Looking for advice from anyone using a scanner for 35mm negatives.

[neil_r]

I have recently received back (from my ex wife) all the 35mm negatives taken over a 10 year period 20 years ago. There are hundreds of them but they are all in paper sleeves, catalogued and are in excellent condition.

I really want to digitise these and am looking for scanning options.

I obviously want the highest quality scans that I can reasonably afford and I guess I also need to keep in mind that although it will be big and may take some time this will be a one off exercise. I have no need of a flatbed scanner so I only want to consider dedicated film scanners but it appears that Canon no longer produce one ?.

My initial feeling is buy new, complete the project then offer for sale on e-bay, here and a few other places.

I have narrowed my considerations down to the:-


Noink (sorry) Coolscan V ED

Epson Perfection 4490 Photo

Canon CanoScan 9950F

If anyone has any views, ideas, tips, alternate suggestion or indeed any advice at all to offer I shall be extremely receptive and grateful

[René Damkot]

I've (briefly) used a Nikon Coolscin IV. Good scanner.
They go for around 150 - 200 on ebay nowadays.

I think a dedicated film scanner is the better choice, and would not hesitate to buy used.
Canon used to make an LS4000, Minolta had a 5400 film scanner.

A link from Yahoo: http://www.agapehost.com/?c=15223

Make sure the scanner has some kind of in-built dust detection (I think the LS4000 and Minolta do, I'm sure the Nikons do).
For a large amount of scans, some kind of automation would be neat, but I'm not sure that such a thing exists, other then for framed slides....

[Lord_Malone]

I scanned my first images last night with my new CanoScan 4400F, and I will say that it definitely lives up the all the great reviews. Works damn fine for a scanner under $100!

[danster]

The good thing about the 9950F is that it also scans 35mm slides. So you can scan both film negatives and slides.

[neil_r]

Thanks for your input. After a ton more research I have gone for the

Epson Perfection V750 Pro (http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/consumer/consDetail.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=63056500)

http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/consumer/consDetail.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=63056500