Today's Topics:
- Cheap film scanners at this time? (David Gerard)
Time to ask this again! (i.e. I'm thinking of spending money on one.)
What's the state of affordable negative scanners at this time? I'm seeing little things that require Windows for ?70 or so. Anyone bought any such device recently?
Yes I purchased one but have only attempted the transparency scanning and the light is too bright, so the slides are not true color. I have not attempted a negative scanner. I used to pay a fellow in Newmarket about 50 cents or more for slides and negatives and they turned out terrific. Check out a few of those on wayneray.ca/archives and link on the Commons links there.
It is called *ION slides 2 PC using arcsoft photoimpression 6.1, I paid about 79$ Canadian
UserWayneRay
2009/5/8 wayne cpa@sympatico.ca:
1. Cheap film scanners at this time? (David Gerard) Time to ask this again! (i.e. I'm thinking of spending money on one.) What's the state of affordable negative scanners at this time? I'm seeing little things that require Windows for ?70 or so. Anyone bought any such device recently?
Yes I purchased one but have only attempted the transparency scanning and the light is too bright, so the slides are not true color. I have not attempted a negative scanner. I used to pay a fellow in Newmarket about 50 cents or more for slides and negatives and they turned out terrific. Check out a few of those on wayneray.ca/archives and link on the Commons links there. It is called *ION slides 2 PC using arcsoft photoimpression 6.1, I paid about 79$ Canadian
Yeah, the Ion is the cheap one I was looking at :-)
How correctable is the colour? Is the light so bright it blows out highlights on the sensor? (These things basically use the same sensors as compact digital cameras.) Correctable I can deal with (I could even script it), blown highlights are another matter. Does it only save as JPEG or also as PNG/TIFF?
My main application is the two boxes of photos upstairs going back twenty years: lots and lots and lots of negatives. I think with the film scanner I'll need to be getting a 2TB disk drive.
(Also looking at the somewhat pricier ones, about double the price. Basically you can pay as much as you want to for a film scanner.)
- d.
2009/5/8 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
Yeah, the Ion is the cheap one I was looking at :-)
I must say, the amazon.co.uk reviews of the Ion scanner have put me right off:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/ION-Slides-35mm-Slide-Scanner/dp/B001DCGMR4
Way too lemony to be useful for Commons, sadly. I've asked in a few other places about film scanners.
- d.
On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 2:07 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
How correctable is the colour? Is the light so bright it blows out highlights on the sensor? (These things basically use the same sensors as compact digital cameras.) Correctable I can deal with (I could even script it), blown highlights are another matter. Does it only save as JPEG or also as PNG/TIFF?
If, instead of using the bundled software, you get something like VueScan [1] then you should be able to acquire directly from the device (if it's supported; VueScan supports something like 1200 scanners) in your favourite RAW format.
You're still limited by the quality of the optics in the device, but at least you'll be able to do all your own processing.
-- [1] http://www.hamrick.com/vsm.html - though it's not free software
2009/5/9 Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com:
On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 2:07 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
How correctable is the colour? Is the light so bright it blows out highlights on the sensor? (These things basically use the same sensors as compact digital cameras.) Correctable I can deal with (I could even script it), blown highlights are another matter. Does it only save as JPEG or also as PNG/TIFF?
If, instead of using the bundled software, you get something like VueScan [1] then you should be able to acquire directly from the device (if it's supported; VueScan supports something like 1200 scanners) in your favourite RAW format. You're still limited by the quality of the optics in the device, but at least you'll be able to do all your own processing. [1] http://www.hamrick.com/vsm.html - though it's not free software
I've had others recommend VueScan, but I don't see the Ion scanner listed there, and it doesn't appear supported yet:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.periphs.scanners/browse_thread/thread/5c...
A pity, as most of the Ion scanner's issues appear to be truly appalling software.
The next best idea appears to be a Nikon Coolscan second-hand from eBay. (There seems to be a cycle of people buying them, scanning a whole box of negatives and selling them a year later.) The USB ones are a few hundred pounds, the SCSI ones are cheaper but jokes about SCSI requiring black candles and the sacrifice of a goat exist for a reason.
- d.