On 15 Apr 2017 in rec.photo.digital, newshound wrote:

I realise that this question doesn't have a simple answer, but it is
time I started scanning some of my old 35 mm slides and negatives
(mostly b&w).

I would really welcome some comments or experience on hardware in
the "keen amateur" price bracket.

I know I can also "farm it out" but I'm interested in doing some
myself at least to get a feel for what results to inspect. Is there
anything which stands out towards the budget end in terms of value
for money or ease of use?

I've been using a Canoscan 9000 for the past couple of years. It's
under US$200, and seems to scan reasonably well. It's not terribly
convenient for bulk use - it can do 4 slides, or a dozen uncut
negatives at a time.

https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/p...-9000f-mark-ii

Software seems to be okay. My usual workflow is to scan to a
..tif and work on that in Lightroom or Photoshop. I found a roughly 3
decade old Ektachrome a couple of days ago that's been sitting in a
box for most of that time. Here's a scan using pretty much default
settings to Irfanview 64 and saved as a .png (Photobucket won't accept
TIFs). No other work done on it:

http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/...psutmdusvd.png

It's also portable enough to bring along in the car - fits
conveniently into one of the wheeled carry-on size bags, although
you'd probably want some extra padding - extra shirts, sweaters, etc.

--
Joe Makowiec
http://makowiec.org/
Email: http://makowiec.org/contact/?Joe
Usenet Improvement Project: http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/