John Solak

OK, I had 2500 negatives I wanted to check out. I was able to borrow a light box and narrow it down to about a 1/4 of my negatives. I looked at the scanners available, some were very expensive, but I had to try it out and a local store (Fry's Electronics) had a Wolverine and at a discount ($140). This provided acceptable shots of high definition on initial use. You do need to tune the unit as they came out with a blue hue, but this is adjustable. I did some blow-ups of people and not bad - for use in a slide show. The new unit had a lot of dust spots, but I haven't tried their included cleaner tool to see how effective it is. For $140 it is acceptable, but spend some time with it.

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

Getting ready to send about 500 slides to Scan Cafe. Cost to be: $165.

JackW

I've been playing with different ways to "scan" old slides using my digital camera and macro lens from adapting a slide projector, to using a Logan A-7A slim edge light pad and mask under a copy stand to experimenting with an old Illumitrans slide duplicator that I picked up off ebay for $50. The Logan light pad worked really well but the Illumitrans is showing the best results. Its very quick and once you figure out the camera settings I'm getting some really good results.

RussellG

I have a Plustek Opticfilm 8200 film scanner that I am very happy with. I use it with Vue Scan software which does a very good job of taking film negatives and transferring them to a digital format. Downsides are that scanning can be slow and labor intensive. The scanner has a slide holder that takes about four negatives that can be scanned one at a time. It may take several attempts to get a good scan. So if you have thousands of negatives, it will take too long to convert. I only scanned dozens of negatives and was happy with the result. I also scanned slides from the 1950s that turned out very well.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Here are two that should show the grain. The first was Ilford FP4. The second is Kodachrome 64. The slide was not terribly sharp. I remember taking this in late afternoon, near dusk, about 1/15 second, hand-held, wide open, using a 55mm f/3.5 Micro Nikkor on my FTn. I THINK I used an 81A warming filter with it.

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burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

YES! The Illumitran is a phenomenal device. I had one, back in the 1980s. I ran the multi-image/AV production department for my yearbook/school portrait company back then. We copied thousands and thousands of slides on that thing. We eventually bought a Beseler 4x5 color head, custom-inverted, with an attached "slide compound" — a device that could move slides in .001" increments for precise multiple exposure compositions. I still have the Nikon F3 with pin-registered back and precision viewfinder composition reticle that went along with it. I WISH I had either the Illumitran or the color head with compound.

Walt C

has anyone used the OPTEKA slide scanner? Some one gave it to me. I wont be able to try out for a couple of months.

mckraft

I own a Pacific Image Prime Film XA Slide & Negative Scanner coupled VUESCAN software. Below is a recent review I wrote on the Prime Film scanner I use it for negatives only. I am amazed at the results Very close to par with the original prints (poster sized) I made 18 years ago. For slides I use the Pacific Image Power Slide 5000 with mixed near comparable results (varied with condition of the slide). I bought from B&H


I have just finished scanning 1300 (18 years old) 35mm color negatives and thought I’d share some lessons learned. I am using VUESCAN software. The results are excellent. I am using 10000dpi with 3 scans per image. The image size is approx. 90MB for jpg and 100MB for RAW. I scan 4 images at a time which takes about one hour. This size image can be viewed on higher end SONY 4K TVS. They must be reduced to view on Samsung 4K TVs. I have several strips of 3 and several strips of two images. Strips of three work fine, but the scanner won’t feed the strips of two. There was a mention the scanner scratches film. If the film is cupped (not flat) if doesn’t feed properly and appears to scratch the film. The software does a great job of repairing these scratches. I have it set at medium dust removal. The age of the film also shows some film flaking which the software does a great job of hiding. It’s worth mentioning I am using an i7 Intel chip on a PC with 24 GB RAM and a Quadro Pro 5000 color card. Over all I’m amazed how well the image comes out. Hope this review helps.

Ron Dial Loc: Cuenca, Ecuador

I own two dedicated film scanners, both Minolta (before they were purchased by Sony). They still do great work. It is all about the software that runs the scanner. i usually scan at the highest resolution possible and run the dust removal tool. If you do this, you should research how the dust removal tool works. I still shoot film and love the scanners. They are clearly better than flat bed scanners, unless you are doing wet scans (similar to drum scanners). If you are going to get into this, encourage you to do a lot of research or take some classes on scanning. Scan to TIFF's and do post work in Photoshop, and remember a scanned image will need a LITTLE bit of sharpening.

srt101fan

Ron, would your scanner be the Konica Minolta DiMage Scan Dual IV? I own one but am having software problems with Win 10.

David in Dallas Loc: Dallas, Texas, USA

My problem has been in finding a scanner that can handle the 127 film format slides (1 5/8" x 1 5/8"). They all seem to only handle 35mm or smaller formats.

Mr Bill 2011 Loc: southern Indiana

I have a Wolverine scanner that I use occasionally for a "quick & dirty" survey of older 35mm B&W negs from the 1960s and 70s. I find it's really not much good for scanning color slides. I won't compare it to my Epson flatbed scanner because it really doesn't compare to the flatbed scanner.

Ron Dial Loc: Cuenca, Ecuador

Yes. I had to change software to VueScan. And it runs on Firewire connection, but it still works well.

If you are using 120 film, think about the Epson 750 scanner and doing "wet scans". These scans use Kami scanning fluid, (available from Aztec), and mimic a Drum Scan. Wet scans will fill scratches and eliminate dust. Kami makes scanning fluid and cleaning fluid for film. Basically, you build up a "dam" on the glass with a special tape, fill it with fluid and them immerse the negative or transparency in the fluid, cover it with special optical glass (available from most glass shops by special order) and scan it. Use maximum resolution in a TIFF format. I have done this with 100 year old silver nitrate cellulose negative with stunning results.

Consider Silver Fast software for your flatbed scans.

Ron Dial Loc: Cuenca, Ecuador

If you are having trouble getting it to run in Windows 10, go into Windows File Explorer, go to the exe file you are using, right click and open "properties" and Compatibility, and designate it to be run under an older version of Windows like Vista or Windows 7.

srt101fan

Ron, I'm assuming your post was in response to mine mentioning the Minolta scanners. If so, thanks. I'll have to look into the VueScan software.