film and slide scanners

ygb

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Does anyone here has an experience with scanning slides and negatives? Do you send it out? do you do it at home? how good is the result?
I am just trying to figure out what I am going to do with the film.
Lets say I send it to the lab to process. How will I print? Maybe a scanning is a better option if the quality is good?
I was thinking about trying slide film, but it seems that the paper had been discontinued and I dont want to end up with bunch of slides. But even if I use C-41 film, I still need to print somehow.

Thank you
Yuliya
 
Just digitize it your self. You can buy a nice scanner to do this yourself. I must warn you though, it is time consuming. Once you have the high rest jpeg, you can print it however you want.
 
Just digitize it your self. You can buy a nice scanner to do this yourself. I must warn you though, it is time consuming. Once you have the high rest jpeg, you can print it however you want.
well, I saw some film scanners, I wouldnt want to go an buy a didicated film scanner till I am sure I am doing it often enough first. The decent one I saw seemed to be $250 or so.
I was just curious to know what the quality will be like.
 
It wasn't slide film, but the scanner can handle slide film. I'm sure it could be printed rather large-40x40? I made it a huge file.
 
Just digitize it your self. You can buy a nice scanner to do this yourself. I must warn you though, it is time consuming. Once you have the high rest jpeg, you can print it however you want.
well, I saw some film scanners, I wouldnt want to go an buy a didicated film scanner till I am sure I am doing it often enough first. The decent one I saw seemed to be $250 or so.
I was just curious to know what the quality will be like.

What size (format) film will you be using and scanning?

Joe
 
I've printed digital files from scanned film and the prints look really nice. I scan the film at home with a Canon CanoScan 8800 (less than $200 on Amazon.) I don't print them myself - I generally send them out to Adoramapix. I've printed up to 11x14 with relatively small files from 35mm film, so if I were scanning at the highest resolution and getting much bigger files, I'm sure I could print fairly large, especially with medium format.

It shouldn't make a difference if it's negative film or slide film.

There's also a way to digitize film by using a DSLR and some would argue it results in a better digital image. I couldn't tell you for sure - I don't have a DSLR and haven't tried this method. Scanning works perfectly fine for my needs. I'm sure someone else will chime in.
 
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I'm going to assume you're using 35mm film since you referred to slides.

At 2400 ppi a scan of 35mm film will record all the detail in the film -- you'll be scanning the film grain at that point. Here's an uncropped 35mm Fuji ISO 100 slide film scanned at 2700 ppi that you can examine: columbine.jpg

Printed at 200 dpi that would give you a 12x18 inch print. A 10 megapixel digital camera will generate a file that produces a 13x18 inch print at 200 dpi -- comparable.

You can scan 35mm film at a higher-res and/or interpolate the image up to make a bigger print but you won't be recording more data. If you draw an analogy back to the darkroom the figures make sense as many photographers considered that prints from 35mm larger than 11x14 pushed past the point of diminishing returns.

Joe
 
Keep it analogue and print with an enlarger, I printed a quick 8x10 last night from a fomapan 400 neg that I pushed to 1600 and it is a clean as any digital I have also scanned it and had it printed and the wet print wins hands down
 
Seems like most labs will scan when they develop film, that's usually what I have done, but I've scanned in my own darkroom prints etc. and they're comparable if I use the high res setting on my printer. I've done my own inkjet printing, what I have can do 8x10 or 8 1/2x11".

I've done darkroom printing too, it's not hard once you learn it, just a matter of having access to a darkroom. I found taking a class to have someone show me what to do worked well for me.
 
With just starting with film photography, I suggest you have scans done by the processing lab. You may progress to home processing your film, or may decide it is just too much trouble.

Phil
 
I have used an Epson V700 scanner for a year and a half +/- and have been very pleased... It wasn't cheap... and it is the only film scanner I have ever used, but I use it very often for 35mm b&w /color negatives...35mm transparencies...645 b&w / color negatives and transparencies....a high resolution scan of a 645 Velvia 50 transparency CAN be amazing... and in conjunction with PhotoShop or Aperture (what I presently use)... I have found the process to be if not fast, at least efficient... I don't doubt that similar results can be obtained with less costly scanners... just sharing my thoughts from experience with the V700
 

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