Scanning larger format negs to CD-ROM or DVD

Hi all,
Our wedding photographer sent us all of our negatives from our wedding and
reception and they are of a larger format, NOT 35mm. In order to preserve
their usefulness I would like to have them scanned and have high res pic
files put on CDs or DVDs. There are several hundred photos, maybe as many as
a thousand, so I'd like it to be someone who not only does good work and is
trustworthy, but can do this at a reasonable price. Any idea of what to
expect price-wise and where should I turn for these services?
Any and all advice appreciated.
Bob in RSM, CA

"Bob Hayden" wrote in message
om...
Hi all,
Our wedding photographer sent us all of our negatives from our wedding and
reception and they are of a larger format, NOT 35mm. In order to preserve
their usefulness I would like to have them scanned and have high res pic
files put on CDs or DVDs. There are several hundred photos, maybe as many
as
a thousand, so I'd like it to be someone who not only does good work and
is
trustworthy, but can do this at a reasonable price. Any idea of what to
expect price-wise and where should I turn for these services?
Any and all advice appreciated.
Bob in RSM, CA

More than likely, you have 120 or 220 film which is called medium format
(MF). The only difference between 120 and 220 is the length of the roll,
they are both the same width (approximately 60 mm). You negatives are
probably cut into strips, so the original length is irrelevant.

MF can actually have several size negatives called 645, 6x6, 6x7, 6x9, etc
All of them use the same roll film. Many wedding photographers use 6x6
(Hasselblad cameras), and some use 645 or 6x7. 6x9 is rare for weddings.

I think you would have a hard time finding someone to scan them at what you
consider to be a reasonable price. It may pay to purchase a decent MF
scanner for about $400-$500 and then learn how to scan them yourself. Epson
makes a fairly good scanner that also scan prints and documents.The Epson
Perfection 4870 PHOTO is one such scanner. The Epson Perfection 4870 PRO is
a bit more, but comes with some very good scanning software.

When you are done, you could sell the scanner on ebay for about half what
you paid, so it would end up being a very economical solution if you (or
someone you know) has the time.

If you really high-res pictures (I doubt it) you would need to send them to
a professional scanning lab that would use a drum scanner to get images of
about 50 MB each. These would cost $25 or more each. But I am fairly sure
you really don't need that level of detail.

Also, assuming the negatives are color, store them in a cool dry place,
never in an attack, etc. It would be best to seal them in airtight bags on a
very dry day (so as not to trap humidity inside the bag).

In rec.photo.film+labs Mark A wrote:
More than likely, you have 120 or 220 film which is called medium format
...
consider to be a reasonable price. It may pay to purchase a decent MF
scanner for about $400-$500 and then learn how to scan them yourself. Epson

Mark's quite right, IMO; if you can spare the time, buying
a scanner would be MUCH cheaper than trying to pay someone
to do it for you. The Epson 2450 was well-liked, and a quick
peek at Ebay just now shows that they're selling used for around
$100. I've got the same scanner at home and it works quite
nicely; at that price you could throw the thing away when you're
done scanning the wedding pics and you'd still come out way
ahead, in terms of price. :-) I've got an Epson 1680 with the
transparency adapter at work, and that works a bit better for
scanning large numbers of negs or slides, but it's way more
expensive (I think around $1200 is what we paid.)

I use my 2450, among other things, for scanning a lot of my
father-in-law's old slides, so all his kids can have copies
of them. The scanning is sort of slow, so I'll sit there with
a book; read a few pages, take the old slides out, put new ones
in, start it scanning again, and read a few more pages. :-)
Slow but not unpleasant. And the 2450 will do medium-format
negatives--not all scanners will.

Good luck and let us know what you decide!


_______________________________________________
Ken Kuzenski AC4RD kuzen001 at acpub .duke .edu
_______________________________________________
All disclaimers apply, see? www.duke.edu/~kuzen001

In article ,
"Bob Hayden" wrote:

Hi all,
Our wedding photographer sent us all of our negatives from our wedding and
reception and they are of a larger format, NOT 35mm. In order to preserve
their usefulness I would like to have them scanned and have high res pic
files put on CDs or DVDs. There are several hundred photos, maybe as many as
a thousand, so I'd like it to be someone who not only does good work and is
trustworthy, but can do this at a reasonable price. Any idea of what to
expect price-wise and where should I turn for these services?
Any and all advice appreciated.
Bob in RSM, CA



Bob,

Take the negs to a local professional lab (look in your yellow pages)
and have them scanned. Be prepared to spend a few bucks per scan, yes I
know it'll cost you quite a bit of money, but it is YOUR wedding!
Call a few labs and get some pricing and don't go with the cheapest,
again it's yuour wedding.
Don't be tempted to buy a scanner and do it yourself, it's your wedding
and your wife will kill you.
The scanners the pro labs use are worth at least $50K and do a fabulous
job, anything you do with a flatbed will be substandard and a cheap 120
film scanner will be at least $3K and really won't do a great job.
Screw this up, and your wife will kill you.

