Hi Guys and Girls,

I recently bought a Pentax K100D Super and I'm loving the freedom photography is giving me. However, I was inspired by my grandfather who had a Canon A1, with a 50mm, 28mm, 70-210mm and a 28-70mm (or is it 35-70mm?), you get the idea I'm sure.

Anyway, I'm looking at getting it serviced as it hasn't been used and getting the lenses cleaned as well. I think film photography would be fantastic, particularly as I have the lenses that I want for my Pentax already.



My question is, how hard is it to transfer film/negatives to digital format, ie - putting them on to a computer? Any tips or advice would be great.

Danic.

A scanner that works with 35mm negatives is what you need. There are a lot of types in a lot of different price ranges, from probably less than $100 USD to thousands. For 35mm, I'd look at a dedicated film scanner for the best quality. Even something used like an Acer (or Benq, same company) 2720S like I have or an older Nikon LS2000 will do a great job but there is a learning curve to get the best results. A new scanner like this will probably cost around $500 or so.

If you look at older scanners, just make sure they're fully compatible with your computer. Make sure the company that made the scanner has the driver software that you need. Also, some older scanners like the 2720S are SCSI devices so you'll need to add a SCSI card to your computer (assuming it's a desktop).

Hi Danic, glad to hear how much you are loving photography and I'm even more glad to hear it's with film :D As a_v mentioned there are many different scanners out there that will handle 35m negatives. In a normal consumer price range, these will generally be a flatbed scanner that will come with trays to hold your negatives for scanning. Getting up into the higher end scanners, these will be strip fed meaning you will feed a strip of negatives into the scanner. These are going to be your best bet if you can afford them as you will have far less dust to contend with. I'm currently using a flatbed and it's works. Just need to make sure to wipe it down everytime you want to use it. The scanner I have right now is the Epson 4490 and I can't recommend it enough for the price. The film holder scans 8 mounted 35mm slides or 2 strips of 6 frames of 35mm at a time. Here's a link to the scanner on Epson Australia's wensite: http://www.epson.com.au/products/scanner/perfection4490photo.asp . All the film shots in my gallery were done with this scanner. Hope this helps you started in the right direction. If you need more help with picking a specific scanner, let us know what your budget is going to be and also, do you have any editing software?

Aaron

Thanks for your help guys. I'll have a look at your suggestion Aaron and see what I can afford.
Hopefully I'll post up some pics of my film in due time.

EDIT: That's a lot cheaper than what I thought. i'll definitely have to get one of these

Cheers,
Dan

EDIT: That's a lot cheaper than what I thought. i'll definitely have to get one of these

If you have the budget, you might really want to consider a 35mm film scanner like the Nikon Coolscan V. They're about $500 USD or so but I really think you'll get much better results. Some of the flatbeds designed for negs have really gotten good, but they're always measured against decent dedicated film scanners. Glowing reviews usually mention that they "rival" film scanners, and a really nice flatbed will cost as much as a Coolscan V.

Some flatbeds have the advantage of being able to scan medium and large format film, which is really expensive with dedicated film scanners. These are big pieces of film, so that helps - compared to a comparatively small piece of 35mm.

One other thing - film scanners tend to be much, much smaller than flatbeds in terms of desktop space.

A dedicated film scanner is the way to go, as others mentioned here already. I used the Nikon coolscan for a while and loved it .It was very fast and easy to use and had great software that eliminated the dust that will gather on your negatives and show up on your scans. It goes for roughly 500.00 I believe. Another very good one is the minolta dimage series, I believe the latest model is the dimage IV. This goes for roughly 300.00 and may be a little more tedious to use but also delivers very good results. I owned the dimage III and that was very good so I would imagine the newer one would be as good or better.
Good luck!

Check out some locale photo labs, Most will do this when they process your film and make a set of prints and a disk for and extra modest price. The resolution varies with the lab so check out a couple. This will get you going untill you deside on a scanner.

I just wanted to second the recommendation for a dedicated film scanner. They aren't cheap, but they do a great job. If you need to save up for one, you can just get your lab to provide a CD with mid or low resolution files until you're ready. I recently got a Coolscan V, and I just made my first full-size print from a scan I did with it. It comes out to just over 12" x 18" at 300dpi. I never thought I'd be able to print 35mm film this big, but it looks very good. It was a shot made on Provia slide film and the grain is barely noticeable viewing from just a foot away. I'm really excited to make more prints now.

Paul

I just let the drug store do the scan. Ask for the highest resolution and no prints.

I bought a 90 dollar CanoScan 4400F. I get the same size files from my 35mm film camera as a 10 megapixel digital camera. Sharpness is not even a consideration, I am looking for softness and tonal control. My scanner is not very good. After using it for several months, I must say that it can give excellent scans but it takes twice the time per scan as a good scanner. I have to tweak every scan. A total pain in the a$$. I would suggest a dedicated film scanner. If you mess around then you get a mess, if you are exacting and committed then it is far more likely that is what you will see.

Scanning of negatives is new to me. Once you have scanned a negative how is this converted into a print? Is this done at a photolab or is software required to convert it prior to going to the photolab or printer?

Getting a print from a scanned negative can be done a couple ways. Once you scan a negative, it is technically no different than any image taken with a digital camera. It can be printed in on any photo printer. The other method works similarly to a normal analog enlarger print. The difference being that instead of light shining through a negative to cast your image on the paper, there is a digital projection onto the photo paper. Think of it like a mini movie projector. The the analog paper is processed just like you would with any other traditional print.

How do you convert the negative digital image to a positive one at the printer?

Any film scanner will convert it from a negative to a positive during the scanning process. If not, this can also be done in most photo editing software by using the "Invert" function.

How do you convert the negative digital image to a positive one at the printer?

Best results I had with traditional black and white film, with my ancient film scanner, were by scanning the film as a color slide. This way I'd get a negative image, and it may have a color cast to it. In Photoshop, I'd use "invert" and also convert to greyscale.

Yep, it's a lot of work. Seeing one of photophorous' recent scans, I think if I were to start doing this again I'd pick up the Coolscan V that he has... :)