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Photo Forum / Film Photography / Medium format / April 2004Best Inexpensive Digital Scanner for MF
Hello all, I am looking for advice on the least expensive flatbed scanner I can get for scanning medium format negatives. You'll have to forgive any and all ignorance of the subject, as I am not a photographer or even a hobbyist. I am really only looking to do one little project. I have medium format negatives (I wish I could tell you the size) that I need to scan into digital format. The resulting digital copies will eventually be printed in no larger than an 8x10 format, and most of them will fall into the 5x7 range. This will probably be the only time in my life that I work with medium format, so I'm really just looking for the least expensive solution. I'm thinking that I don't really need much since I won't be blowing the pictures up to any great size. The Epson flatbed Photo series seems to be a winner, but I just don't know enough about this to really say which will best suit my needs. Can I get away with something as inexpensive as the Epson Perfection 1670 Photo? Do I need to buy a special adapter to scan medium format with this model? I've seen some people say that you can put the negative right on the flatbed and just scan that way. Can you do this with any scanner? I don't understand how that works. 0-] Any help would be immensely appreciated. 0-] Please CC me on any response, as I don't follow this newsgroup. Thank you, Damon Courtney Take a look at the Epson 3170. Amazon has had rebates in the past, so you might price it there. The rebate, free shipping and no tax made it a nicely priced MF scanner that does a decent job. Doug  SignatureDoug's "MF Film Holder" for batch scanning "strips" of 120/220 medium format film: http://home.earthlink.net/~dougfisher/holder/mfholderintro.html >Take a look at the Epson 3170. Amazon has had rebates in the past, so you >might price it there. The rebate, free shipping and no tax made it a nicely >priced MF scanner that does a decent job. Isn't the transparency hood for the 3170 only designed for 35mm film? Those that I've seen seem slightly too narrow to accommodate 120 negatives. In any event, it is considerably narrower than the aperture of the 3200. The 3170 was designed to handle up to medium format size. You may be thinking of the 2400 which looks very similar. It will only do 35 mm. Doug SignatureDoug's "MF Film Holder" for batch scanning "strips" of 120/220 medium format film: http://home.earthlink.net/~dougfisher/holder/mfholderintro.html > Take a look at the Epson 3170. Is there a site at which full res files can be viewed/downloaded for evaluation? eqw This is the only review of the 3170 that I know about: http://personal.inet.fi/private/luukkanen/3170_review.html Look at reviews for the 3200 too because the optical system is similar. Doug SignatureDoug's "MF Film Holder" for batch scanning "strips" of 120/220 medium format film: http://home.earthlink.net/~dougfisher/holder/mfholderintro.html > Can I get away with something as inexpensive as the Epson > Perfection 1670 Photo? Do I need to buy a special adapter to scan [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > Damon Courtney You need a scanner with a transparency hood - in other words, a light in the lid. These normally don't cover the whole area and should come with masks to stop stray light getting round the edges and reducing the contrast. If they are missing you can always make up something out of black card. FWIW I use an Epson 1640 Photo and get good results. Later models give better resolution, but you must have a "photo" version. Peter peter@somewhere.ie (Peter) schrieb: > FWIW I use an Epson 1640 Photo and get good results. Later models > give better resolution [...] ...only the 1650 doesn't. It doesn't take medium format, only 35mm slides and negatives. Timo I never had great results from the Epson Perfection series but watch for deals on the Epson Expression 1680 or 1600 http://www.jonlayephotography.com X-Original-Message-ID: <memo.20040407225705.2884O@softwell.compulink.co.uk> X-Agent-Group: rec.photo.equipment.medium-format X-Agent-Format: 1 1 0 0 1 500000 0 0 1 0 "*" 0 X-Intro: "On Wed, 7 Apr 2004 22:57 +0100 (BST), peter@somewhere.ie (Peter) wrote:\n" >> Can I get away with something as inexpensive as the Epson >> Perfection 1670 Photo? Do I need to buy a special adapter to scan [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > >Peter How do you get the 1640 to recognize medium format film? I have one of these and haven't been able to make it scan with medium format film. Do you need a special adaptor? > How do you get the 1640 to recognize medium format film? I have one > of these and haven't been able to make it scan with medium format > film. Some Epson scanners have a limitation built in their software that prevents you from selecting an area wide enough for MF. You might download the free evaluation copy of VueScan or Silverfast SE and see if one of these will allow you to crop things as you wish. Doug SignatureDoug's "MF Film Holder" for batch scanning "strips" of 120/220 medium format film: http://home.earthlink.net/~dougfisher/holder/mfholderintro.html > > How do you get the 1640 to recognize medium format film? I have one > > of these and haven't been able to make it scan with medium format [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > evaluation copy of VueScan or Silverfast SE and see if one of these will > allow you to crop things as you wish. My 1640 didn't have any problems with MF... until I installed a new version of the driver. After that there were serious problems, because the new driver was too automatic. It had a built-in assumption that everybody uses 35mm film, and tried to chop the prescan image to 24x36mm frames. It worked OK with 35mm, though, and made mass scans faster. Luckily the driver still has manual controls as an option. Turning off the automatics helped. There's no substitute for human intelligence. -- Lassi > X-Original-Message-ID: > <memo.20040407225705.2884O@softwell.compulink.co.uk> [quoted text clipped - 32 lines] > of these and haven't been able to make it scan with medium format > film. Do you need a special adaptor? Use VueScan :-) It will scan up to 4x5" Peter Don't try to get away too cheaply. You will also need good software to correct your scans. The Epson 3200 Professional model comes with Silverfast Ai and is probably the cheapest unit for quality scans out there. It will cost you about $550.00. I use a Microtek Artxscan 120 with Silverfast and I am very happy with the results I get from 35mm and 120 film. Rich Recently, Damon Courtney <damon@unreality.com> posted: > Hello all, > > I am looking for advice on the least expensive flatbed scanner I > can get for scanning medium format negatives. You'll have to forgive > any and all ignorance of the subject, as I am not a photographer or > even a hobbyist. I am really only looking to do one little project. How many negatives are you working with, and are they color or b/w? If they are color, be prepared to learn a lot about color correction; if they are monochrome, be prepared to learn a lot about managing grain (or to not be able to get any decent results). If there are fewer than 100 of these, I'd be tempted to just get the images printed, as the time and effort involved in scanning them would hardly be warranted by the results from a low-end scanner. Even flatbed scans of those prints are likely to be better than what you'd get from scanning the negatives, and would be adequate for prints on your inkjet at the sizes you indicate. Regards, Neil Epson F3200 scanner - from 135 yo 4X5! http://www.i-love-epson.co.jp/products/scanner/f3200/f32001.htm SignaturePlease remove NOSPAM when replying! -- My Underwater Photo Album: http://www.geocities.com/hmlai88/ Have a nice day and eat as much as you can! =========================================== Lonely Boy http://www.geocities.com/lonelyb ICQ: 1176912 ---- |
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