OT - 35mm Negative/Film Scanner

Nothing to do with ADSL but I'll post here first anyway.

Anyone got any recommendations for a 35mm negative/slide scanner? Doesn't have to produce professional print quality scans - I just want to produce images from my old negs that look reasonably sharp on screen.

Already tried one of the very cheap film scanners. Shame - nicely built, beautifully packaged but produced very fuzzy scans. A limit to what Photoshop can do

Any suggestions for something mid-range - decent and reasonably priced?

lct

I bought one of these for scanning in a load of slides, works quite well.

Haven't tried it with photos or negatives.

Hi

I use my old Canon 3200F and have achieved good results with 35mm negatives. It scans slides too. I don't know if you could get a second hand one somewhere or if Canon do a newer model scanner with 35mm negative scanning ability.

Good luck

Andy

For mac users (who don't have windows( I take it the only option is the SD version and scan to SD card? Says software is only windows compatible. Will they scan the photos to jpegs on the card which the mac can then read?

Yes, I got the one that saves scans to the card.

The scanner is USB powered (though it comes with a mains adaptor), and when connected to a Mac (or a PC I'd assume) and put in the appropriate mode it appears as an external drive on the desktop.

You have to do your scanning then put it into USB mode to read the files, it can't do both at once.

I read a review on one of their other scanners that when scanning negative film, it won't reverse the colours and so has to be done in editing software. Have you scanned a colour negative? It wouldn't be too much of a problem for me as I'd automate the negative to positive colour in photoshop.

In reply to a post by Aliturk:

I read a review on one of their other scanners that when scanning negative film, it won't reverse the colours and so has to be done in editing software. Have you scanned a colour negative? It wouldn't be too much of a problem for me as I'd automate the negative to positive colour in photoshop.

I haven't scanned any negatives... but it has separate modes for scanning either film or negatives. In the "negative" mode I think it reverses the colours for viewing, but not for saving.

It's possible that setting it to the one you weren't using would have the effect of scanning and saving a negative as a positive, though making viewing a bit harder.

Personally I prefer to scan "as is" and do any fiddling later in an image editor, it's more controllable.

Thanks for the info. I think I might get one from maplins. I have some slides but quite a few negatives. My dad has hundreds of slides from the 60s, although the last time we looked at a few samples there were some mould spots and the colour was fading

With that possible number of slides I would highly recommend the Plustek Optifilm 7300.

I had a vast number of slides to scan and started down the route of the cheaper scanners but most were too cumbersome and after hours of fiddling seldom got the real satisfying natural colours.
I know that this scanner is quite pricey and I damaged my credit card but oh what a relief when used with the bundled LaserSoftImaging's Silverfast SEPlus Imaging software.
You can always sell it on Ebay when finished to recoup the difference

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B002DUAQYA/...

Thanks, is it and the software mac compatible?