Digitizing slides, negatives and 8mm film

[REWahoo]

Wahoo,
Let us know how the Wolverine works out.

Will do. UPS says it will be here Monday.

 

[FIREd]

I bought a flat-bed scanner, an Epson V200, which came with a frame for mounting 35mm negatives for scanning. I do not have any slides, just color negatives from pre-historic days.

The scanned images were terrible, as seen on the PC screen. I wonder if there is something wrong with the scanner, or if that is all it can deliver.

Does anyone have this model? Or any other model? Please share your experience with scanning 35mm color negative film. Thanks.

PS. This scanner does a fine job of scanning the usual printed paper or photo color prints.

I am using the Photosmart S20 scanner:

It's specifically designed for scanning slides, negatives and paper photos. It does a good job for all these things, like this picture, scanned from a color negative:

 

[NW-Bound]

Thanks, FD. I will look into that.

Just now, I saw posts by Walkinwood and RonBoyd about an after-market software add-on to do color correction for negatives. Could that be what I need?

 

[FIREd]

Thanks, FD. I will look into that.

Just now, I saw posts by Walkinwood and RonBoyd about an after-market software add-on to do color correction for negatives. Could that be what I need?

Could be. I've never had much luck with scanning slides and negatives on a flat bed scanner. It wasn't just the color, the overall quality of the scan seamed poor. But that was 7-8 years ago, I'm sure they've made some progress since then...

 

[NW-Bound]

I've never had much luck with scanning slides and negatives on a flat bed scanner. It wasn't just the color, the overall quality of the scan seemed poor.

Yes, that too. There might be some mechanical or optical reasons that limit the performance of a flat-bed scanner with color negatives, necessitating the use of a dedicated machine for the job.

I will wait for more posts to see if any has had better luck with another flat-bed scanner to use on 35mm negatives.

Thanks again.

 

[FIREd]

Yes, that too. There might be some mechanical or optical reasons that limit the performance of a flat-bed scanner with color negatives, necessitating the use of a dedicated machine for the job.

I will wait for more posts to see if any has had better luck with another flat-bed scanner to use on 35mm negatives.

Thanks again.

Not sure, but it could have something to do with what RonBoyd said earlier:

I purchased a Microtek i900 primarily because it was the only scanner, at the time, that didn't have a sheet of glass between the lens and the positive/negative.

 

[heyduke]

My system works pretty well, with very little organizing effort. Each year has its own folder. There are subfolders such as family, scenery, miscellaneous, music, surfing, biking, etc. I try hard to name the files so that they will be easy to find later.

I can usually find a photo without too much trouble. If I can't find it with a general filename search, I can guess at the date and the folder.

I also keep the original un-photoshopped version every photo taken. When a photo card fills up (say 250 pictures), I burn it to a DVD labeled with the date before deleting the photos.

pretty much how i do it... only first i delete all the non-significant photos which greatly reduces the total... i will never have 100,000 images so this works for me...

 

[NW-Bound]

Hey, FD, your sample scan from a color negative doesn't look too bad. That S20 is old and has been discontinued.

In researching this subject, I found the following links that explain why color negatives are tougher to scan than color slides.

Why Scanning Color Negative Film May Require a Different Approach

Color Negatives

In short, I am expecting to spend a bit more money to get a decent color negative film scanner. A flat-bed scanner with an adapter tray cannot be expected to provide decent results. This job requires a specialized scanner just for digitizing films. It would have a higher resolution and also a better color depth than flat-bed scanners. Just now, I found several, and they all cost more than the normal scanners. They also come with software for color correction.

More serious photographers obviously already know the above. I am posting these links to help novices like myself.

 

[FIREd]

Good reads NW. The second link also clearly points out that the results you get will depend on the type of film you used (nothing you can do to change that now however). I experimented a lot before I was able to find a film that would scan well. The film had to have a very fine grain and anything above ISO 200 was challenging. IIRC, I got my best results with Fujifilm's Superia 100/200. Even though, slide film always gave superior scanning results, especially Kodachrome 64.

 

[Leonidas]

I sent my in-laws 8mm movies (found in a box in a hot Texas garage) to these folks and was very impressed with the quality of the images on the DVD. I did opt to pay for the option clean and renew process. Husband and wife team, very nice people who communicate well with their customers and have a handy website that has a estimator calculator for price information.

convert 8mm to dvd, transfer film to dvd, NTSC or PAL transfer

 

[FinanceDude]

Will do. UPS says it will be here Monday.

That would be great. I have purchased several items based on the recommendations posted on here and all of them turned out well........

 

[REWahoo]

UPS delivered my Wolverine scanner a couple of hours ago. I've been playing around with it (scanning 35MM slides) and find it very convenient (it's small), easy to use and quick to capture images. It is important to clean both sides of the slide using a very soft brush or "canned air".

Unfortunately the end results are digital images I would describe as only so-so. Here is a sample as it came out of the scanner and the same image after I worked to improve it using Paint Shop Pro:

Note the lack of detail and contrast. I'm assuming that is due to the fact I am working from a slide (positive) rather than a negative and the relatively low 1,800 DPI capability of the scanner. There are no adjustments for color correction, brightness, contrast, etc. on the scanner, everything is automated.

Note also the black bar at the top of the first slide. The mounting of that particular slide is off slightly causing it to sit lower in the scanning tray than it should.

It would be interesting to send a few slides to the digimypics.com site recommended above to get a comparison of how much better they can do. If they can capture significantly better images it might be worthwhile for me to send selected slides to them. Regardless, I'm first going to scan all 1200+ of my slides with this scanner to preserve them and be able to view images I haven't seen in 40 years. I think our two kids and even a couple of our grandkids might get a kick out of seeing photos of us when we met in college in the 60's. That's gotta be worth a few laughs!

 

[Rustic23]

Thanks for the pictures. Not bad. It would be interesting to see digimypics comparison. My guess is, out of every roll of film I have taken, there are fewer than 5 or 6 shots that are really worth sending off. It is amazing how many bad pictures I have taken. Of course part of that may be because I would take four of five shots of just about evey setting. It sure is a lot cheaper now.

Have you tried it on a negative. All my pics are prints, so I have a ton of negatives.

 

[REWahoo]

Rustic, haven't attempted any negatives yet. Not even sure I have any...

 

[RonBoyd]

Note the lack of detail and contrast. I'm assuming that is due to the fact I am working from a slide (positive) rather than a negative and the relatively low 1,800 DPI capability of the scanner.

Actually, Positive film should have better quality than a Negative. Many professional photographers preferred Positive to Negative for that very reason. 1,800 dpi resolution is quite sufficient.

I would blame either the camera or the scanner for this image. (It may also be that pesky sheet of glass between the image and the scanner lens -- not to mention that this scanner lacks a focus function.) Paint Shop Pro is not very useful on difficult images, BTW.

But, as they say, there are no bad pictures if it is the only one of the scene.

 

[REWahoo]

(It may also be that pesky sheet of glass between the image and the scanner lens...

Nothing between the image and the lens but air, so it has to be one of the other factors.

BTW, thanks for not pointing out the obvious - the photographer!