My girlfriend asked me to ask you guys about this. Her parents have boxes and boxes of negatives. They’d like to convert them to digital. Is there a preferred device out there worth trying? Last time I checked into this (many years ago), the tech was pretty young and awkward. I quick Google search pulled up many different devices. I have no idea what to look for.
So has anyone gone through this recently with some brilliant advice to share?
PS: Sending the negatives out and paying someone to do this is apparently not an option.
Many modern flatbed scanners include slide and negative scanning. Some have automatic feeders, although they'll cost more. Certainly there are dedicated film scanners, as well, but they are really pricey. Maybe look at some of the Epson pro scanner line?
Nikon, that's who I was thinking of.
Thanks. I didn’t look at the Epson flat beds, but will. My main issue with flat bed scanners is speed. Unless they’ve improved over the past few years, they’re pretty slow when you consider having several hundred scans.
It looks like the Nikon units are professional grade and the Canon are home user grade. I think the Nikon units are outside the budget. $2000 is pretty high. The Canons at $200 and less are much more reasonable. Are there any somewhere between, like $500-ish?
Canon's are basically flat bed scanners, with backlights for slides/film/transparencies. It's the software which speeds things up. You load the bed with rows of film, and it scans the multiple images at once. Then it detects boarders and separates each image from the others.
I'm guessing that many scanners now include the software to do the same thing. So you could pick up a $500 flatbed, with transparency hood, and do what you need there. Just make sure it has software to help automate the scanning process.