Converting film to digital

[McCormack]

OK, I very much appreciate all the helpful advice that you good folks have given me in this thread. My A-1 has basically been in mothballs for the past couple of years - and in fact at one point I even tried to sell the camera - but now that I know that I can post pictures on the web I've started to shoot pictures again. I even recently bought a flash unit for the camera, so that's going to allow me to shoot a whole bunch of low-light subjects that I wasn't able to before, and I'm looking forward to experimenting with the flash side of photography.

I've still got the HP point and shoot digicam in it's box laying around the house here, and I supose I'll have to break that open one of these days and see if I can figure out how to use it.
Cheers!

[CRF59]

I would offer a few thoughts based upon my experiences and my particular likes and dislikes. I still own many film cameras but also own DSLRs and a Canon G7 digital P&S. I like them all, but to be really honest some of my best digital files come from scanned 35mm film. I don't own an exotic drum scanner, I own the Nikon Coolscan V ED (about $600 bucks I think).

While the price sounds high, by the time you scan a few dozen rolls of film, you're getting into the same area of cost that a good lab would charge to do it for you. Quality? My scans are excellent (even if the photographer stinks!) and I have lots of control over all parameters.

My DSLRs do produce excellent images that, up to reasonable print size, are at least a match for scanned film. BUT, I have scanned images from my Leica CM 35mm P&S that no digital compact will hold a candle to. Lots of my friends are equally as convinced now having seen comparisons.

My motivation for buying the scanner was not that I had lots of my own film to scan primarily. My primary reason was that I have thousands of slides that my father took as far back as the 1950s that I have no digital file or prints of. It's more than worth the effort in my opinion to preserve the images and make prints of the exceptional ones. Even Kodachrome doesn't last forever. By the way, the Nikon scanners do a wonderful job with Kodachrome and other film types. I'm not sure I buy that negative film is superior. After all, nearly every picture you ever saw in National Geo and other publications up until 5 or so years ago was from a transparency. However, Fuji Provia, Velvia and Kodachrome all look equally wonderful when carefully scanned.

Anyway, my point is that I think the scanning of film is not a tedious chore, but one that gets you involved in the preservation of memories and learning the fundamentals of image manipulation. I love it and will continue doing it as long as I can buy film. Cheers.:thumbsup:

[another view]

Hi and welcome, great post! The Coolscan V is a great option - a friend has one. If I were doing much of this anymore I'd look at one too.