Do I Need A Film Scanner ?

[David Springthorpe]

I've just bought an Epson Multifunction RX510 (includes flatbed scanner with
35mm film holder), and have started for the first time at scanning some of my
slides (up to 4,000 dpi). I perform some basic image manipulation (sharpening /
contrast / brightness / resizing) using 602Photo, part of the 602PC Suite. I'm
getting quite good results for displaying at 600x400 on my monitor, and have no
immediate intention of printing any out. Would I be wasting my time and money
getting one of the Nikon Coolscan 4,000 dpi film scanners with only my present
requirements in mind ?

Thanks,
DS,
Sydney NSW Australia.

 

[CSM1]

I've just bought an Epson Multifunction RX510 (includes flatbed scanner
with
35mm film holder), and have started for the first time at scanning some of
my
slides (up to 4,000 dpi). I perform some basic image manipulation
(sharpening /
contrast / brightness / resizing) using 602Photo, part of the 602PC Suite.
I'm
getting quite good results for displaying at 600x400 on my monitor, and
have no
immediate intention of printing any out. Would I be wasting my time and
money
getting one of the Nikon Coolscan 4,000 dpi film scanners with only my
present
requirements in mind ?

Thanks,
DS,
Sydney NSW Australia.

If you are happy with the results, then your present scanner is fine.

 

[Anoni Moose]

I've just bought an Epson Multifunction RX510 (includes flatbed scanner with
35mm film holder), and have started for the first time at scanning some of my
slides (up to 4,000 dpi). I perform some basic image manipulation (sharpening /
contrast / brightness / resizing) using 602Photo, part of the 602PC Suite. I'm
getting quite good results for displaying at 600x400 on my monitor, and have no
immediate intention of printing any out. Would I be wasting my time and money
getting one of the Nikon Coolscan 4,000 dpi film scanners with only my present
requirements in mind ?

Seeing as how your requirements are 600 dpi or a bit lower, then your
flatbed scanner should be able to do fine. Even my now (old) Epson
2450 can do that (it's actual resolution is about half of it's "rated"
socalled optical resolution).

If you keep track of things well, you could use those scans as an index
for finding a negative/slide when you want to make a high-res scan of
it later. I plan to do something similar on purpose (because my film scanner
can make quarter-gigabyte files of each scan and having all my images
"online" would be a too big, so I plan to do mass lower-res scans w/jpg
to keep things to a few MB per file as "index" scans (still a lot more
than 600 dpi though) then do time consuming "perfect" scans only as needed.

Mike

 

[Olaf Ulrich]

I'm getting quite good results for displaying
at 600 x 400 on my monitor, and have no
immediate intention of printing any out.
Would I be wasting my time and money
getting one of the Nikon Coolscan 4,000 dpi
film scanners with only my present require-
ments in mind?

Yes, definitely! To produce good-looking images from
35-mm film, to look at on the computer monitor or TV
screen only, at sizes of 600 x 400 or 800 x 600 pixel or
so, you don't need no film scanner; a flat-bed scanner
will do just fine.

Olaf

 

[David Springthorpe]

Yes, definitely! To produce good-looking images from
35-mm film, to look at on the computer monitor or TV
screen only, at sizes of 600 x 400 or 800 x 600 pixel or
so, you don't need no film scanner; a flat-bed scanner
will do just fine.

I've just purchased Vuescan but I think it's going to take a long time to work
out all the ins and outs, whereas I picked up Epson Scan fairly quickly.....

DS

 

[Tom Ellliott]

It usually is not recommended but does work with the following solution -
http://www.tom-elliott-photography.com/hp-scanner.html
and even I first suggested using this solution for fast and dirty comps, if
I paid attention to the reproduction resolution requirements IT DID WORK. I
now have a MICROTEK 5900 with a built in 4x5 transparency adaptor and have
had no quality issues.
Have fun.
Yours,
Tom

 

[David R]

This is a hard question to answer. It all depends on several factors.
How much do you have to scan? What are your intentions? What are
your expectations? How bad are your old slides and film?

I would advise to play around with what you have at first. I would
also advise to thinks smaller than a new Nikon scanner. Although they
are reportedly the finest in home scanners they are pricy. I shopped
around and bought a used Minolta Dimage Scan Elite for less than $200
and that came with the SCSI card it requiered. It scans up to 2900dpi
and that's fine with me. Best part is that it came with Digital Ice.
That helped big time with all my old slides. Dedicated film scanners
(even my old Minolta) are definitly faster than flat bed scanners.

My other scanner is an Epson 3200. I only us it for prints and medium
format film now that I have the Minolta. I also have Vuescan which I
will rate with mix reviews. Its great software but at times more than
I have time to play with. Epson software does a far job without
consuming your time. Vuescan can really impove some scans but at the
cost of consuming your time. It's a ballancing act between each tool
(scanner and software).

Most importantly you should have fun. If you are not having fun then
try a diferent method. You're not in this for the money.

Good luck.

 

[Kennedy McEwen]

I'm
getting quite good results for displaying at 600x400 on my monitor, and have no
immediate intention of printing any out.

600x400 pixels from even a 25% crop of a 35mm frame corresponds to less
than 900ppi, from a full frame it is marginally more than 400ppi.

Would I be wasting my time and money
getting one of the Nikon Coolscan 4,000 dpi film scanners with only my present
requirements in mind ?

Absolutely. For display on the monitor at that size there is simply no
need for the high performance of such a scanner.

Look at this another way. 600x400pixels at 8-bits per channel is only
720Kb per image. The Nikon scanner will produce something like 60Mb
from a 35mm frame (128Mb in 14-bit per channel mode). That is something
like 1000-2000x more information than you can possible display.

If you change your requirements then the advice might change, but as
they are it would be a complete waste of money.