Advice Sought For Scanner To Convert Large Quantity Of Old Negs To Digital

[jko]

I have a huge 'mess' of photo negatives comprising large format b/w roll film (dating back to the 60's) plus later day 35mm in b/w and colour, colour transparencies, (Ektachrome, etc.) that I want to digitalise.

The task will take weeks - many are single negatives (they often cut them this way back in the 60's) others are mounted transparencies, the rest are 35mm cut strips, some still in a full roll of 36 exposures. Although I will need to scan some printed images, the main task is converting these negatives to JPEG or PNG

Can anybody recommend a scanner (from personal experience) that provides excellent quality and is also quick + easy to use with this diverse spaghetti of different sizes and formats?

Advice appreciated!

[LeftCoaster]

When you say scanner are you speaking of a device so you can do the work or a company that can do it for you?

There are places in India that do a lot of that work and from what I hear are quite dependable. There is a company

in NYC USA that offers the service but outsources it to their India division.

The Nikon Coolscan 9000 is a good scanner (available used) but only does up to MF size negs/trans.

There are labs (particularly in the West) that will scan anything you can throw at them but you do pay a premium.

[barryw52]

I had an HP scanner a few years ago with add on unit for 35mm negatives or slides but to be honest the results were disappointing even at the highest resolution. I spoke several "photography experts" and they said only the very expensive professional scanners do a good job on negatives and slides. So my advice would find a professional photo shop here the can do it for you but only do a few first to test the quality of their work. I am not sure if the home scanners have improved that much to change any of what I said above. any one have any recent experiences to add?

[jko]

I had an HP scanner a few years ago with add on unit for 35mm negatives or slides but to be honest the results were disappointing even at the highest resolution. I spoke several "photography experts" and they said only the very expensive professional scanners do a good job on negatives and slides. So my advice would find a professional photo shop here the can do it for you but only do a few first to test the quality of their work. I am not sure if the home scanners have improved that much to change any of what I said above. any one have any recent experiences to add?

Many tks for this info, Will be interested to see if anybody has recent experience with newer scanners - hopefully better results are possible. My problem is the huge number of negs of different sizes and types I have collected over 40+ years - it would cost the earth to have them done in a photo lab.

[PattayaParent]

I had an HP scanner a few years ago with add on unit for 35mm negatives or slides but to be honest the results were disappointing even at the highest resolution. I spoke several "photography experts" and they said only the very expensive professional scanners do a good job on negatives and slides. So my advice would find a professional photo shop here the can do it for you but only do a few first to test the quality of their work. I am not sure if the home scanners have improved that much to change any of what I said above. any one have any recent experiences to add?

Many tks for this info, Will be interested to see if anybody has recent experience with newer scanners - hopefully better results are possible. My problem is the huge number of negs of different sizes and types I have collected over 40+ years - it would cost the earth to have them done in a photo lab.

Yes, I looked at this myself and it would be cheaper for you to buy a decent scanner yourself and hire someone to do it for you if you don't want to spend the time doing it yourself.

[regedit]

I guess it depends on what you want to do with the results. I scanned a load of slides using a flat-bed scanner (Epson Perfection) and the results were fine if you just want to view on screen or put on a slideshow DVD. Not got round to the negatives yet...

[astral]

I used to have a Canon dedicated 35mm scanner. Canoscan 2700F

It was not cheap but the results were excellent,

even handling negatives that the shops could not print

The resolution was 2700dpi for good results

and the supplied sw was excellent.

The sw is vital for scanning negatives!!

[barryw52]

The scanner that Astral is talking about is the sort you need Very HiRes but not sure if it will do the other format negatives and slides you have price was about US$700 when it was released not sure if it is available here in Thailand.

[katana]

I've tried a couple of cheap scanners (under 5000 Baht). The results are touch and go as far as quality goes. Some scans are acceptable, others don't do justice to the slide or negative, especially if the exposure on the original was slightly out. I guess you get what you pay for. Would be interested for any scanner recommendations.

[astral]

You are right it will only handle 35mm, not the old 120/620 negs

Also it has a SCSI interface, difficult to handle these days.