Photo negative scanner advice requested

[Maddie2]

Hello all. I posted this question over on the Photography Board, but I think there is more traffic here and am hoping some of you may have experience with this?

I have a 100s of old photo negatives - 110, 126, 35mm. Some mine, some from my parents. Mid-1970s til basic digital cameras. Basic point and shoot pictures.

I'd like to buy a decent negative scanner, but not spend a huge amount. While I'd like to be able to print photos and create jpegs to use in a photo books, I do not require top of the line. Not a piece of junk that creates poor images ... middle of the road, decent images are fine as the quality of the negatives are only moderate too. We have a basic flatbed document scanner, but I'd prefer something handheld that could be used away from the computer.

I've looked at a few on Amazon, but there are SO many! Would appreciate advice from anyone with experience with these - what to buy, what to avoid, etc. TIA!

 

[Lewisc]

I suggest
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/If you're in NYC stop in, if not call. They don't sell junk. They're honest and will give you suggestions in your price range.
https://m.dpreview.com/Is a good resource


Sorry I don't have any personal experience to share

 

[Best Aunt]

If you decide that you don't want to do it yourself, there are companies you can send the negatives to, and they will convert them to a digital format. It's not cheap, but you can watch for coupon codes.
www.scandigital.com
www.scancafe.com

 

[Lewisc]

Most of the services will only scan 35mm negatives. OP also has 110 and 126.

You could contact them. The might be able to do a custom job $$$.

Getting prints made, then scanning the prints might be more cost effective.

Scanmyphotos regularly has groupon desls.

 

[_19disnA]

Never used those devices but do have a good bit of experience with photography in general.

If something you aren't planning to use on an ongoing basis, I agree getting them printed is probably a better option. Then you can either store or scan the printed photos. I have given up trying to print color pictures on any type of home printer since the ink is too expensive, quality never very good and if you don't use it on a regular basis, the ink cartridges tend to clog. Most local drugstores print pictures for a reasonable price and perhaps they accept negatives as well. Not clear why you need something handheld since this is likely something you would only do in your home office. Smaller/portable units tend to be more expensive in looking at the ones on sites like BestBuy. Instead of buying a device for one-time use, I would use one of the websites mentioned in the prior postings.

110 film as I recall was only used in those old tiny cameras and the image quality was never very good to begin with. Mostly good for postage stamp size images you might post online. Scanning those negatives will probably never result in any better results.

 

[StageTek]

I use B&H for just about everything. Great suggestion. However...

I, too, am in the market for a scanner for negatives. I'm hoping someone can recommend one.

 

[Lewisc]

I doubt many DIS members scan negatives. The few that do might be using older equipment. They may be using a lot more expensive or less expensive (lower quality) then you're looking for.
You want to know about ground transportation from MCO to WDW, post and you'll get information.

I'd go with whatever scanner B and H suggests in your price range

 

[lockets]

I need negatives scanned or printed too! Following…

 

[SueInBoston]

I recently undertook a similar project and bought the Kodak film scanner, I scanned about 200 35mm negative strips and abandoned the project for the following reasons:

-there are usually 2 or 3 shots of the same pose, from the negative, I can't tell which one is the best) so I end up scanning all to have to review on computer screen and delete the unwanted. too much wasted effort.​

-many of my negatives have deteriorated and have a yellow cast​

​

so I am doing the reverse, I'm going through my photo albums (I have a very organized photo album library by month, year and all the photos in the album have already been curated once) and I am sending the prints to Costco to digitalize. The cost is reasonable.​

​

 

[lockets]

I recently undertook a similar project and bought the Kodak film scanner, I scanned about 200 35mm negative strips and abandoned the project for the following reasons:

-there are usually 2 or 3 shots of the same pose, from the negative, I can't tell which one is the best) so I end up scanning all to have to review on computer screen and delete the unwanted. too much wasted effort.​

-many of my negatives have deteriorated and have a yellow cast​

​

so I am doing the reverse, I'm going through my photo albums (I have a very organized photo album library by month, year and all the photos in the album have already been curated once) and I am sending the prints to Costco to digitalize. The cost is reasonable.​

​

thanks for sharing your experience. Interesting! Do you remember the scanner product name that you bought, and other than the yellowing do you think it did a good job?

I suspect I will have a similar experience as you except I’m not sure I have all the photos that are on my negatives because albums are spread throughout the family through the years so it would be good for me to scan mine even if it produces duplicates I already have.

Then I suppose I can determine if it’s best to keep the scanned image from the negative already or scan the duplicated photo from an album instead.

 

[SueInBoston]

I got this one:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1411135-REG/kodak_rodfs35_scanza_digital_film_scanner.html
Quality was fine, most of my films were from point and shoot cameras back in the 80's and 90's, so probably not exceptional quality to begin with. Another annoying thing I found with scanning is that during the scanning the file name is defaulted...ie. scan 01, scan 02, scan 03 and you can't change it until you edit on the computer. I did find a bulk rename utility but I wish it would let me rename as I scan each batch.

 

[sandam1]

I don't what your definition of "expensive" is, but I have used both the Epson V700 and V600 at work and they are fairly high quality scanners that have the ability to scan negatives. I know that the V700 comes with a frame and holds negative strips as well as other transparency sizes and has a back light feature. I'm not sure about the V600 as I haven't had the need to use it in that manner.

I work in a historic house museum, doing a lot of archival scanning (i.e. high resolution, high quality) and a lot of the handheld scanners just don't produce high quality scans. To create any sort of reasonable prints, you want to be scanning a minimum of 300 dpi. Saving as jpg files is a good idea, tiff files are better. Again, look at the inexpensive scanners to see what type of files they create (you don't want anything proprietary). If you chose to use a service, again, you want to look carefully at the specs of the files that they are going to create, how they are going to organize the resulting files, and what quality control process they have. The last two are the things that keep me up at night when I think about the services.

One other thing that you need to think about is protecting the files that you do create. You want to have one access copy (aka ones that you use) and at least two back-up copies kept in at least two different locations (the cloud/at a family members house, preferably in a different geographic location). The last thing you want to do (and people do it ALL the time) is to keep everything on your desktop's hard drive. If something happens to your computer or your house, the many many many hours that you spent could be lost.

If you have any other questions, let me know. I have a similar project of my own (to organize, rehouse and scan all of the grandmother's photos) in my near future - after I finish a huge digitization project at work. There are only so many hours a day that you can sit attached to a scanner.

 

[candy0730]

My husband uses the Nikon Coolscan IV and is very pleased with it but he tells me they no longer make it. Seems they are becoming obsolete.

 

[seashoreCM]

As a rough rule, scanning a negative directly gives better results than printing the negative and then scanning the print.

I suggest 3600 dpi for scanning negatives (or slides) regardless of size (35mm, etc.). More for "really good" pictures, perhaps less for "not so sharp" pictures.

A lot of time is consumed doing scanning when you pore over each scan to decide whether you need to scan it again because it was too light or too dark. A good firm that scans for you they can eyeball each negative and quickly set the scanner for decent lightness or darkness. An el-cheapo firm you send out your stuff to be scanned will set the scanner once and scan one after another and if some are too light or too dark, then that is what you get.