Scanning film?

[Cormac]

January 21, 2010 at 4:10 pm

Any advice on good value in film scanners?
I’m shooting 120 at the moment, just want to know if it’s worth buying a scanner or sticking with the friendly people at Gunne’s.

Thanks,
Cormac

[stcstc]

January 21, 2010 at 7:51 pm

kinda depends on what the scans are for

if its web use then relatively low res, a flatbed like the epson v500 or 750 etc would be ok

if its higher res for decent sized prints then you need something a bit more serious

to work out if its worth just sticking with gunnes, how many rolls over the next year you gonna shoot and how much it costs in gunnes

verses the cost of the scanner plus your time

[Mark]

January 21, 2010 at 9:10 pm

Cormac,

I guess the question is what do you use the scans for ? showing online, reviewing what you go on the negative or to print ?

If its not for printing and you’ve been getting or will be getting regular scans done, then yep go get yourself a scanner.

[damien.murphy]

January 23, 2010 at 5:13 pm

I’ve just started to shoot some 120, and have been testing scanning it on my flatbed (Canon 8800). I can’t claim to have printed anything yet, as I’m still just noodling around with 120, but that which I have scanned has given me excellent results.

For example, at 2400dpi 6×6 negs will give me a 27 megapixel-equivalent image (5200×5200 pixels). I would imagine this would be more than enough to print at decent sizes with, but as I say, I have not gone that route.

Main problem I’ve experienced on a flatbed with 120 has not been resolution, but the film curling in the holders. For this reason I would probably buy one of the betterscanning.com holders (which use glass to hold the negs in place) if I were to do any serious scanning of 120.

I’m sure the lads wouldn’t disagree with me if I were to hypothesise that to get the maximum quality out of your 120 negs a wet print/ scan of a wet print is the way to go, unless you are using some serious top of the range scanners. That said, those big 120 negs often put more quality at our disposal than we probably need most times, so you have to ask do you really need anything better than a flatbed for scanning 120..

Thoughts for the floor :)

Damien