Film scanner investment

[lizter]

personally I think you should calculate the cost first b4 buying, how many rolls do you shoot a year, if you scan them at the lab, how much would you spend, will buying a scanner for whatever price be justified? cuz if you are a casual shooter, getting a 1K over scanner is very hard to justify. so this helps you decide your scanner budget.

i thought of this question too, but am kind of caught in a dilemma.

buying a film scanner can easily get me a new lens or allow me to shoot 20 rolls of film (presuming that film + process + print cost around $20).

but

the thought of money for every roll shoot is enough to make me stay at home on a sunday. in turn i shoot lesser and lesser. i am thinking if i have a scanner, the most i spend is the film + processing, easily less than $10 and still get the benefit of archiving them, plus the ability to scan them in with any resolution i wish. then i would be encourgaing myself to expose more film.

maybe this is kind of stupid, but its really my dilemma.

 

[StreetShooter]

the thought of money for every roll shoot is enough to make me stay at home on a sunday. in turn i shoot lesser and lesser. i am thinking if i have a scanner, the most i spend is the film + processing, easily less than $10 and still get the benefit of archiving them, plus the ability to scan them in with any resolution i wish. then i would be encourgaing myself to expose more film.

maybe this is kind of stupid, but its really my dilemma.

If you bulk roll your own B&W film, and develop it yourself, each roll will cost you about $3, including cost of chemicals for development. And you can push the film to ISO 1600 if you like, and still get pretty good results.

 

[theITguy]

you can check out photographyreview.com

personally I think you should calculate the cost first b4 buying, how many rolls do you shoot a year, if you scan them at the lab, how much would you spend, will buying a scanner for whatever price be justified? cuz if you are a casual shooter, getting a 1K over scanner is very hard to justify. so this helps you decide your scanner budget.

Thanks for the website. I remember there is a scanner forum/website that specifically reviews and talk about drum scanners normal film scanners. I wonder if anyone can point out the URL coz I do not seems to able to look for it in google.

I have just started on using SLR, so not very sure how many I will shoot. But my sister and my uncle have quite a number of rolls to scan in, about 50-80 rolls? Scan at KT will cost $12 per roll, so at least $600, which I think will worth it lah. Basically will want to convert them to digital of older films.


Christopher

 

[forbytes]

for people who wish to archieve 20 or more rolls of negative or slides, yes, the out-front cost of owning a scanner will be cheaper (if not comparable) than sending your negatives for scanning. But the bottom line is, the scanning workflow does take up some time. For instance, you need to pay electric bill for your PC, monitor and scanner (maybe air-con), sit in front of the PC to arrange the digital images so that you can get them burned, changing the film strip once in a while, take care of colour calibration. All these are opportunity costs which should be considered when you want to get involved with film scanning. Kex provides more than base 16 scanning at the price of $7 per roll. This price is unbeatable.

Sending them to any FDI frontier lab will only give you base 4 pictures at about 1.5 MP. Kex's 10 MP at the same price with Fuji FDI is amazing. The time you need to produce a scan is still substancial.

My experience with negative scanning is that, for un-protected negative that are stored in cabinet for more than 2 years will have strong colour shift. Getting the right colour is a problem. Technology like Digital ROC, Pixel Polish, increase saturation does help to minimise (or maximise) the problem. The human touch is still required. So whether to archieve negatives more than 2 years is quite subjective and depends on your storage conditions (eg in a dry cabinet).

Kex is the way to go. Cheers. :cheers:

 

[lizter]

Kex is the way to go. Cheers. :cheers:

where is Kex?

 

[forbytes]

where is Kex?

Kex is a nick in clubsnap and he offers scanning services. Look in the first page of this thread for him.

 

[akane]

just a question which might be off topic...
if i scan my film into my pc..cropped it into some non-standard res
(eg. 1000x800) and want to print it out at photo labs how will it fit into a 4R?

 

[forbytes]

just a question which might be off topic...
if i scan my film into my pc..cropped it into some non-standard res
(eg. 1000x800) and want to print it out at photo labs how will it fit into a 4R?

there are 2 instructions that can be given to your photo-developer.

1) full frame, base on your longest side, it will fill the entire length of the 4R, as for the shorter side, it will not be completely filled and you will have a "white border"
2) crop, automatically crop to 3:2, usually crop the top of the shorter edge

that is what they told me, Frontier machine.

 

[kex]

for full frame,if u dunwant the white border,the machine will print out the photo shorter.
as for cropping,the operator will can crop away either the top or bottom,depending on every photo..
juz tell them whether u want it full frame with or without white borders or crop..

 

[misato]

Sending them to any FDI frontier lab will only give you base 4 pictures at about 1.5 MP.

Just wish to add on my experiences to the above statment. FDI Frontier is able to do base16 scans as well. Depending on the operator, and instructions passed down from customer to operater, getting a base16 scan from FDI labs can just be equally good and econmically cheap.

