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Cheapish scanner for 35mm negatives
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So I've been shooting a good amount of B+W 35mm lately. I've been using this crappy flatbed scanner at my school to scan them, and I'm not too happy with the results. I've been looking into buying my own film scanner, but I don't really know which ones are known to get good results. Anyone have any suggestions for a <$200 scanner that will get good results?
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for less than 200 get an epson v600, refurbs are $149 if they're in stock
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yes, this.
I have a 500. I don't use the film holder, I just sandwich the neg between a piece of glass and the glass bed, it produces sharper scans. Might have fixed this flaw in the 600. Might just be my 500 too.
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next purchase will probably be the v600 then
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hmmm I should see if I could do that on my 600, i hate the holders
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yep, just use a thin layer of tape on the edges of the glass so it doesn't scratch the scanner bed, and make sure it's thin so it's not too heavy on the glass of the scanner bed either.
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How is your technique different from the betterscanning newton glass holders?
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awww yeah
where did you get the glass?
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just from home depot. Any thin glass will do. Since it's not optical glass, it just needs to be good enough for light to shine through. There may be a color shift, but honestly I can't see it ever being enough to be noticable - I often temp correct my scanned images anyways.
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I should clarify - since the glass is sitting on top of the film, and the film is being backlit, through the sheet of glass, through the film, then through the scanbed, the glass doesn't NEED to be optical glass, just clean, because the film is in front of it.
Also, there's no point in spending more money on a better scanner. If you end up with a shot you want to reproduce at a higher quality than this scanner can give you, it's also worth having your film drum scanned.
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So you stick the film raw-dog onto the scanning bed? It was my understanding from the betterscanning proponents that they elevated the film off the bed by a specific, minuscule amount to increase sharpness.
On the other hand, raw-dog makes sense because cheap flatbeds have a fixed focusing point, and their primary function is to scan paper documents...
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That's what I figured, which is why I tried it, and I got wayyy better results. Maybe having it a hair off would be better, but I doubt it. I was super frustrated with all of my scans up until I decided to give it a shot, had a bunch of scans ruined by moire too as the plastic holders aren't always able to flatten film.
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yeah seriously they blow.
What size is the piece of glass you have? i'm trying to think of what would be sold in dimensions similar to the strip of film (or even in the scanner bed size) but i'm drawing a blank
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At home depot you can get single small panes of glass for replacements in pane windows, they have all sorts of sizes, plenty that are smaller than the scanner bed but still cover most of it. I taped some string to two corners so it's easy to pull of and put back down
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If you're not happy with a flatbed scanner I doubt a V600/V500 is going to make a lot of difference. If you're not planning on shooting medium format I'd get a dedicated film scanner.
Get a Minolta Dual Scan is my suggestion. Great scanners that trump any flatbed scanner and secondhand they're probably 150$ish.
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