From film to digital - or how to get quality digital scans

[Jvg]

Ok so basically there are couple of ways to get the film scanned:

A) take it or send it to "professionals" that specialize on such service
Pros: depending on their equipment - results can surpass those you'll get from other/conventional methods.
Cons: costly, takes time, and again depending on their equipment results can turn out shitty (pardon my french).

B) dedicated film scanner. This would seem an ideal way to go but... Recently i've purchased Wolverine Super F2D 20mp film scanner, it can scan 35mm films, slides, 110mm films, and super 8 (no medium format though). In addition, resolution of scanned images: 4064 pixels per inch, and image size 3648/5472 pixles - which is great, but after closely examining the images at 100% magnification, i notice tones of noise, distorted/exaggerated/false colors, burnt out highlights (film is not at fault here - confirmed). Tried to fix that by changing (only 4 available) settings of EV, Red, Blue, Green color balance, but resulted in even shittier quality than before. To sum up, the quality of scanned images are mediocre at best, and can't be used for portfolio. Given all that, i'm strongly considering returning it to the store and going for another option.

C) Flat bed scanners, like canon or epson. I haven't tried this option, but supposedly they do much better job at scanning negatives/positive slides (even medium format). The major downside seems to be speed at which films can be scanned but to me - that's not a big problem. If anyone has experienced with this option, knows its Cons & Pros, please do share.

D) DIY: bellows + slide copier + DSLR. Haven't tried this method either, but from the looks of it, one can get much more control over quality of scans. Not to mention that - all scans can be duplicated in RAW format which gives far more flexibility when editing, and keeping in mind that Sensor & Optics on DSLR is far superior than that of cheap dedicated film scanners.


And here come questions: how do you digitize your films, do you get quality results and recommendations.

[nurkov]

it's C for me, I do have HP scanner and cannot say a bad word about it, with the exception of speed maybe, I can scan 6 frames at the time only. Quality is great and it does not cost me anything. More expensive scanners can scan more frames.

[Jvg]

[David]

Here's how I do it:

http://youtu.be/Xh8vJCvsZtY

[RSalles]

[nurkov]

and one more thing I use VueScan as a software for scanning

[visualopsins]

C (V500) & D (5D+S-M-C Bellows-Takumar).

ps As far as I know, which may not be far, we only speak genuine French here, sometimes.

[dan_]

I have a Nikon Super Coolscan 8000ED dedicated medium format film scanner and a Canon 8800F flat bed scanner.
The dedicated film scanner is by far superior to the flat bed scanner. The 4000 dpi of the Nikon scanner are real wile the superior resolution you can read in the specifications of the flat bed one is not. But the 8000ED and the 9000ED are top of the line and expensive film scanners, very close to the results of the drum scanners.

The draw-backs of my film scanner are: the very long scanning time (for maximum quality) and the impossibility to compensate for strong shadows and highlights while scanning slides. That's why I consider selling the Nikon film scanner and use the D method instead.
With a camera you can make, if necessary, a HDR scanning and for maximizing the resolution you can stitch more frames/picture. Of course, a top macro lens is mandatory. I did some tests with this method and they are quite encouraging.

Another problem encountered while using the dedicated film scanner was the film flatness problem (at least with the medium format). To avoid it the anti-Newton glass film holder should be used but it costs 400-600$ (for Nikon Coolscan scanners)... I succeeded in solving it by using only mounted slides/negatives or, for 6x9 cm, some DIY 6x9 pressure frames I made myself.
I don't know how much of a problem this is for the flat bed scanners (I've only tested my Canon 8800F and never really used it) but I am confident that this is less of a problem with the DSLR scanning because you can always close the diaphragm if more DOF is needed.

[Excalibur]

The Epson flat bed scanners try to be a "jack of all trades and master of none".........and for 35mm scanning are good for posting on the web and a print of 10" X 8" is quite good. In a digital camera equivalent it would be about a 4mp camera...but when you consider a neg can have as much as 21mp of detail it seems pathetic. But not all bad news as scanned medium format and upwards negs are much better but you do have the problem of ensuring the neg is flat when scanning.
So resolution (design of the scanner) is the problem that's why a larger neg is better compared to 35mm and the true dpi of the V500 is about 1800 dpi and V750 about 2400 dpi.......but when you see a link like http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/interactive/Epson%20V750/page_1.htm it would seem the V750 is very good h'mmm and I own a V750.

[Jvg]

Ok so after reading and all your comments and recommendations, I've made a conclusion to go for option D: Bellows + slide copier.

It seems that flat bed scanners (epson v700 or 750) capable of producing good results are out of my price range (as well as higher end dedicated film scanners). Good news that local store caries canon FL/FD bellows with slide copier attachment - and i have vivitar 55/2.8 macro lens (with 1:1 reproduction) just for that. It would have been great to get asahi slide copier as i already have asahi bellows, and i could use super-macro takumar 50/4. But even if vivitar 55/2.8 fails to deliver great results - i can get canon FD 55/3.5 macro's for about $50 or so.

One quick question though: do i need any type of light source (flash, LED) or ambient light should do just fine?

Oh and, thank you all for much useful info - much appreciated.

[visualopsins]

For D please note that more than 1:1 magnification is required if the camera is not full frame.

[Jvg]