Scanned negative IQ

[dxqcanada]

Lots of good info thank you everyone it's appreciated.

Note: scanning negs is slow tedious work, and sometimes it's not worth the effort.

 

[unpopular]

DiMage Multi Pro was a GREAT scanner. Really nice IQ

I am using a scanner to take film to digital only ... If I plan to go to print I will just print the neg (no colour for me) when I eventually get a darkroom setup.

Dedicated film scanners are pretty good, but difficult to get ... there used to be a number of vendors (decades ago) but now there are only a few, especially in medium format.
Problem with many older ones is that they were primarily SCSI interface.

DiMage Multi Pro was a GREAT scanner. I used the third version a lot. Really solid machines, fantastic negative holders - and still demand a lot on ebay given that it's a 20 year old machine!

I also used the Epson XL series. They're very solid, but perform best with well-exposed images.

Sometimes you can also find Scitex Eversmart scanners on ebay for well under $1000. The same goes for drum scanners, if you're willing to deal with the learning curve.

 

[unpopular]

Lots of good info thank you everyone it's appreciated.

Note: scanning negs is slow tedious work, and sometimes it's not worth the effort.

The dust is SO much worse than in the darkroom. Then there are the mystery streaks. Endless "focus...scan...focus...scan...focus...scan". Think you're ready for your final scan? Negative slipped. But wait. That's why we have glass carriers with anti-newton glass ... which doesn't work and you end up going back to oil. Yuck. At some point you realize you're doing all the work for a drum scan with none of the advantages.

 

[compur]

... I still have my old Nikon F 501 I may just dust that off first.

Ah, the F501 (N2020) is a favorite of mine.

 

[bhop]

Note: scanning negs is slow tedious work, and sometimes it's not worth the effort.

For all my Flickr film pics, I use an Epson V700. It lets you scan multiple frames at once. Setup takes a few minutes the way I do it, which is pre-scanning and adjusting each frame individually before the final scan of all of the frames at once, but once you get your settings ready to go, you just select all and press scan, then go do something else and come back later to finished scans. It actually doesn't really take that long to do it this way IMO and i'd say it's definitely worth the effort. For a time comparison, i'd say it's as least as quick as importing digital files to lightroom and adjusting each one to your liking.