Best slide/negative flatbed scanner?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Arne Hendrickson
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Arne Hendrickson

Any recommendations for the best slide/negative flatbed scanner? My roommate
bought an hp scanjet 3970 and this has to be the worst scanner I have ever
used. The software is a nightmare.

Thanks in advance.

Arne Hendrickson
(e-mail address removed)
 
Arne Hendrickson said:
Any recommendations for the best slide/negative flatbed scanner? My roommate
bought an hp scanjet 3970 and this has to be the worst scanner I have ever
used. The software is a nightmare.
Click to expand...
I'd advise buying two separate scanners, one for slides and negs and a
flatbed. Flatbeds will never equal the quality of a dedicated scanner and
it's false economy to buy one that does both.
 
stewy said:
I'd advise buying two separate scanners, one for slides and negs and a
flatbed. Flatbeds will never equal the quality of a dedicated scanner and
it's false economy to buy one that does both.
Click to expand...
That's not entirely correct advise, stewy.
Epson's new Prefection 4870 PHOTO is capable of exceeding the results from a
Canon dedicated film scanner by a considerable amount. I have some eight
foot long prints from 6x9 cm negatives from this scanner to prove it. Now
that Epson have released a new driver for it, the former "out of memory"
messages when using Digital ICE are a thing of the past and the only gripe I
had with it. Have a look for yourself: www.technoaussie.com/review_4870.htm
I couldn't unroll one of the really large prints out of the wind so I got
some help to hold one of the smaller ones open!

As for 35mm... I just scanned a 180 MB file from a 35mm negative I have
never had much joy scanning before. The shadows still have some noise but
not anywhere near as bad as the dedicated scanner I have which cost over
twice as much!

Douglas
 
That's not entirely correct advise, stewy.
Epson's new Prefection 4870 PHOTO is capable of exceeding the results
from a Canon dedicated film scanner by a considerable amount.
Click to expand...



Might be a good scanner, but it sure is buggy.
 
Arne said:
Any recommendations for the best slide/negative flatbed scanner? My
roommate bought an hp scanjet 3970 and this has to be the worst
scanner I have ever used. The software is a nightmare.

Thanks in advance.

Arne Hendrickson
(e-mail address removed)
Click to expand...

I have a Epson Perfection 1670 that has really nice software. It plays
very nicely with my Epson Stylus Photo R300. I have read that the
higher end Perfection scanners perform better than this one.
 
Sounds good ... but a quick question ...

My father was a very successful commercial photographer, and I've inherited his library.
This includes *many* interesting 5" x 7" and 8" x 10" negatives and color transparencies,
and even more 4" x 5" and 120's.

How big a negative or transparency can the Epson 4870 scan? Can it scan

4" x 5" negatives or transparencies
5" x 7" negatives or transparencies
8" x 10" negatives or transparencies
6 cm x 17 cm panorama negatives or transparencies

Thank you for any information you can provide.
 
4x5 are no problem and neither are 120 roll film panos. You might get 5x7s
if you make a holder for them but 8x10? Nah... too much light fall off at
the edge.

Douglas
---------------
 
I have an HP 7400c, a year or two old. No complaints about the
software - it can even scan to word processor formats using OCR.
 
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