Slide and Negative Scanners.

What ball park price are you looking at? What type of film are you looking to scan, slide or negative? That will then drive what is available out there for you.

The other thing to bear in mind instead of using scanning software is to consider post scan profiling with targets. I found I got good results with this with slide film.
 
If you do a search on scanners in this forum you will find lots of info on them :)

Like Peter says depends on price and what you want to scan.

If your scanning just for the web then you can get the Plustek scanners they seem ok.

If your scanning to print then many of the flatbed ones may work, but they are not so good when doing 35mm stuff, things like Epson 4990, Canon 8800f? or if you want new Epson V series.

If you want high quality then the dedicated Film scanners are the ones but these are getting rare now I think new only the Nikon 9000 is around which will do up to 120 film but will cost £2000+.

As for software I use Nikons own for one of my scanners and it is ok, I do all my P&P in photoshop. I also have Silverfast Ai on another scanner, which is powerful tool but a pig to use an learn.

I have use Epson own software on other scanners and found that to be ok and nice to use.
 
I have a Nikon Coolscan V ED which I scan 35mm on. I'm not sure if this works with 120 film. It is worth maybe scouting on Ebay for used scanners, but I found that you need have a good idea what the scanner is worth second hand, as if your like me, you start to get carried away when you get into a bidding war.

Depending on your volume of films you want to scan the other option which I have seen on this forum is to get someone to scan for you.
 
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PeterA said:
I have a Nikon Coolscan V ED which I scan 35mm on. I'm not sure if this works with 120 film.
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Nope it won't

The only Nikons that do 120 film is the 8000 or 9000

I have the model before that the IV Coolscan and its great
 
michael23 said:
considering the amount of slides, it would be more beneficial to buy a scanner and do it all at home. Will have a look around on ebay just incase there is a bargain to be had,

I see that the epson v500 comes with elements 4, I assume that is a good piece of software to work with if needed?
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I am not able to comment on the epson or elements 4 as I have never used either.

Most image editor's are good for cropping, contrast & level adjustments. Depending on your slide you may find that what gets scanned in doesnt quite match what is seen when projecting. If you find this to be the case then you may want to look into IT8 calibration targets, a cheaper option being some from Wolf Faust.
 
I've gone thorugh expensive nikon scanners cheaper standalone scanners and now the V700 which is by far the best out of all the ones I've owend. Problem is it's expensive
 
I have the Canon 8800F and it's more than acceptable for scanning 35mm neg/slide and 120 neg/slide. I was having a lot of trouble with it (but still getting alright scans) until I recently discovered the Silverfast disc that came with the scanner and using that software the quality--especially the colour quality--of the files is fantastic.
 
Jakska said:
I have the Canon 8800F and it's more than acceptable for scanning 35mm neg/slide and 120 neg/slide. I was having a lot of trouble with it (but still getting alright scans) until I recently discovered the Silverfast disc that came with the scanner and using that software the quality--especially the colour quality--of the files is fantastic.
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Another 8800F owner here - I went directly for the Silverfast SE disk rather than the other driver, and I have to say I've been pleasantly surprised by the output on the whole. The only real problem is that Silverfast SE is a cut down version of the full software, which hasn't quite got the same level of control. Not a problem if you're scanning a well exposed shot on a neg. film that is supported by the profiles, but if you need to do a little more with the output, then you're better finding a close approximation, then finishing things off in CS5. The software is also marginally less user friendly than a cornered rat - badly translated from "Ze Chermannn" and with the most convoluted upgrade/tradeup provisions I've ever witnessed (otherwise I'd have bought the full version by now!)
 
TheBigYin said:
Silverfast SE ... with the most convoluted upgrade/tradeup provisions I've ever witnessed
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That was one of the reasons that I bought Vuescan instead of going one of the many Silverfast Ai upgrades.

The others being that the interface is a little less confusing and I've found that SilverFast in any version seems to crash instantly when using Firewire with my V700 since I upgraded to Mac OS X 10.6.

It's also quite a bit cheaper way to get multisampling, multi-exposure scanning and RAW output.
 
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