I just looked up the NCPS website. The high resolution scan is 3339x5035 pixels. The cost is $ 11.95/roll. It didn't say if that was 24 or 36 exposure. It's probably the same. Individual scans at this resolution are around $ 3.00. Might as well get the whole roll at that price.

DaveO

I believe NCPS has three levels of scans when you send your film in. I don't know what the specs are on the scans though. They also scan individual negatives at a much higher price and probably better resolution.

DaveO

I have looked into it and I think I will either get one of the 2 higher end Plustek optical scanner or get a coolscan if I can find one that someone hasnt jacked the price up on. It does make more sense because I would like to almost take 3 different scans almost like bracketing and merge them together to get all the detail out of the neg.

I had some scans done by this person in the UK on a Hasselblad X5, I didn't think you could get that much detail out of a 35mm slide, but, I was amazed & the price was good too.

http://www.ianscovell.com/isleofwight/filmscanningservice.html

>>Would you say the V700/750 is just as good or better then getting the nikon coolscans?<<

No way. Flatbeds typically have no focusing capability. They're preset to a given position, and assume the film plane will be there. It works, sometimes. They compensate for focus differences by applying digital sharpness. Nasty.

The Coolscans (and most higher-end film scanners) focus on the surface of the film itself. The film holder, even the non-glass-based ones, are pretty good at keeping the film relatively flat. All bets are off on slide-mounted film, as you're only be able to focus on a given area and film curvature will knock the rest out of focus.

Hi res scanning can be a double edge sword, especially with negs. Unless you do multi-pass scanning, you're going to get noisy scans, regardless of scanner used. Scanning negs at high res CAN be useful in in single-pass, but only if you interpolate down to a lower res after optimizing your image. Interpolating down smooths out the noise. So scanning a neg at high res has it's uses.

Unfortunately as mentioned here the Coolscans are no longer in production, so you'll have to go used if you want one. The only available new scanners are the Plustek-style units. I don't know how well these work, but they don't appear to be horrible from what I've read.

All this of course depends on how many images you intend to scan. If it's only a handful, then sending out and paying whatever may suffice, you'll have to add the total up for the scans and see if getting something like a Plustek may be a better route to take. If you have a lot of image then having your own film scanner is a must.

I would suggest a place like scancafe or other commercial labs for batch work that you don't care too much about. This would be great for family pictures, or for just archiving your previous work, since it will save you a LOT of time.

For doing careful scans, I prefer to handle that myself- my lab charges $7 for a 4000ppi scan and takes a few days. I've since then joined a photo club which lets me use the same scanner they use, but for substantially lower cost and faster turn around. It's still a lot of work, and it took me the better part of 4 months (working very sporadically) to get a few hundred high quality scans done.

What I would suggest you do depends on a lot of things- how much film you plan on scanning, how much resolution you need, what your budget is like, etc. Depending on these, and other variables, one of those options might be better.

aesnakes said:
Would you say the V700/750 is just as good or better then getting the nikon coolscans?

The Nikons have the better reputation for being more 'upmarket' and able to do better.At least that is the perception I get - be interested in what others say, as I've not used them myself.

One thing is for sure, they are more expensive and in some cases much more so than a gently used V700. Also, for what it's worth, haven't Nikon discontinued them? At least Epson are still making new scanners...

Ask yourself if you really need 4,000dpi, when your 35mm frame might have no more than half that in it (perhaps less if over/user exposed)? Do you really WANT such outstanding scans of each particle of grain (you might, who am I to say)?

If the image data is there, then you can do some really great things with a top quality scanner. I have a few (only a few) such scans from my old B&W MF negs from decades ago, and they are some incredible pictures...got half a dozen 48Mp image files... but those are done on drum scanners, which is an entirely different story.

Would you say the V700/750 is just as good or better then getting the nikon coolscans?

aesnakes said:
What have you guys done to get what you wanted from your film negatives? Ive thought about a scanner but its quite expensive for how good I would want it. But $39.99 per scan is also way too expensive.

Before I started to get into scanning my own negs, I went to a local pro print outfit (we have ONE in my city), and they were after $12 a frame. A few rolls of film at those prices and I'd have been better off buying my own scanner, which I did! Now I want a better scanner, which I won't get just yet...

Check out: scantips.com where he has an app (calc.cgi), which will show you the math to arrive at a 20Mp image from a 4000dpi scan.

A well set up Epson V700 or V750 will match or maybe even outperform the ability of a 35mm frame.

I've used Scancafe for some 2 1/4 chromes. Quality is good and they're always having sales. The last email I got was for 17.5 cents per scan.

Hi everyone, I had an F65 and just recently bought a Nikon F100 to shot some special moments in analogue. ( just had a little girl a few weeks ago ;))

So I did have a place around here do a hires scan from certain selections on a roll of film. The thing I cant believe is how costly it was to SCAN? All I wanted was a file that had enough resolution like 4000 X ? and was 16bit so I could have enough latitude to see what film could really do.

What have you guys done to get what you wanted from your film negatives? Ive thought about a scanner but its quite expensive for how good I would want it. But $39.99 per scan is also way too expensive.