Film scanner info?

[dwgriffi]

I've decided to treat myself to a $300-400 film scanner expressly for making whatever special shots from before I went digital as well represented as those after, which are so easily accessed. Although I've done a bit of research I can't find a page that deals with them as thoroughly as the DCRP does with cameras. Is there a scanner counterpart?

These are all 35 color negs, no slides. Any thoughts on who to look into and stay away from would also be much appreciated!


Thanks!

DW

[kgosden]

I have been pretty happy with my older Minolta DiMage Scan Elite. I have also used a few Nikon scanners. And previously owned a BENQ 2700 series. I actually liked the Benq a bit better than my current Minolta. Both have similar resolutions and are SCSI. All the newer scanners are USB. The Minolta has DigitalICE which is now standard (or an equivalent dust and scratch filter) on most midrange film scanners. The current Benq 2750I offers DigitalICE and the current Minoltas offer comparable features.

The one thing I did not know until I switched was that my Minolta is not a fully motorized feed. This is a bit annoying if you are doing a lot of scans. The Minolta is smaller than my older Benq, but this space savings is achieved by only being deep enough to accept two slides or 3 frames of film at a time. The film/slide holders handle twic that many , but the holder must be manually flipped over to access the other half. This makes placing the negatives or slides difficult and slows the entire scanning process. Further the Benq had an atuofocusing scanning lens while the Minolta is a fixed focus.

Overall I stilll like the Minolta and bought it for the features missing on my older Benq. These were DigitalICE and the ability to accept APS format film from my wife's old camera. I would definitely recommend shooping eBay for film scanners. They are the type of peripheral that people buy to use for a project, like scanning in their old film, and then tend to sell. They do not get too abused as most owners are not casual users, The biggest problem to watch for in used units is possible burnt out light sources which can cost more to replace than a new scanner.

Wayne Fulton has a site (http://www.scantips.com/basics13.html) with some good basic info as well as an outdated table of most major scanners.