35mm Film Scanner Recs?

[honeylove]

Anyone have a 35mm film scanner? I am looking at getting one to scan all my old film. Please recommend me one, thanks!

[boBQuincy]

Reasonably priced dedicated film scanners are getting difficult to find. The next option is a good flatbed scanner with a film scan adapter. Epson's V500/V600 series works well, their V750 is even better (for more $$$).

Scanning is boring and takes a lot of time, if you can find a young person that doesn't mind boring work it will save you the time and gives them the opportunity to make a few $$$. Figure on about 1 hour per roll of 24 with the dust "removal" option, the figures given by the scanner manufacturers can be way optimistic.

The other option is to send the film off to a scanning shop. It is more $$$ but saves a *lot* of time.

[photo_chick]

I second the Epson V500 option if you're going to scan at home. You can use the 35mm holder and load several strips at once. It takes me closer to 2 hour to do a 24 exposure roll. But I also set the exposure manually for each shot so that takes longer.

[Experiment_626]

Have had nothing but joy from the Nikon Super Coolscan 4000 in my office. I believe that Nikon has essentially discontinued all their film scanners, and I have to run it on an older Macintosh (running Panther) to get it to work, but nothing I've seen scanned with an attachment on any flatbed scanner has come close to the quality it attains. There are a couple of newer models, but all of them seem to be, if anything, rising in price on the used market now that Nikon doesn't make them anymore.

If quality is really important, you might consider getting one, using it, and then re-selling it when you're done.

SSB

[photo_chick]

As far as quality, my Epson 4870 I use at home and the V500 I use on campus are both excellent. I make a lot of enlargements from those scans. But like with a camera, you don't always get the best results on auto with them.