I am looking for a scanner that will allow me to scan individual frames of film (from 8mm, 16mm and 35mm formats). The films themselves are on reels. I don't want to cut the reels of film, but would want to wind the film through the scanner until I find the appropriate frame I would like to scan. In all the phots I have seen of the various scanners, the illustration shows a 35mm negative strip. What I would be using are reels of film. Can this work?

-- Steven Davidson (stevenIdavidson@aol.com), May 04, 2000

Answers

None of the film scanners currently on sale allow this sort of arrangement. Besides, the resolution from 8mm would be pretty crummy, giving you only about a 600 x 400 pixel image size.

The only thing I can suggest is to buy a reasonable digital camera, and use it in conjunction with a slide copier device. Even then, you'll most likely be left with quite a bit of DIY work to do; adapting the copier to the camera, arranging a suitable light source, etc.

I've no idea whether there are suitable slide copiers on the market. Check what's available before you spend any money.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), May 05, 2000.

I rarely disagree with Pete, but I would have thought that many scanners would do the job. At the high end, there will be professional gear designed for exactly this. At (my) very low end, it would be simple to use, say, my Jenoptik scanner, with a slightly cut- down film strip holder. I would have one reel supported at each end of the scanner, with the film feeding through the unit. Not ideal, but very useable.

The quality from 8mm would certainly be rather horible, but probably OK for web use.

-- Alan Gibson (Alan@snibgo.com), May 06, 2000.