanners, $1500-2000 USD is not going to be "reasonable" for you. The only real problem with Nikon Scanners is that the Nikon Scan 4 software which accompanies them is only compatible with Windows XP or older OS's, no idea about Mac's, and use Firewire connections to handle the very high data rates. There are third party scanner software programs like VueScan but you lose a lot of your scanner's advanced capabilities if you use them, which is why I will not use anything but Nikon Scan 4. I have an older IBM laptop with XP and a built in Firewire card that is essentially an integral part of my scanner. It produces some amazingly high quality scans, especially with my Hasselblad negatives.
 
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