Film Scanning Prints vs Negatives

Timely topic. Now that I am venturing into the world of film, I would like to scan the negatives/slides that I shoot, and only keep the only I really like. I have been looking at the Plustek 8000 series and most likely will buy the Ai version. I will also be scanning old negatives from the past as well, and I have also offered to digitise a large number of Kodachrome slides for my college I work at, we have a ton of Kodachrome slides in our archives, many of which have not been viewed in many, many years, so it will be nice to scan them and have prints made. Ahhhh, when I took a look at the slides this past week, the colours just took my breath away!! I had never seen Kodachrome slides in real life until now, and all I can say is WOW! I now understand why tears that were shed when Kodak stopped producing Kodachrome.

I just looked at scanning prices at one of the only pro labs left in this city, and wow, it's expensive to scan a 135-36 roll! 10 rolls and the scanner would pay for itself, so all the more I am headed in that direction. I am sure it isn't as good as the pro scanners at the lab, but for an amateur like myself, it will be fine.
Thumbs-up to more or less all you say. However, just a few words of warning: Scanning can be very(!) time-consuming, especially if you want prime results. I hope you won't regret your offer to scan those slides ...

M.
 
Yes, it is very time consuming as you say as I have been using my flatbed scanner which is an Epson V330, it has negative/slide scanning, time consuming and just AWFUL!! Every negative I have scanned has a greenish cast over it, the holders are horrible etc. I did try one or two slides as well, and it was just terrible. The slide scanning project will become a work project that I do during work hours :), I have told them I don't plan on using my personal time LOL!
 
Not really - the ones on offer are of the cheap, simplistic type; I own the medium format scanner you linked to, and it's barely usable. It's enough to maybe judge if there's any sharpness/contrast/quality at all and if framing is decent, but I'd not use it for serious scanning anymore. Using it is somewhat quicker than with the flatbed, but I don't feel like I get decent results with *good* images. Plus there's no option to get uncompressed data out of these things. I'd say a good flatbed scanner is most probably superior.

M.
Enough said Matt, I am getting closer to starting processing again, I am quite looking forward to it, hope you are well- Regards
 
Enough said Matt, I am getting closer to starting processing again, I am quite looking forward to it, hope you are well- Regards
Same to you, Ken. Wasn't able to do much over the last couple of days - fair time (our community orchestra runs a four-day summer fair to create funds). So everything got delayed a bit. But come Monday, things should be back to normal, more or less.

M.
 
I had an Epson V330 and found the software lacking in many areas in addition to the scanning being slow.
I gave it away.
I have used for the past 6 months an HP G4010 and found it easier and faster to use. But it only scans one strip at a time.
I upgraded to a G4050 this week (brand new from a retailer's unsold inventory). This does 120, medium format, slides and negatives (obviously for 35mm too) using the entire A4 plate.
It still take 1 minute per picture on standard settings (no dust/scratch removal - 300 dpi).

So my strategy is to use a cheap Nimo scanner such as one of these.
ION Audio Website
It is dead fast and easy. But not as accurate.
Good enough for online and email.
I select the pictures I want to focus on using the Nimo.
Then use the G4050 to scan at high quality.

It saves me a lot of time and frustration with dust and the slow high quality scanning of the G4050.

Costs:
Nimo was about £30
HP G4010 (used) £40
HP G4050 (new) £100
 
Matt, is this interesting, I'm not sure

Interesting it is - but the scope is pretty narrow since only a handful of cameras could ever do that (store the information, be customised). Still interesting that the technology is revived. For me personally, I'm all about the image - I'm doubtful that I'll ever start taking notes while shooting film since I judge each situation anew. But for professionals that want to optimise their workflow and the use of their tools, this is definitely something to consider.

M.
 
Anyone know of a good, solid online course on how to scan colour negatives properly? I have a V600 and scanned my first MF negatives last night while they are ok, I know they can be scanned better but not sure how to go about this, I have done a lot of googling but can't find a good "class" on proper colour negative scanning. The holder that comes with the V600 is horrible, the film does not lay flat, and I am thinking of getting one of those proprietary holders that come with a glass insert. Any thoughts on this will be very welcome. Thanks so much!
 
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