Cheap Scanner for 120 & 4x5

<p>What is the cheapest option for (occasionally) scanning 120 & 4x5 negatives and slides? I am not looking for something with all the bells & whistles (and the matching price tag) that will allow me to use the scans for printing large prints (that's for my wet darkroom :-) ). I am just looking for a way to scan them for posting them online (e.g. Flickr). Currently, I make contact prints and then scan them on a multi-purpose office scanner, which is somewhat suboptimal.</p>

<p>Thanks,<br>

Mike</p>

<p>What's your budget? The HP Scanjet G4050 is $200 new and even less when on sale. It can scan up to 8x10, but has film holders for 35mm, 120 and 4x5 film. The IR dust removal and multisampling is problematic with it, so consider it a single pass no dust removal scanner. For occasional use it's fine, for anything more you may want to look at other (more expensive or used) options.</p>

<p>If you really want 'cheapest', then look for any flatbed scanner with negative scanning capability. For reasonably-priced, one of the better of the lot is the Epson V600 (or older V500, etc.). Best of the flatbeds is the Epson V750M, then the V700, these cost quite a bit more than the V600.</p>

<p>Dedicated film scanners that can handle >135 format are harder/more expensive to come by as most of them have been discontinued, drivers haven't been udpated, etc.</p>

<p>I got an Epson 4870 with film holders for about $60 used. It is more than good enough for 35mm for web posting (I don't scan 35mm higher than about 1000dpi on it); I mostly use it to make scans of negative film for previewing. It can scan 35mm, 120 and 4x5. I certainly wouldn't use it for high quality scans of 35mm, but you mentioned you don't need that anyways.</p>

<p>Thanks everyone for the quick responses. I was thinking less than $200 (and cheaper is better ;-) ). Interesting about the HP Scanjet G4050, since B&H listed that as 35mm-only.<br>

The Epson V500/600 are listed as only up to 120, so no 4x5s, and the V700/750 is clearly outside my budget. Is the Epson 4870 still available new -- I couldn't find it?</p>

<p>The cheapest is obviously to use your camera as I did when I had a few quarter plates to copy and simply made a tunnel box with the negs at one end, camera at the other and a difused light source behind the negs. The chief thing to avoid is getting an image of the camera off the reflective surface of the negative, hence the tunnel painted black inside. Mine is wood though probably cardboard would surfice. My scanner and my wife's scanner were quite useless for the job which I think needs backlight to work, not frontlight.</p><div></div>

<p>The camera's zoom and a two dioptre CU lens made filling the sensor with the plate image easy. 3648 pixels divided by 4.5 = about 800ppi</p>

<p>Mike, I do have to say that the software on the G4050 for me is a test of your mental stability. At least with 35mm. The scanner uses the software exclusively to "find the frames", of which it does an incredibly poor job. Basically you need to set the frames manually in the software, and the next time you preview it wipes the memory and you start over. For 4x5 and 120 this is less an issue but trying to get the color right can be trying too.</p>

<p>http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showpost.php?p=585408&postcount=5<br>

This guy uses the supplied software and gets good results. He does state that he's scanning slide film and not negative or black and white. I use Vuescan for the G4050 as well as a Nikon Coolscan and Canon 35mm film scanner.</p>

<p>@JC -- I tried that (less technically advanced, though, since my best digcam is just a digital P&S), and wasn't so happy with the results, at least for B&W negatives.</p>

<p>@Dan -- if the HP software is so bad, can you avoid all that when you use Vuescan? I was going to get that maybe anyway, since I heard good things about it.</p>

<p>I have Vuescan and swear by it. It's run just about anything I've thrown at it and I don't need to learn new software. I've even plugged my laptop into a Sony copier at my wife's work and it just worked. But, with Vuescan you can't use the extra 3 colors that the G4050 claims, can't use the IR dust removal (IR scan and RGB scan don't line up), and can't use multi-pass (scans don't line up). It is a simple flatbed scanner that also does transparencies. Also be advised that it's a 4800 dpi scanner, but it has.... issues.... over a single frame of 35mm film. Vuescan runs out of RAM and reverts to 2400 dpi, which is usually good enough for larger formats and definitely good enough for posting to Flickr. On a 64 bit computer you can get around that, but it takes some doing.<br>

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cabbiinc/sets/72157627903149543/with/6293477323/<br>

Here's my offerings. Mostly 35mm slides that are from the 60's, 50's and earlier (love that Kodachrome).</p>

<p>The G4050's Medium Format holder holds one 4x5 on the bottom and two 120 strips that are long enough to hold three 6x6 images or two 4x9 images each. In other words half a roll of 120.</p>

http://www.eastcoastphoto.com/nav/itempage.asp?itemid=5232&trng=fgle

 

Available new

<p>@Richard -- thanks, out of my price range, though.</p>

<p>@Dan -- well, the HP it is then (those Kodakchromes on Flickr are nice!), and I'll decide on Vuescan later. The dust removal does sound interesting...</p>

<p>If you want to see what I have now, but want to improve upon, check this:<br>

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/nbg90455/sets/72157625643964481/with/5451917804/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/nbg90455/sets/72157625643964481/with/5451917804/</a></p>

 

<p>I've never got the dust removal to work on the G4050. The RGB scan and IR scan never line up to each other.<br>

<img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3469/3919421561_79fbc2c1f2_m.jpg" alt="Scan-090914-0051" width="240" height="159" /><br>

You can see the dark band across the top. That's the IR clean trying to clean that.</p>

<p><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7016/6590444463_e39711506d_m.jpg" alt="Image2" width="306" height="272" /><br>

Here's a closeup of that shot. The arrows facing right are one dust spot, the arrows facing left are another. That's how far off the IR and RGB scans are using Vuescan. I asked Hamrick about it a few times and he eventually told me to just drop it.</p>

 

<p>I use an Epson 4870 and Vuescan for medium format and 4x5. Works great. It's not going to make gallery prints, but it has no problem pulling a very nice 50 megapixel file from a 4x5 sheet. Flickr obviously requires far less!</p>

<p>If you go through my old Flickr stuff, most of it is 4x5 transparency scanned on the 4870. The new stuff is digital.</p>

<p>http://www.flickr.com/photos/sheldonnalos</p>

<p>A quick update -- I finally got the HP scanjet G4050, and while I don't think it would work to make large prints (no problem, I use a wet darkroom for that :-) ) of my 4x5 B&W negs, it seems to be okay for scanning them for my Flickr account etc. The one real bummer (and it won't be a show stopper for me),is that HP software appears to be a bit buggy. If I select the option "Use hardware Dust & Scratch Removal when possible", it consistently crashes, and the suggestions (restart/reinstall/reboot) are worthless. If I skip this option, things work just fine...<br>

Thanks again everyone!<br>

Mike</p>