Please suggest a good film scanner

<p>P.S. The apparent distortion in the image above is an artifact and disappears in photoshop when view in "acutal pixels".</p>

<p>I'm surprised that people are recommending the Plustek as <a href="http://www.filmscanner.info/en/PlustekOpticFilm7600i.html">this review</a> clearly shows its inherently low optical resolution (3250dpi). In comparison, the true optical resolution of the Nikon LS-9000 was measured to be 3900dpi while that of the Flextight X5 (at highest resolution 35mm scanning mode) was measured to be 6900dpi. Mauro Franic & I have already shown in the past that even the 3900dpi of Nikon scanners isn't enough to recover all the detail in Velvia film, with a Konica Minolta Dimage Scan Elite 5400 recovering more detail out of the Velvia slide than the Nikon (not to mention the Flextight). If you don't believe there's any advantage to scanning beyond 3900ppi (or less), I would point you to ScanDig's excellent comparison between the Flextight X5 & the LS-9000:</p>

<p><img src="http://www.filmscanner.info/Bilder/HasselbladFlextightX5_Aufloesung_crop_1.gif" alt="" width="600" height="400" /><br>

Note: photo taken from filmscanner.info: http://www.filmscanner.info/Bilder/HasselbladFlextightX5_Aufloesung_crop_1.gif</p>

<p>Plustek had the right idea in some ways: including the IT8 calibration target is definitely a step in the right direction. But their low optical resolution & most of these scanner's inability to deal with the non-flat nature of film makes all of them suboptimal choices. The Flextights at least solve the film flatness while maintaining high resolution; however, IMHO, their harsh light source leads exaggeration of pepper grain & other film defects. And their prices are outrageous. </p>

<p>So my best-compromise suggestion is to use a LS-9000 (quite soft light source) with Anti-Newton glass to flatten film. I myself have built modifications to get even better (flatten film + higher resolution than Nikon) scans out of my Minolta DSE 5400 & have toyed with building a new scanner from scratch... perhaps a Kickstarter project is in the near future once I'm finished with school (if there's enough interest).</p>

<p>-Rishi</p>

<p>LOL Arka, just saw we have the same last name. Funny :) </p>

<p>Seriously, those telling you to build a time machine: no joke. For your purposes the Minolta DSE 5400 I have would really serve you well, as it has a softer CCFL light source which is better for B&W film. And higher resolution than Nikon scanners. So for 35mm, it can't be beat. However, it's depth-of-focus is so poor that you'll shoot yourself trying to get scans in focus from edge to edge. That's why I was suggesting the LS-9000 w/ Anti-Newton glass (you can order from Mike at Focal Point: http://fpointinc.com/). It's already soft light source helps reduce the texture induced by the AN glass.</p>

<p>So, like I said before, short of a newer, reasonably priced, scanner being introduced into the market, that's probably your best bet.</p>

<p>Cheers,<br />Rishi </p>

<p>Rishi, do you have anything written up on your methods with the Minolta 5400?</p>

<p>Also, I don't think that Plustek 7600 vs. Nikon LS-9000 is a very fair comparison. The Plustek is a few hundred dollars, the Nikon is a few thousand. 3250 PPI at that price is respectable.</p>

<p>Apologies for the delay in replying, Andy. I don't have anything written up on the Minolta 5400 yet, unfortunately. To make a long story short, though, I built a new holder for it & modified the light source. I intend to make a detailed blog post on this soon...</p>

<p>I actually believe these desktop scanners (with proper modifications, like AN glass with the LS-9000) to be superior to the Imacon in certain respects because:</p>

<ol>

<li>IR dust removal is essential to me; scans from a Flextight are gratuitously tedious to clean up.</li>

<li>Since the film is not being bent around a drum, multiple scans are much more easily overlaid to get greater dynamic range (of course, only important for scans of slides). Multiple scans of the same frame of film at different 'Adaptive Light' settings on the Imacon (which doesn't even do that much anyway, IMHO) are pretty hard to overlay, even with good alignment software, due to distortions in the film being different from scan to scan as it is bent around the drum.<br /><br /></li>

</ol>

<p>But of course the Imacons do have outstanding resolution, & you don't have to worry about portions of the film not being flat & being scanned out of focus.<br>

-Rishi</p>

<p>I'd be very interested in seeing the mods.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, my Nikon 35mm Coolscan LS-50, after 4 years of exellent results, got broken, and up to now I don't know if the Italian Nikon dealer will be able to fix it because they say it is out of production for a long time, and this will be very bad because I have to scan a large amount of 35mm film stripes (mostly B/W) that sometimes are very old, like 50'-60'. Here in Italy there are almost no chances for reliable used scanners, and therefore I have to go for a new one, if they will tell me that they cannot fix it.<br>

I have an Epson flatbed V series and worked some trials, but the results are not only far worse than the Coolscan's but also than what I need (I think that no flatbes might meet my needs), and therefore I started to take a look to what might be available on the market.<br>

After having read comments / suggestions in several forums, it looks to me that the best alternatives (in the price range of <500Euros) might be Plustek 7400/7600i or Reflecta CrystalScan 7200/RPS 7200, where differences might really be in the feeding of the stripes (very often seriously bent) and not "good looking" plastic slide adapters.<br>

Please, any comment / suggestion is welcome.<br>

Mauro Caroti</p>

<p>Committing your prized film to the digital domain forever is one of the most important things you will ever do. With proper storage your digital scans can be enjoyed virtually forever by future generations. I invested in a good Nikon scanner and took several years to scan all of my (and my parent's) slides. I now have probably 10,000 scans to pass on to my offspring! I learned a few things along the way. Why oh why would you spend a ton of money on a good camera, pro-level glass, a carbon tripod, the money of film development and then cheap out on the scanning? A flatbed or cheap scanner will never extract all of the information from your film. Pry open the wallet and get a Nikon or better scanner with ICE (very important). Scan using Vuescan at maximum resolution and save uncompressed TIFs to at least two multi-Terrabyte storage devices. Take your time and realize that you are embarking on a long term project. Your time is valuable, do it right, do it once. Oh and when finished you will find that your expensive scanner has held much of its value on eBay!</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Oh and when finished you will find that your expensive scanner has held much of its value on eBay!</p>

</blockquote>

<p>If not increased in value ;)</p>

<p>My fear is that I'll spend all that money on a Nikon Super Coolscan 9000ED, and by the time I finish my project someone will have made one of equal or better quality with usb3 or thunderbolt interface at an equal or better price. Then I will be able to get only half or so of what I paid for it when I resell.</p>

<p>Er, I don't think the film scanner market is exactly rife with opportunity at the current moment. I really don't foresee some company actually coming out with a high end scanner with great new tech, film flatness problems solved, etc., at a great price point, any time soon.</p>

<p>Although I would absolutely be thrilled to be proven wrong :)</p>

<p>This one, Plustek 120 (for 135 and 120 films), is around the corner, but got delayed again and again: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/890953-REG/Plustek_783064365642_Optic_Film_120_Scanner.html<br /><br />The spec. looks good but may fall short of people's expectation comparing to the old great Nikon's. But it's a brand new model, so some hope in the film scanner market.</p>

<p>Yes, I'm curious to see how that model's edge-to-edge performance is given that it is fixed focus. In today's world of high performance dSLRs, anything less than Imacon/Hasseblad-esque performance for maintaining focus across the frame is less than acceptable (imagine a dSLR consistently producing images out of focus on its sides!).</p>

<p>I'm also curious as to how the scanner will handle dense slide film. We won't know until rigorous dynamic range/Dmax tests are performed.</p>