Negative Scanner Anyone using one?

[Bob_VT]

I probably have over 10,000 or more negatives with about 20% being plain B&W negatives.

I want to transfer them to digital to preserve them and to be able to pass them along to my grandkids..... (LOL I wonder what the format will be in 20-25 years?)

Does anyone have any opinions on a scanner? Do you own one or have you used one?

I see there are all price ranges but I need opinions.

Thanks

 

[ThumbPkr]

Re: Negative Scanner Anyone using one?

I have well over 1000 B/W negatives from my Army days in Germany.
I used to develop and print my own photos in the Service Club Photo Lab on base.
I stored them in the negative sleeves in a notebook and 3 or 4 years ago I scanned them all into my computer.
My tour of duty was 1960 to 1963 in Fulda Germany in the 58th Engineers.
I bought a 35mm Voigtlander after about a year and carried it everywhere that I reasonably could.
I was a dozer operator/lowbed driver and got to spend a lot of time doing work for the German Nationals off base.
My scanner was a Microtek X6 with the lightlid transparency adapter.
My plan was to scan all my negatives with reasonable care and someday buy a dedicated film scanner and do a better job but that someday has not come so I may have to be happy with what I have now.
I now have a Microtek 9600XL which is a large scale scanner that will scan larger docuents and it has the transparency lid which does a pretty good job.
I am not sure what your budget will bear but I have bought a brand new X6 for .01 cent plus postage on ebay and the LightLid adapter that Microtek makes can be had for under 10 bucks.
That light lid adapter will work with many of Microteks scanners,it connects to a D sub connector on the back of the scanner.You can buy some of their newer scanners that have USB ports that can use it.
Some of the film scanners are $2000.00 and more.
I use Hamrick Softwares "VueScan" Scanning software which will cost about $90.00 for the lifetime version but it will pay for itself very soon with the quality of scans it will produce.The trial version is free and it is worth a look.
Any of the bundled software will produce a satisfactory scan however.
I have a couple of links if you are interested that can help you along.Good Luck with your task.Ron G

 

[mthieme]

Re: Negative Scanner Anyone using one?

I haven't seen one of these in a good while.
Have you tried googling?
My office is at a Police HQ....there is a photo lab there, if you like I can ask the guys about it next week. They're up on all the latest camera and camera related computer gizmos.

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: Negative Scanner Anyone using one?

I have well over 1000 B/W negatives from my Army days in Germany.
I used to develop and print my own photos in the Service Club Photo Lab on base..........
My tour of duty was 1960 to 1963 in Fulda Germany in the 58th Engineers.
I bought a 35mm Voigtlander after about a year and carried it everywhere that I reasonably could.
I was a dozer operator/lowbed driver and got to spend a lot of time doing work for the German Nationals off base..............
My scanner was a Microtek X6 with the lightlid transparency adapter.
.Good Luck with your task.Ron G

Well Ron that is exactly my story too! I was Heavy Junk Platoon Sergeant and my ability to speak German was pretty fair. We built sportsfields and did "partnership" projects. My 1st tour was with the 8th ID in Bad Kreuznach in a S&T Bn as a loader oper 74-76 then I was back again 78-80 in the 3rd ID in Kitzingen. I have spent time at the "Gap" too but that's all one country now LOL. Yes the camera went everywhere with me and I did bulk B&W. Kept me out of trouble at night going to the photo lab

Yes I am more concerned right now with the negatives. I have had flatbed scanners and they are okay. The film one has peaked my interest.

 

[Laddies]

Re: Negative Scanner Anyone using one?

Bob, I did about 700 with my HP flat bed some were negatives and some were prints, the reason I chose that system was I could repair a lot of age damage and re size them easily. I now have added Photo Impressions 4 which I can actually repair cracks of missing sections of the photos with, quite easily.

 

[ThumbPkr]

Re: Negative Scanner Anyone using one?

Well Ron that is exactly my story too! I was Heavy Junk Platoon Sergeant and my ability to speak German was pretty fair. We built sportsfields and did "partnership" projects. My 1st tour was with the 8th ID in Bad Kreuznach in a S&T Bn as a loader oper 74-76 then I was back again 78-80 in the 3rd ID in Kitzingen. I have spent time at the "Gap" too but that's all one country now LOL. Yes the camera went everywhere with me and I did bulk B&W. Kept me out of trouble at night going to the photo lab

Yes I am more concerned right now with the negatives. I have had flatbed scanners and they are okay. The film one has peaked my interest.

It is a small world indeed Bob.I think that you are on the right track in being concerned about your negatives,mine were showing some age and some had artifacts that I am hoping can be cleaned up somehow.I was not using VueScan at that time and I regret not having it.The worst that can happen is my having to rescan them.
I have always wanted "PhotoShop" but just didn't have the resources to buy it but sometimes if you want to play with the big dogs you gotta do what you gotta do as they say.I have used other graphics programs that will do a lot of what PhotoShop does such as PhotoImpact etc but they are all lacking in some way or other it seems to me.
I just bought PhotoShop "Elements 3" which appears to be an somewhat limited edition of PhotoShop on ebay and plan to install it today time permitting.
I composed a small article for a military history site that has several pics taken on the base at Fulda.It is about 3/4 way down the page at this link I will provide to you.If you click on the pics they open up to more and larger versions with text.
http://usarmygermany.com/Units/ArmoredCav/USAREUR_14thACR.htm
Here is a real good site that will help you make some choices as well.
http://www.scantips.com/
I have forgotten most of what little German I learned while there because I no longer use it.Have a good day.Ron G

 

[Artpop]

Re: Negative Scanner Anyone using one?

Great project you have going. WOW 10,000 negs. That is gonna take you a LONG time to scan. 100s of hours. I have used a pretty fast canon scanner (canoscan) that takes almost 5 minutes to scan one strip of 5 negs. at 3000dpi. What is nice is that you get to see them as you do it. Most transparency scanners have software that auto converts neg to positive. By the way, don't worry about correcting the images while you scan. The correction can be done at any time, once they are scanned, they are good to go. A lot of the software that corrects on the fly, will degrade the image. Just have sombody that knows what they are doing fix up the important ones. I have been doing it for 10 years, and just now feel I am skilled enough to actually improve the image and not cause more damage.

Also, scanning can be done professionally at many labs for about .20 to .25 USD each image. Yes, thats 2000 bucks. But you could do it in smaller batches over time. And you wont have to pay the 200 for the scanner.

Anyway, enjoy that project. This is a very popular thing to do right now. There is a lot of great info on the net about it.

What will we have in 25 years? Stone carvings.