I'm not familiar with "RSM" otherwise I'd try to make some
recommendations.

Just curious, but the phrase "preserve their usefulness" left me
wondering a bit.

Are you concerned with preservation? Is so, your safety deposit box
and proper packaging would be best. Usefulness for sharing digitally
(email, etc?), then simple scans of the photos might suffice (I assume
they're sharp and well processed if someone bothered with medium
format in the first place). Decent hi-res scans of medium format
negatives are very bulky as there is a lot of information there! They
can take 6-10 minutes each to scan correctly and it sounds like you
might have days of work there! Again, it all matters what your
intended purpose is in digitizing these.....

On Mon, 31 May 2004 07:40:23 GMT, "Bob Hayden"
wrote:

Hi all,
Our wedding photographer sent us all of our negatives from our wedding and
reception and they are of a larger format, NOT 35mm. In order to preserve
their usefulness I would like to have them scanned and have high res pic
files put on CDs or DVDs. There are several hundred photos, maybe as many as
a thousand, so I'd like it to be someone who not only does good work and is
trustworthy, but can do this at a reasonable price. Any idea of what to
expect price-wise and where should I turn for these services?
Any and all advice appreciated.
Bob in RSM, CA

Bob,

Take the negs to a local professional lab (look in your yellow pages)
and have them scanned. Be prepared to spend a few bucks per scan, yes I
know it'll cost you quite a bit of money, but it is YOUR wedding!
Call a few labs and get some pricing and don't go with the cheapest,
again it's yuour wedding.
Don't be tempted to buy a scanner and do it yourself, it's your wedding
and your wife will kill you.
The scanners the pro labs use are worth at least $50K and do a fabulous
job, anything you do with a flatbed will be substandard and a cheap 120
film scanner will be at least $3K and really won't do a great job.
Screw this up, and your wife will kill you.

I'm not familiar with "RSM" otherwise I'd try to make some
recommendations.


Bad advice...and bad information. Medium format film can be scanned
quite well with a $500 flatbed, and fantastically well with a
$1000-$2000 film scanner. I use the Minolta Scan Multi Pro and I get
600+ MB files that are stunning that I can print to poster sizer at 300
dpi...If you have computer aptitude then scanning them yourself is an
option, although there is a learning curve. My advice is to pick the
ones that are the best, then scan those. You may find that you only
need to scan 30, not 300. That may be much more affordable at probably
$10 per scan from a pro lab. Or find someone local that is willing to
do the job, if you are on SoCal, email me and maybe we can come up with
an agreeable price, if you want 300 images scanned, then it may be a few
wekks worth of work. It can take 10 minutes per scan depending on the
resolution you need.

JR

"Gary W. McIntyre" wrote in
message news:sillywillybobsdad_withoutspam- Bob,

Take the negs to a local professional lab (look in your yellow pages)
and have them scanned. Be prepared to spend a few bucks per scan, yes I
know it'll cost you quite a bit of money, but it is YOUR wedding!
Call a few labs and get some pricing and don't go with the cheapest,
again it's yuour wedding.
Don't be tempted to buy a scanner and do it yourself, it's your wedding
and your wife will kill you.
The scanners the pro labs use are worth at least $50K and do a fabulous
job, anything you do with a flatbed will be substandard and a cheap 120
film scanner will be at least $3K and really won't do a great job.
Screw this up, and your wife will kill you.

Why would she kill him? If you don't like scan, you can do it over again. It
is not like he will destroying the negatives.

A pro lab will charge a lot more "a few dollars per scan." More like $25-$50
per scan. The only ones that cost a few dollars per scan are the ones that
use the same flatbed scanners (or worse) as I suggested. Also, don't be
surprised if the negatives come back scratched and with finger prints from
the high school kid they hire to do the work.

You are wrong about flatbed scanners, they work fine for most work,
especially if displayed on computer monitor. Wedding photos do not need to
contain excruciating detail of a professional photo shoot.

Your statement about not buying a flatbed scanner and doing the work
oneself, is obvious self-serving because your are in the professional photo
lab business yourself.

"JR" wrote in message
...


