Does anyone have any experience of which film scanners work best for scanning b & w 35mm negatives? And why? I am principally looking at the 2700 dpi CanoScan and Nikon scanners, but would be grateful for any advice.

Also, has anyone used the Epson 2450 for scanning b & w 35mm negatives?

Thanks

-- Christopher Goodwin (christopher.goodwin@gte.net), March 24, 2002

Answers

I'd take the time to look at the software differences between the two and see which best suits your needs. The Nikon seems to be a bit more sophisticated and flexible. Batch scanning is easier. Does the Canon offer multiple sampling? Multiple sampling will allow you to reduce or eliminate noise in your shadows.Generally, the more ppi the better as you won't have to sharpen as much. Sharpening enhances/enlarges grain. The grain structure that you like so much in a silver print may not look so hot on your digital media.It's best to scan at highest ppi with 0 or minus sharpening and correct in photoshop. The reason for minus setting is that scanners are generally still sharpening a bit even at a 0 setting. With a good scanner, it's better to scan in greyscale at your highest ppi than scanning in color and converting to greyscale. The first method will give you a better greyscale file than the second method. This isn't just my opinion. This is the opinion of folks I know who have their name in the Photoshop window when you open the progra

-- Karl Knize (karlknize@ameritech.net), March 24, 2002.

I have found the best scanner for black & White is the HP s-20. You can chose your resolution (up to 2400DPI). The next best is the new canon 4000. I have used the Nikon 4000 and junked it. I fell asleep waiting for it to finish scanning.

-- Ned Learned (ned@kajabbi.com), March 24, 2002.

I have both the Epson Perfection 2450 Photo and the Minolta Dimage Scan Dual II. I chose the Minolta over the Nikon and Canon units in the same resolution class ... I found after testing all three that the Minolta returned me the best results. The 2450 does a very good job but doesn't have the features, speed or quality of the Scan Dual II for 35mm... I use it primarily for medium format work.

Minolta's software is pretty awful. I drive both scanners with VueScan and get superb results. 95% of my work is B&W.

Godfrey

-- Godfrey (ramarren@bayarea.net), March 24, 2002.

2700dpi or less is bargain basement territory nowadays for a dedicated film scanner. The Canon FS4000 sells in the UK for about £460 and would be future proof for a year or two. The Nikon 4000 is more expensive, but the key is that both go up to 4000dpi. Ned seems to have had a problem with the Nikon, but a better quality scan does in fact take longer.Generally the scanner is not at fault here, just the data transfer speed to the PC. Both the Nikon 4000 and Canon FS4000 offer multi pass scanning using Vuescan software which can be useful for getting noise free shadows. Less powerful scanners generally do not offer this function. Flatbeds are poor at scanning 35mm film unless the pictures are only for Web use. So whichever model you go for I would recommend no less than 2800dpi, and a dedicated film scanner to boot.

-- Steve Barnett (barnet@globalnet.co.uk), March 24, 2002.

I've done some b&w scanning with my LS-4000 and Vuescan - it works beautifully. As a result, I'd be pretty confident that the Nikon LS40 would give excellent results. I have no experience with the Canons, though. I'm not sure why Ned complained about the LS-4000's scan speed - mine plenty fast, especially using Vuescan.

The HP S20 has limited bit depth and low dynamic range - it's not in the same league as either of the Nikons. I owned one, and while it's good value for the money, it's not a serious scanner IMNSHO.

-- Paul Chefurka (paul@chefurka.com), March 24, 2002.

The Nikon Coolscan IV (LS-40) is a terrific scanner. You need a scanner with a lot of Dynamic range for B&W or Color work especially for color slide film. When I shopped, Nikon was the king of dynamic range. I'm not so sure that there is enough of a difference between the 4000dpi of the LS-4000 and the 2900dpi of the LS-40 to justify the cost differential for my non-professional needs. There are good reviews of scanners at www.imaging-resource.com. This is what they say about the resolution of the LS-40:

2900 dpi Resolution While there are a number of scanners now on the market sporting 4000 dpi resolution, the 2900 dpi of the Coolscan IV ED is better than the best of what was available as little as 18 months prior to its release. While 4000 dpi models do indeed extract a bit more information from a piece of film, the 2900 dpi produced by the Coolscan IV is pretty doggone high, by any measure. You can compare its scans with those of the Super Coolscan 4000 ED and other 4000 dpi scanners on this site, but we think you'll agree that the differences are more subtle than dramatic. For the "prosumer" user, the 2900 dpi of the Coolscan IV ED is probably more than ample. Combining this with the Coolscan IV's "Digital GEM" grain-management technology and the new ED (extra-low dispersion glass) optics, and the result is a very noticeable improvement over Nikon's former top of the line scanner, the LS-2000. Not bad: Performance substantially better than the previous state of the art pro-model scanner, only at "prosumer" prices. (To see this for yourself, download the cropped full- resolution images of the "Musicians" slide for both the LS-2000 and Coolscan IV ED, and play with them a bit in Photoshop. The differences in sharpness and detail are really quite evident.)

You can find the complete review here:

http://www.imaging-resource.com/SCAN/CSIV/C4A.HTM

When you scan silver based B&W, you need to clean the negative as well as possible because the dust control software interprets silver grain as dust. Presumably, dust control software will work on chromogenic films. I have spent hours cloning out dust spots using Photoshop. Here is one of my scans of B&W on the LS-40:

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=133606

Good Luck in you choice.

-- Doug Landrum (dflandrum@earthlink.net), March 24, 2002.

I recently bought the Acer (now Benq) scanwit 2740. It is about the same price as the Minolta dualscan but provides digital ICE for that money. My experience if ofcourse still somewhat low but I do like the fast scanning and preview of upto 6 pictures.

Some people com,plain about the mirascan interface but $40 buys you vuescan, that is an improvement for all scanners.

It is a little but unknown but for the money it is a excellent buy.

Reinier

-- ReinierV (rvlaam@xs4all.nl), March 25, 2002.

While I have only used the LS-2000 and the LS-4000 with Nikon and Vuescan software I find the type of b&w film you are scanning is the more relevant variable than the brand of film scanners. The CN400/XP2 films scan the best, then comes the TMax/Delta and lastly the classic silver TX/HP films. Sorry if this is already obvious to you.

-- ray tai (razex@netvigator.com), March 25, 2002.

Whichever scanner you choose, use viewscan software. If you can afford to do so, I would advise you to get a 4000 dpi scanner. The latest Canon 4000 is relatively cheap.

-- Xavier C. (xcolmant@powerir.com), March 25, 2002.

Polaroid scanners generally do a better job with black and white due to the light source. The recently released SS4000+ is getting rave reviews from people scanning with it. I've been using a SS120 and getting better scans than you can with a Nikon.

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), March 25, 2002.