Film scanning

[Rhys]

I have a stack of negatives I'd like to scan and save on DVD.

Looking at a lot of the scanners, they seem to take an inordinate amount of time to scan the negatives and scan them at ludicrous resolutions.

I don't believe I need to scan to more than 3 megapixels on the basis that I still have the negatives and only wish to print to a maximum of A4 size.

Apart from using the Coolpix slide/negative holder on my 995, is there a scanner that would do the job that is not expensive and is quick? I'm thinking more about a film scanner at the moment.

[Jake Conner]

My new Epson 4870 scans 35mm slides very nicely in batches of 8, negatives in batches of 24. A 6MP scan of a 35mm frame, with dust and grain reduction but without Digital ICE, takes 2-2.5 minutes, but the scanner can be left unattended during a batch, which means each batch effectively takes maybe 3-5 minutes to preview scan, select frames, and do individual pre-scan adjustment. In short, it's great for digitizing large amounts of 35mm film.

Jake

[jamison55]

I have the Epson 3170 ($200 at Best Buy), and it does a great job. It has a tray that holds 2 strips of negatives at a time, and you can scan them all at once. I recently created a DVD for a Mother's Day present consisting of a few hundred 40+ year old slides, and it cruised through them without a hitch. I origianally gave the slides to my local Ritz photo, and they were of much lower quality than I got using the Epson.

About the ludicrous file size, I've found that I get the best results when I scan at a high resolution, make any necessary edits in PS, then save in a smaller resolution. Folks complain about noise from digital cameras. You haven't seen noise until you scan a 35mm slide to 6MP, but like digital noise it goes away when you reduce the size of the image.

[Jake Conner]

That ain't noise, friend, that's film grain, unless the 3170 has a really crappy sensor, which I doubt. My 4870 never shows any sensor noise to speak of.

Jake