I was wondering what's the word on the current status of scanners now that we're in 2010.
I know all the R&D are in DSLRs or similar but I was just wondering whether there's much progress in scanners.
I'd love a dedicated film scanner but seemingly flatbeds are the go for the price/performance equation these days and the last I looked, the Epson V700/V750's seem like top dog.
Is that still the case or have there been developments with other manufacturers I'm not aware of.
I'm mainly interested in scanning film, including medium format.
Cheers
Dave

Mee too looking at buying a scanner. Hope they keep the R&D going on in the film department.

chalk me up as one looking at scanners...ours just died. ugh.

./e

I've played the "looking for a good film scanner" game a few months ago. At the moment I see only Nikon and Epson making anything worthwile, with Nikon gradually retreating from the scene (Coolscan V ED and 5000 gone) and Epson further expanding in the entry level area (new V600). Popular alternative seems to be photographing slides with a DSLR, but AFAIK no professional solution for this exists in this field, only ebay adapters and the like.

Note that there are still high end and drum scanners out there, but at prices which make owning them pointless for amateurs. Most common practice seems to be to scan in slides/negs with a medium end flat bed scanner and have only the very best shots scanned by a professional scanning service.

I have a 4490 which the v500 replaced. I use it for mf and it does a good job. I am glad that I don't have to use it for 35mm, as those limits are too stretched. My guess that even the cheapest dedicated film scanners do a much better job than flat beds.

Most common practice seems to be to scan in slides/negs with a medium end flat bed scanner and have only the very best shots scanned by a professional scanning service.

This is what I'm doing.

I know it's not the very best thing to use but the Canon "Canoscan 8800F" is serving me well for the level I use it at. I wanted to be able scan photos and printed material as well as negatives and slides. I thought about buying a film scanner but then I would have to make two purchases and, at most, I'd use any given one of them half the time. Therefore, I'd be spending twice the money and throwing half of it away.

The Canoscan 8800F lets me scan film, slides, photos and documents, almost interchangeably. I just have to take off the cover from the lid and put the scanning frame in place then I'm off to the races. The thing can scan 9600 dpi. which is more than I can ever imagine needing, even if I'm cropping down to a small part of a negative. The light source is a white LED array so there is no warm up time and no change in color temperature as the lamp ages. (i.e. From scan to scan, it stays reasonably consistent.) Any changes or inaccuracies in color can easily be adjusted for, either in the scanner profile or directly in Photoshop.

The Canoscan has digital (infrared) scratch removal similar to Epson's ICE. It does a good job. (Canon's trademark is "FARE" vs. Epson's "ICE".) Personally I don't use FARE/ICE very much. I prefer to retouch the spots myself.

Canon's software is pretty good if you want a quick, easy way to scan images but I prefer to use VueScan from Hamrick Software. It gives me good control of exposure, contrast and color but isn't as expensive as SilverFast.

The Canoscan 8800F lists for $199.00 (US$) but it can be had for approx. $150.00

Again, I know the Canoscan is not "top notch" equipment but I don't need it to be just yet. Maybe some day, I'll upgrade to better equipment but this is serving me well for the foreseeable future.

If you want to use top notch equipment, consider renting time on an imacon. There are a few companies out there that do this e.g Calumet. It's worth costing out and comparing with how much you would need to invest.

That's right, Worker 11811, I totally forgot about the Canon, which is also said to be a nice scanner. Just don't be too sure about 9600 dpi the scanner claims, other users have guestimated the effective dpi to be around 1600. For MF frames that's still not bad.

@rnwhalley: renting a scanner makes sense if you have rare occasions where you need to scan a lot of material.

How do you mean that? The scanner does produce output at 9600 dpi. I have done so, just to prove to myself that it works. Are you saying that it only scans actual resolution up to 1200/1600 dpi then interpolates up to 9600, thereby giving you the illusion of a hi-rez scan?

The specs that I read on the device say that its hardware sampling will produce 4800 X 9600 dpi. I assume that means that it has 4800 pixels per inch across the scanning bar and the stepping motor can produce 9600 steps per inch. To get 9600 X 9600 dpi it simply subsamples the horizontal pixels to double the output. So, I guess I should only expect 4800 X 4800 true resolution. Correct?

Now, Canon's specs say that the scanner can produce a software-interpolated resolution of 19,200 X 19,200 dpi. Of this, I AM skeptical.
That would mean that the software is quadrupling the horizontal bits and (at least) doubling the vertical bits. I have yet to even find a way to get the scanner to do this, let alone to see what quality of output this would produce.

90% of my work would be output to one of the following destinations:
1) HP Photosmart inkjet printer.
2) Sent to a magazine or newspaper for advertising purposes. (Part of my job.)
3) Sent to a TV station for broadcast. (Also part of my job.)
4) Use on the internet. (Both for work and pleasure.)

Most commercial printing destinations won't need anything better than 300 dpi and very few of them will even use better than 1200 dpi. Broadcast and internet would hardly ever need more than 7200 dpi.
The only time I would need to have higher than that would be if I was going to print out larger than what my consumer grade inkjet printer can print. (Max size 8-1/2' X 14' Legal)

If I ever need any printouts bigger than that I would have to take my files to the local photography shop and have them print it out on the large format printer or a dye-sub printer. (The largest size a dye-sub can print is about 12" wide and most only go as wide as 8" or 10". Correct?)

So, the highest resolution I would ever really "need" to scan at would be 2400 or 4800. Right? The only time I would ever "need" to go higher than that would be if I was zooming in on a small part of a negative or slide.

