Best Inexpensive Digital Scanner for MF

Hello all,

I am looking for advice on the least expensive flatbed scanner I
can get for scanning medium format negatives. You'll have to forgive
any and all ignorance of the subject, as I am not a photographer or
even a hobbyist. I am really only looking to do one little project.

I have medium format negatives (I wish I could tell you the size)
that I need to scan into digital format. The resulting digital copies
will eventually be printed in no larger than an 8x10 format, and most
of them will fall into the 5x7 range.

This will probably be the only time in my life that I work with
medium format, so I'm really just looking for the least expensive
solution. I'm thinking that I don't really need much since I won't be
blowing the pictures up to any great size. The Epson flatbed Photo
series seems to be a winner, but I just don't know enough about this
to really say which will best suit my needs.

Can I get away with something as inexpensive as the Epson
Perfection 1670 Photo? Do I need to buy a special adapter to scan
medium format with this model? I've seen some people say that you can
put the negative right on the flatbed and just scan that way. Can you
do this with any scanner? I don't understand how that works. 0-]

Any help would be immensely appreciated. 0-] Please CC me on any
response, as I don't follow this newsgroup.

Thank you,

Damon Courtney

Take a look at the Epson 3170. Amazon has had rebates in the past, so you
might price it there. The rebate, free shipping and no tax made it a nicely
priced MF scanner that does a decent job.

Doug
--
Doug's "MF Film Holder" for batch scanning "strips" of 120/220 medium format
film:
http://home.earthlink.net/~dougfishe...lderintro.html

On Wed, 07 Apr 2004 21:15:22 GMT, "-" wrote:

Take a look at the Epson 3170. Amazon has had rebates in the past, so you
might price it there. The rebate, free shipping and no tax made it a nicely
priced MF scanner that does a decent job.

Isn't the transparency hood for the 3170 only designed for 35mm film?
Those that I've seen seem slightly too narrow to accommodate 120
negatives. In any event, it is considerably narrower than the
aperture of the 3200.

In article ,
(Damon Courtney) wrote:


Can I get away with something as inexpensive as the Epson
Perfection 1670 Photo? Do I need to buy a special adapter to scan
medium format with this model? I've seen some people say that you can
put the negative right on the flatbed and just scan that way. Can you
do this with any scanner? I don't understand how that works. 0-]

Any help would be immensely appreciated. 0-] Please CC me on any
response, as I don't follow this newsgroup.

Thank you,

Damon Courtney


You need a scanner with a transparency hood - in other words, a light in
the lid. These normally don't cover the whole area and should come with
masks to stop stray light getting round the edges and reducing the
contrast. If they are missing you can always make up something out of
black card.

FWIW I use an Epson 1640 Photo and get good results. Later models give
better resolution, but you must have a "photo" version.

Peter

The 3170 was designed to handle up to medium format size. You may be
thinking of the 2400 which looks very similar. It will only do 35 mm.

Doug
--
Doug's "MF Film Holder" for batch scanning "strips" of 120/220 medium format
film:
http://home.earthlink.net/~dougfishe...lderintro.html

Take a look at the Epson 3170.

Is there a site at which full res files can be viewed/downloaded for
evaluation?
eqw

Recently, Damon Courtney posted:

Hello all,

I am looking for advice on the least expensive flatbed scanner I
can get for scanning medium format negatives. You'll have to forgive
any and all ignorance of the subject, as I am not a photographer or
even a hobbyist. I am really only looking to do one little project.

How many negatives are you working with, and are they color or b/w? If
they are color, be prepared to learn a lot about color correction; if they
are monochrome, be prepared to learn a lot about managing grain (or to not
be able to get any decent results).

If there are fewer than 100 of these, I'd be tempted to just get the
images printed, as the time and effort involved in scanning them would
hardly be warranted by the results from a low-end scanner. Even flatbed
scans of those prints are likely to be better than what you'd get from
scanning the negatives, and would be adequate for prints on your inkjet at
the sizes you indicate.

Regards,

Neil

Epson F3200 scanner - from 135 yo 4X5!

http://www.i-love-epson.co.jp/produc...200/f32001.htm

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This is the only review of the 3170 that I know about:

http://personal.inet.fi/private/luuk...70_review.html

Look at reviews for the 3200 too because the optical system is similar.

Doug
--
Doug's "MF Film Holder" for batch scanning "strips" of 120/220 medium format
film:
http://home.earthlink.net/~dougfishe...lderintro.html

(Peter) schrieb:

FWIW I use an Epson 1640 Photo and get good results. Later models
give better resolution [...]

....only the 1650 doesn't. It doesn't take medium format, only 35mm
slides and negatives.

Timo