Bob,

Take the negs to a local professional lab (look in your yellow pages)
and have them scanned. Be prepared to spend a few bucks per scan, yes I
know it'll cost you quite a bit of money, but it is YOUR wedding!
Call a few labs and get some pricing and don't go with the cheapest,
again it's yuour wedding.
Don't be tempted to buy a scanner and do it yourself, it's your wedding
and your wife will kill you.
The scanners the pro labs use are worth at least $50K and do a fabulous
job, anything you do with a flatbed will be substandard and a cheap 120
film scanner will be at least $3K and really won't do a great job.
Screw this up, and your wife will kill you.

I'm not familiar with "RSM" otherwise I'd try to make some
recommendations.


Bad advice...and bad information. Medium format film can be scanned
quite well with a $500 flatbed, and fantastically well with a
$1000-$2000 film scanner. I use the Minolta Scan Multi Pro and I get
600+ MB files that are stunning that I can print to poster sizer at 300
dpi...If you have computer aptitude then scanning them yourself is an
option, although there is a learning curve. My advice is to pick the
ones that are the best, then scan those. You may find that you only
need to scan 30, not 300. That may be much more affordable at probably
$10 per scan from a pro lab. Or find someone local that is willing to
do the job, if you are on SoCal, email me and maybe we can come up with
an agreeable price, if you want 300 images scanned, then it may be a few
wekks worth of work. It can take 10 minutes per scan depending on the
resolution you need.

JR

I doubt seriously that he needs more than about 10MB resolution per scan,
except for a few full length portraits. Most wedding photos are shots of the
wedding and guests that would not be printed larger than 5x7. If they were
stored digitally for display on a computer monitor, I doubt the would ever
be printed in the distant future.

In article ,
"Mark A" wrote:

"Gary W. McIntyre" wrote in
message news:sillywillybobsdad_withoutspam- Bob,

Take the negs to a local professional lab (look in your yellow pages)
and have them scanned. Be prepared to spend a few bucks per scan, yes I
know it'll cost you quite a bit of money, but it is YOUR wedding!
Call a few labs and get some pricing and don't go with the cheapest,
again it's yuour wedding.
Don't be tempted to buy a scanner and do it yourself, it's your wedding
and your wife will kill you.
The scanners the pro labs use are worth at least $50K and do a fabulous
job, anything you do with a flatbed will be substandard and a cheap 120
film scanner will be at least $3K and really won't do a great job.
Screw this up, and your wife will kill you.

Why would she kill him? If you don't like scan, you can do it over again. It
is not like he will destroying the negatives.

A pro lab will charge a lot more "a few dollars per scan." More like $25-$50
per scan. The only ones that cost a few dollars per scan are the ones that
use the same flatbed scanners (or worse) as I suggested. Also, don't be
surprised if the negatives come back scratched and with finger prints from
the high school kid they hire to do the work.

You are wrong about flatbed scanners, they work fine for most work,
especially if displayed on computer monitor. Wedding photos do not need to
contain excruciating detail of a professional photo shoot.

Your statement about not buying a flatbed scanner and doing the work
oneself, is obvious self-serving because your are in the professional photo
lab business yourself.



Well, she would kill him, if he is like many people and misplaces the
negs in the next few years... and has to rely on the scans for output.

I don't work for a lab, nor do I own one.
I do visit labs on a daily basis as a techician and have been servicing
printers and scanners for many years. The results I have seen from
flatbeds with transparency adapters have much lower dynamic range and
typically have poor shadow detail. In contrast, a good pro scan looks
amazing.
My customers routinely do 30 mb scans for a couple bucks, and they do
not employ high school kids... actually many of my customers are
replacing their optical printers with the intent of scanning all film by
the end of the year and the old optical printer operators are the people
running the scanners.

Well, she would kill him, if he is like many people and misplaces the
negs in the next few years... and has to rely on the scans for output.

I don't work for a lab, nor do I own one.
I do visit labs on a daily basis as a techician and have been servicing
printers and scanners for many years. The results I have seen from
flatbeds with transparency adapters have much lower dynamic range and
typically have poor shadow detail. In contrast, a good pro scan looks
amazing.
My customers routinely do 30 mb scans for a couple bucks, and they do
not employ high school kids... actually many of my customers are
replacing their optical printers with the intent of scanning all film by
the end of the year and the old optical printer operators are the people
running the scanners.

I am not suggesting that someone scan the negatives without looking at them
and then through away the negatives. Scan some, and make sure they are done
right. No one needs 30BM scans for wedding pictures. 10MB is probably fine.

But I would really like to see the name and/or website of one that does 30MB
scans for a couple of bucks.

Flatbed scanner technology has increased dramatically in the last few years
and the prices have come down (just like digital cameras). The $500 Epson
will produce remarkable results for what is needed in this situation. I am
not talking about scans that will be used to make 20" x 30" prints. These
are wedding pics.