Negative scanning
Use case: Back in The Day, you had your camera at gigs all the time. You have an unbelievable collection of historical material. The 25-year-old 4x6 prints are crappy, fading or lost; you want something better.
There are various ways to do this, which divide into "cheap" and "properly".
Realistically, of course, if someone has a negative collection they don't want to let out of their hands and they offer to do it on their ION, the result will be accepted gratefully and wholeheartedly! Don't hold off for the sake of perfection.
Contents |
Cheap methods
Flatbed scanner
Place negative on flatbed scanner. Many flatbeds come with a negative holder for this purpose.
In David Gerard's experience, the results are really shit. Unusably so. Bad enough I tried it and went "no" and tweaked the crappy scans of the crappy prints a bit more.
Flatbed scanners with backlights reputedly give somewhat usable results. YMMV. Prices on order of £200-400.
In Ian Baker's experience, the (backlit) Epson v700/v750 are excellent for negatives, but pretty much every earlier/cheaper flatbed is quite poor. Ken Rockwell agrees.
ION negative scanner
ION, the famed maker of cheap USB turntables, also makes a cheap'n'cheerful negative scanner, which is basically a tiny lightbox with a 5MP camera. Cost: a few tens of dollars.
Discussions on Wikimedia's commons-l say the results are similar to scanning the crappy print. If the print is lost or damaged, this is better than nothing at all and may be worth the effort.
Doing it properly
Midrange negative scanners
Things like the Plustek film scanners [1] are less faffy to use than flatbeds. Price: £300-500 range.
CoolScan
The way to do it properly is to buy a Nikon CoolScan off eBay, scan your entire archive and then sell the scanner two years later to the next person. Typical going rate in UK: £1000-1500. But you get archival quality scans.
This can involve trying to find a PC with an ISA bus to hook it to ... some of these scanners have been circulating for years.
You can buy a proper negative scanner for prices on the order of £2000-5000 new. If you're feeling flush, a Nikon Super CoolScan 9000 ED is US$6799 on Amazon.
CoolScan is generally acknowledged by dedicated amateur photographers as the best reasonably available for a gadget-keen geek. Gotchas include properly focusing the negative and colour balance on the scan, the latter in particular being tricky to get good at.
