Silvercrest Negative Digitiser

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mbscad

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Hi All,
I'm new to this part of TP.
Has anyone used the Silvercrest Negative Digitiser on sale for abot £25 at Lidl?
I bought one about two weeks ago to see what scanning my old 35mm film strips would be like.
If there is any interest , I'm happy to share my experiences of the ups and downs of scanning colour negatives with this and scan fix up.

First of all a photograph of the original print.

MRprint by mbscad on Talk Photography

And Now the result of the Scan


MRScan by mbscad on Talk Photography
 
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Thanks all knowledge is useful, while it would be interesting to see your results it might have to be more involved in that you would have to compare the results with a cheaper flatbed scanner or take the negs to Asda (£2 to put on a CD up to 36exp) to compare.......to see how good it is.
 
mbscad said:
Hi All,
I'm new to this part of TP.
Has anyone used the Silvercrest Negative Digitiser on sale for abot £25 at Lidl?
I bought one about two weeks ago to see what scanning my old 35mm film strips would be like.
If there is any interest , I'm happy to share my experiences of the ups and downs of scanning colour negatives with this and scan fix up.
Click to expand...
I'd be interested to see the results but suspect they won't be great. Those cheap scanners are not really scanners at all, they are webcams in a box with a back light, at best they can give a poor quality image just about acceptable for FaceSpace or web pages and at worst they are just a waste of money and desk space.
You'd get far better results rigging up a digital camera and lightbox or getting one of the dedicated flatbeds, there's loads of discussions in the F&C archives about scanning if you decide to go down that route.
 
I'd second Nick's comments, although they could be fine for black and white. I had one briefly, but sent it back after I realised there was a light leak. The positives were that it was inexpensive, and very quick. The negatives (sorry) were that colour negatives all had varying colour casts, and so did transparencies. In particular my Kodachrome tended to have horrible blue tones added, although this problem is not likely to worry too many people these days.

However, if you're having some success with yours, we'd really like to see the results, maybe they have improved in the past few years.
 
I bought one last week as the MIL had collared me a few days previously asking how to scan all her slides. Not tried it yet...I'll post up after I've next seen her and come back with a box of kodachrome...
 
A quick sample added as requested.
I think if all you want to do is digitise your original 35mm negative strips then this is good enough for me.
 
mbscad said:
A quick sample added as requested.
I think if all you want to do is digitise your original 35mm negative strips then this is good enough for me.
Click to expand...

...and if you have any winners then just send those ones off to a lab for a special scan.
 
The colours on the scan seem out by quite a lot, but the result is a lot better than I was getting. Here's one of the scans I made with a Veho when I had it (Llanthony Priory, autumn 1970):



And this scan was done with a Plustek dedicated 35mm scanner using SilverFast SE (btw the film was KodaColor X, probably one of the first colour rolls I shot on my Werra 1):



OK, the Veho was pretty dire, and yours seems much better... :)
 
Chris,
Wow what's difference. I tried scanning some of my negs using one of the veho scanners and they were rubbish. I thought it was the negs that were rubbish but looking at what you have the difference is amazing.

Please can I ask which scanner model you used?

Thanks
 
mbscad said:
Hi All,
I'm new to this part of TP.
Has anyone used the Silvercrest Negative Digitiser on sale for abot £25 at Lidl?
I bought one about two weeks ago to see what scanning my old 35mm film strips would be like.
If there is any interest , I'm happy to share my experiences of the ups and downs of scanning colour negatives with this and scan fix up.
Click to expand...

They're quite difficult to compare, the scan is blown quite a bit, Brian (the snail for you young uns) wears a yellow....umm....leg warmer in the top picture, that's gone in the scan.
Its not a negative comment about the scan, it just needs to be the best you can muster to be able to compare them fairly, I don't think that's the best curve for the picture, the top one is better.
 
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sep9001 said:
Please can I ask which scanner model you used?
Click to expand...

That was a Plustek 7500i, and quite early in the learning curve too. It's not the best scanner but it was the right compromise for me. Warming up right now for some Tri-X (which BTW would probably scan OK on one of these stand-alonies...)
 
joxby said:
They're quite difficult to compare, the scan is blown quite a bit, Brian (the snail for you young uns) wears a yellow....umm....leg warmer in the top picture, that's gone in the scan.
Its not a negative comment about the scan, it just needs to be the best you can muster to be able to compare them fairly, I don't think that's the best curve for the picture, the top one is better.
Click to expand...
Sheesh you're a tough audience, my object was not to try and match the original but to display wysiwyg.
 
mbscad said:
Sheesh you're a tough audience, my object was not to try and match the original but to display wysiwyg.
Click to expand...

Only trying to help! Like an ASDA scan, these things can be useful to identify shots you might want to get done better (I think Brian might have said that, above). And useful just to have a digital reminder, etc. But for colour negative particularly, because of the orange mask, they're never wysiwyg; the scanner always has to do varying amounts of magic to turn it into the right colours, just as the old wet print process used to do.
 
mbscad said:
Sheesh you're a tough audience, my object was not to try and match the original but to display wysiwyg.
Click to expand...

:D Well how can the guys here recommend your scanner to future buyers if we don't know how good it is ;) e.g a newbie wants advice on a very cheap scanner, well I would advise old S/H Epson flatbed models for about £25 until I know better.
 
I'll close my comments now with a picture of kit and spec, you never know someone may be searching for information - just like I was before purchase!


Silvercrest1 by mbscad on Talk Photography

Spec
Sensor 1/2.5" CMOS 5 MegaPixel
Lens f6 , 4glass components, fixed focus
Light source 3 white LEDs
Resolution 1800 Dpi (3600 interpolated)
Single pass scan 10bit colour
USB 2.0 connection to PC
Software, Arcsoft Media Impression2 compatible with XP Sp2, Vista, Win 7 and 8 (claimed but I've only tested on XP).
 
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