Negative or flatbed scanner?

I've been taking pictures since I bought my first camera, an SRT-101, in 1969

in Vietnam. Since then I've owned a number of film cameras and still have my

EOS 3 and XD-11. I must have 2,000-3,000 (maybe more) prints/negatives lying

around.

 

All the reviews I read (B&H lists this as their best seller) touted the Nikon

Coolscan V as the best medium priced negative scanner so I bought one. I

recently retired and thought it would be a great idea and good past time to

scan all my old prints onto a disc or the harddrive. That is, until I started

scanning negatives. I got so frustrated with the slow speed of scanning

multiple images I sold the Nikon.

 

There must be a better quicker way to scan multiple prints or negatives? Help?

Well, unfortunately, not really.

 

I work in a photo lab where we have a quarter of a million dollar Agfa D-Lab.3, which is

now a few years old, but it is still a nice machine, and top of the line in its day.

 

It takes about 4-6 seconds to scan each neg to CD, a bit longer for slides. It depends how

old the print lamp is too, but still, between 4-6 each. I don't know how fast the coolscan

is, but I can't imagine it being much slower than that.

 

Maybe you could scan one set, then start naming them while the next set is scanning? Like

scan, then start like 'Jim and Bob at Mulligans, 1982' 'Jim, Bob, and me at Mulligans, 1982'

while they scan.

 

That's what I did when I was digitizing a whole bunch of old slides for a teacher at school,

except they had captions written on them.

"It takes about 4-6 seconds to scan each neg..."

 

No, it's much longer than that. I have a Nikon 5000 (the up-model version of the V) and it takes maybe 2 or 3 minutes per frame. There's no debating the image quality though. The scanner extracts probably 99% of what's on the film. You'd have to spend _lots_ more money on equipment to get that other 1%.

 

I bought the CS5000 originally to digitally archive half a century worth of memories. I wanted every frame, at the highest possible resolution and bit depth, blurry or sharp; no exceptions. Not much to do except to just suck it up and spend the time. The whole project took probably half a year though it sure felt much longer.

 

Charles, I think it was a mistake selling the V. If you can abide with not digitizing every frame, get a sub-$100 flatbed to first "contact print" the film strips. The key is being able to get all 36 exposures in one shot so that you can at least walk away while the machine scans. Use the V later to scan the few worthy of further attention.

 

One more thing. In the unlikely event that you have mostly uncut film rolls, the CS5000 has an available accessory feeder. This will let you scan up to 40 frames unattended.

Flatbed scanners are not necessarily faster than the LS-50 (Coolscan V), and have much less resolution - barely 4x6 inch print quality. You often must fine-tune the frame registration, which is very time consuming.

 

You could do better by a factor of 2 or 3 using a digital camera with a macro lens and a slide-copying attachment. You would want a DSLR with at least 8MP resolution, which is not cheap. With the lens, you are looking at $1500 or more. However, you would have a digital camera for shooting too. Once you see the results, you probably wouldn't bother with film again (other than old pictures).

 

The LS-5000 ($1000) with an automatic roll feeder ($500) would give you the best quality. This would take a whole roll (up to 40 frames) at a time. It still takes about 2 hours to scan a roll (assuming the rolls haven't been cut), but you don't have to stand there and feed the scanner. It's only somewhat faster than the LS-50 for cut negatives.

 

You would still need a flatbed for scanning prints. Just about any color scanner is good enough for that (300 ppi or more). You could spend as little as $50, but $250 is a better figure for an Epson photo scanner. The photo scanner will have better optics and better software to do the job.

Hello Charles:

 

You are retired:

 

- take the battery out of your watch and dispose of it responsibly

 

- throw the rest of your watch in the trash

 

- put a piece of masking tape over the lower right corner of your computer monitor

 

- take it easy

 

- you said that you *thought it would be a great idea and good past time to scan all my old prints*

 

- enjoy retired life - there is no rush - is there?

 

Cheers! Jay (a fellow *recent retiree*)

Charles,

 

There is no question that print and negative scanning is a slow process. The Nikon

Coolscan V ED is an excellent scanner and produces higher quality results than trying to

scan film with a flatbed scanner. It's also a lot faster.

 

If you have a large number of slides and negatives to scan, plan the activity carefully for

efficient work. If you group negatives or prints with similar characteristics, you can figure

out the scan settings and do them all together, which saves time. Figure out the storage

and file naming conventions you want to use. And plan to spend a certain amount of time

per day working on the project at a measured pace.

 

It's a lot of work, but if you organize and do it efficiently, it is very rewarding.

 

Godfrey

Separate out the very best shots and scan those first. Then evaluate the remaining images and decide from there. You may decide that not every single image needs to be scanned.

A good workflow can help alot, but archiving by scanning is essentially a fools errand, you need to be picky if you want decent time.

"No, it's much longer than that. I have a Nikon 5000 (the up-model version of the V) and it takes maybe 2 or 3 minutes per frame. "

 

Oh my, well they really need to get cracking on improving that.

 

I would just take them all to a lab to do, and use the time you save to take more pictures. Digitally. Or get back into the workforce to pay for the ridiculous amount of money it costs.