There is a mailing list dedicated to film scanners. You can find the details at this site: http://www.cix.co.uk/~tsphoto/tech/filmscan/maillist.htm. You'll get lots of opinions there.
Andrew Robinson Alan Chan wrote: > >i wish to scan 35mm negatives so i can print photos to A3 and A2 size > >16 x 20 inch and 32 x 40 inch > > > >i am looking at these 3 scanners > >any experineces or advice > > Just bought the F-2900 few weeks ago. I have not used other film scanners so > I cannot compare. As far as I can tell, it seems to bring out the detail > pretty well, but not on par with Kodak PhotoCD (4000dpi). It is prone to > show any flaws on films even the films look perfectly clean with my eyes. > ICE works well, but it's not 100%, and it reduces the sharpness a bit, only > a bit. Some deep scratches will remain but much less severe, still much > better than without ICE. Touch up after applying ICE is much easier and much > less time consuming than without it. However, ICE doesn't work with > monochrome. I managed to scan them by choosing "colour negative" and then > turned the scans into monochrome again n Photoshop. This way, I can still > use ICE. Seems to work so far, but I have not done enough monochrome to know > if this method works all the time. Consider the amount of time required to > touch up the scans without ICE, I scan all my films with it on. > > Colour correction could be problematic with some negatives, but never a > problem with slides. However, some dense slides might appear a bit dark on > the scans. The details on shaded areas are there, but you might need to > boost the contrast or brightness of the monitor to notice them (I am no > expert on calibration). I have not tested the Vuescan much so I do not know > if it is much better than the original Minolta software which I am quite > happy with so far. But do expect some fine tuning in Photoshop no matter how > good the scans are (usually brightness and contrast). > > 8bit/channel scan with ICE is fast, but 16bit/channel with ICE and multipass > (2/4/8/16) could take forever. My scanner comes with Adaptec 2903B SCSI card > which I don't know much. > > The only con is that the front of the scanner should have a dust cover. But > then again, it was selling CAD600 only so I am not complaining. > > >From what I have gathered so far, Canon 27xx film scanners "seem" to be the > worst compared to Nikon and Minolta. don't know about their 4000. > > If you do 300dpi prints, this scanner can do roughly 8.6x13" after chopping. > > regards, > Alan Chan > > _________________________________________________________________ > MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: > http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx > - > This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, > go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to > visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org . - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