Just a little OT, a newly open shop in the woodlands area charging me $3 for development and $5 for base16 scan for each roll. For those living around
woodlands, you can visit them at Vista Point 2nd lvl. The operator of that lab is too a keen photographer and is well verse in most technical aspect of the trade.

 

[forbytes]

Just wish to add on my experiences to the above statment. FDI Frontier is able to do base16 scans as well. Depending on the operator, and instructions passed down from customer to operater, getting a base16 scan from FDI labs can just be equally good and econmically cheap.

Just a little OT, a newly open shop in the woodlands area charging me $3 for development and $5 for base16 scan for each roll. For those living around
woodlands, you can visit them at Vista Point 2nd lvl. The operator of that lab is too a keen photographer and is well verse in most technical aspect of the trade.

Yes, I am aware of FDI's capability in doing Base-16 scan. The common one they do for people are their economical base-4 scan at about $7 per roll, max 5 roll per disc. Recommended price for 1 frame is $1+.

Wow, base-16 at $5 per roll. The price is starting to get real competitive man. Next thing we know is scanning is free liao :devil:

 

[StreetShooter]

A secondhand Minolta Dual Scan III will cost $300-$400 and can give you very good scans (higher resolution images than a 6MP DSLR). New is about $600+.

Every now and then someone lets one go, after scanning in all their old negatives. Just watch the B&S section. I waited only about a week after I decided to get one before one of these ads popped up.

After you use it, you can resell it for about the same, if and when you move to a DSLR. Or you can keep it, because there are some situations (like you need a very wide angle) where you still have to use film.

I prefer to scan and crop/adjust in PS before printing.

What'd I tell you?

http://forums.clubsnap.org/showthread.php?t=64567

 

[malek]

shootin in film and only few need to be print/use...

why dont u try contact print...
something like index print but comes in 8x12 size.
this is what i usually do to all my film.
so 1 roll will come out with 1 contact print, put in a4 file and will become your collection.
from there u can choose which to print.. 3r ka.. 4r ka.. or even 8r.

now with digital lab, i think u can ask them to do 8x12 index print..
they are the same..

 

[kex]

doing an index print in 8R size will not be cheap either..

 

[leadwe]

Instead of buying a scanner, does it make sense to send the film for developing and then scan? Grace Digital Lab does it fo $5.50 ($3 for developing and $2.50 for scanning). I am not affliated to GDL and have just sent my films there for the first time for developing and scanning. Have not received them back yet so don't know the quality but apparently it receives quite good review from CSers.

What is base-16 scan? You mean the quality of scanning by different shops may be different?

 

[hoppinghippo]

Instead of buying a scanner, does it make sense to send the film for developing and then scan? Grace Digital Lab does it fo $5.50 ($3 for developing and $2.50 for scanning). I am not affliated to GDL and have just sent my films there for the first time for developing and scanning. Have not received them back yet so don't know the quality but apparently it receives quite good review from CSers.

What is base-16 scan? You mean the quality of scanning by different shops may be different?

that's why you have to calculate your budget for yourself to see if its worth it to buy a scanner. like now its $2.50 to scan a roll of film. if you buy a scanner for say $400, you can break even if you scan ~200 rolls. if you scan 200 rolls over say 3 yrs or so, its worth it, plus you must factor it quality of scan from shop vs your own scanner, ability to scan slides, etc etc. if I"m not wrong some shops scan for more than $2.50 so again it affects your calculations, if you always choose to scan at a more ex shop, it may make more sense to invest in a scanner.

plus a scanner still has resale value, so if you minus away the resale value the scanner might be more worthwhile. confused? :bsmilie:

 

[virtuoso]

Try this

http://www.photo-i.co.uk/
Epson 4870

With a price like that you will not look at another film scanner. esp if you want medium format flexibility.

 

[TME]

Try this

http://www.photo-i.co.uk/
Epson 4870

With a price like that you will not look at another film scanner. esp if you want medium format flexibility.

Woah!!! This scanner looks cool! How much is it retailing in S'pore? I mean the website listed 350 pounds. Isn't that like 3x the cost of a Minolta Dualscan III 2nd hand? Worth or not?

 

[virtuoso]

Woah!!! This scanner looks cool! How much is it retailing in S'pore? I mean the website listed 350 pounds. Isn't that like 3x the cost of a Minolta Dualscan III 2nd hand? Worth or not?

Epson 3200 is around $700... (new)... 4870 is touted to be the replacement for 3200 and it has 4800dpi and some other amazing specs...

I don't do photography and cannot afford to pay more than 1000 for a dedicated film scanner.. the only one that I will ever go for is Nikon supercoolscan 9000 (with ICE4) and that is >$$$3000?

I have been waiting very long for this.. since January and it is still not in singapore yet. have called up epson and was told it is coming to singapore just not sure when yet. launched in australia already.... maybe if we all start getting interested and call up Epson they will bring it in faster....

 

[virtuoso]

i.e. i assume the pricing will be similar to 3200...

also, i believe if the film scanning feature is decent, it will be better than the minolta film scanner...