Given that, the Canoscan 8800F is all the scanner I need 99% of the time. If I ever need more than that I would have the material professionally scanned.

Worker11811, to my knowing, the best consumer flatbed scanner around (which is Epson V700/V750, undoubtly) will give you a "real/actual" resolution of only 2300ppi. (Tested with a resolution target - from a very reliable source...) Which is (kinda) OK for MF (7-8x magnification) but pretty non-impressive for 35mm format. (Roughly 7Mp files from 35mm film...)

Regards,
Loris.

As far as required dpi go: the human eye at close range sees something like 300 dpi. If you scan at effective n*300dpi, you can create perfectly sharp (to the eye) prints at n times slide/neg frame size. Obviously, if the final print is viewed from further apart, necessary resolution goes down and as a result you can enlarge even more.

The line sensor chip in your scanner may produce any resolution, possibly 9600 dpi, but the lens in front of that line sensor isn't up to that resolution. Just think of it: 9600 dpi is roughly 400 dots per mm, which is 100-200 lpmm. Obviously a lens in a 200$ scanner won't resolve that, even if your neg/slide ever had such a level of detail. So you get 9600 very blurry dpi which boil down to an effective res of 1600dpi in your case, as has been measured by folks. Needless to say that digitally upscaled 19200 dpi also provide no additional image information.

I have a Nikon 8000 that I picked up used and really like it. I ended up getting the MF glass carrier for it. The scanner has been repaired once (power supply) and there are not many parts left, I fear. The next time it breaks that may be the end. New 9000 are quite expensive. I have wondered if it would be worth it for Kodak to offer a decent dedicated film scanner just to support film sales- but friends have told me that what I don't know business and marketing is shocking..

The way I have always done things is to decide what my destination format is going to be and figure out what resolution that needs to be. Then I scan/capture at double that resolution and scale down to the final resolution at the end.

A 2400 dpi. or a 4800 dpi. scan is probably more than I would ever need. That gives me 8 times or 16 times overhead for scaling the image to the final size. Right?

Yes, I would like to get a really good film scanner but, at this point, I think what I'm using now will do everything I need. Next time around I can think about getting a dedicated scanner for film.

Next time around I can think about getting a dedicated scanner for film.
I just went the other direction and traded my Coolscan V ED for a V700+cash, partly because of my recent addition of an RZ67, but also because I just never used all this resolution the V ED gave me. Once I really have an image where I need to enlarge every detail there is in the film I can still go to a pro lab and get better results than any Coolscan could offer me. And I can have many high res scans done professionally for the price difference of a Coolscan 9000 to a V700 ...

Hi Folks

well of course scanners are dropping into specialist roles. Our organisation still uses these things for bulk scanning of 35mm "microfilm" used in bulk digitization and archival projects, there are still makers out there for this sort of gear.


Of course there remains the Nikon LS-5000 (for now) and the flatbeds such as have been mentioned work well enough for many tasks.

I'm currently using Epson 4990 and LS-4000

Worker 11811, see the results I'm able to get from my modest Minolta DualScan III (2820dpi). The following image is from an ISO 100 B/W negative (developed w/ Pyrocat-MC), the 100% crop corresponds to roughly 30x magnification when viewed on-screen.

Full image:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loris-medici/4150341084/sizes/o/

100% crop from the original:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loris-medici/4150341092/sizes/o/

(Some of the smallest detail - not pixels! - correspond to 10 mikron on film...)

Currently we are using Epson 10000xl flat bed, Fuji 2500 workstation for roll scans good for rolls and small prints, Imocan Flextight for large scans, and are using offsite a ICG360 for wet drum scans.
We are considering the purchase of the ICG , cash and the availability of parts , service, software improvements are are main concern.

If any one is aware of Drum Scanners that meet ICG360 level of scans, and are sure they are being manufactured now and in the future , I would love to hear about them.
I have seen lots of Tango, and Aztec scans and wondering if there are other devices of equal quality.
My friend Ted Harris came to my shop and did some amazing scans on a Creo Flatbed , his passing away came a week after he visited with my family and I never continued on with scanner as it was on loan due to Ted's word . But I have to say his scans were really good compared to Imocan, Tango and Aztec.

Some of the smallest detail - not pixels! - correspond to 10 mikron on film...

So, then, I assume you are saying that it would be virtually useless to scan 35mm film at any higher resolution than 2400 or maybe 4800 dpi.?

I can see where that would be true.
Honestly, I don't think I would ever have need to scan higher than that unless I was cropping down to a small part of the negative.

By your demonstration, does this show that one can scan at a high resolution if he wants: 9600... 19,200 or even 1,000,000 dpi but this would not show any better quality image... it would only make bigger and bigger files?

Currently we are using Epson 10000xl flat bed, Fuji 2500 workstation for roll scans good for rolls and small prints, Imocan Flextight for large scans, and are using offsite a ICG360 for wet drum scans.
We are considering the purchase of the ICG , cash and the availability of parts , service, software improvements are are main concern.

If any one is aware of Drum Scanners that meet ICG360 level of scans, and are sure they are being manufactured now and in the future , I would love to hear about them.
I have seen lots of Tango, and Aztec scans and wondering if there are other devices of equal quality.
My friend Ted Harris came to my shop and did some amazing scans on a Creo Flatbed , his passing away came a week after he visited with my family and I never continued on with scanner as it was on loan due to Ted's word . But I have to say his scans were really good compared to Imocan, Tango and Aztec.

ICG is still in buisness. I have their 365 drumscanner. Just check their website.

How do you like the ICG?

ICG is still in buisness. I have their 365 drumscanner. Just check their website.