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papazulu
23rd Mar 2007, 18:02
Hello everybody...

I am looking for anone that can give an advice on which is supposed to be the best flatbed scanner on the market. yeah, I know...we're in the digital camera era and you can nowdays buy a 10Mpixel for the price of a 5 yrs ago 5Mp but...loads od my beloved and most successful shots are on prints and/or slides (ekta/kodakchrome) and I can't wait to have them on my hard disk...

If anyone out there is a good photographer as well as an IT literate, please give me advice. I get bored quickly when it comes to hardware specs!

PZ :ok:

Bushfiva
24th Mar 2007, 00:17
For slides, anything with a slide feeder!

I'm gradually scanning my negatives and slides. 200 rolls have taken me about 3 years so far. Don't do it my way :-)

I've got an old Canon 4000US, which is OK. I had a Minolta before that which had terrible trouble focussing. Today, I'd probably get one of the Nikons.

I prefer a dedicated film scanner over a flatbed for my negs because the Canon, for example, has an infrared channel that detects dust, and that channel info can be used by scanning software to fix the image automagically.

The latest versions of Hamrick's Vuescan can save files in DNG format, so now I'm just scanning as DNG and JPG (the latter for reference) and will fix the DNGs later as and when I ever want to look at an image.

For flatbeds, assuming you're scanning in bulk, you need something with a straight-through feeder. I've recently started using one of the Fuji double-sided scanners. The image quality is adequate but the speed is unbeatable.

If I were starting over, I'd find someone else to do it and simply pay them, to be honest.

BusyB
24th Mar 2007, 19:18
Anyone know anything about the Canon Pixma MP800R?

I'm looking for a good all-in-one that is easy to scan negs with.:confused:

Warmtoast
25th Mar 2007, 22:53
I reviewed and demonstrated Canon's CanonScan 8600F for a PC User Group and Newsletter last November and was VERY impressed.

Here's what the review said:

CanonScan 8600F
Having seen this new scanner in action at the November meeting when we put it though its paces to see how well it coped with all we could throw at it, to do a review is rather superfluous other than for me to say its definitely one of the most versatile and easy to use photographic scanners I’ve yet tested.
As a reminder of what I said during my demo here is Canon’s description of its capabilities.
Description
For professional results when time is precious, the CanonScan 8600F delivers. With ultra high-speed previews and FARE Level 3 saving hours of manual retouching, you’ll be free to get on with creating.
Features
4800 x 9600dpi, 48 bit colour depth
FAU (Film Adapter Unit) — 12 x 35mm film strip and 4 x 35mm slides
FARE (Film Automatic Retouching and Enhancement) Level 3 dust/scratch removal for film
Super-fast scan engine
Comprehensive software package with SilverFast SE
USB 2.0 Hi-Speed
7 EZ buttons
Fast Multi-photo mode
Performance scanning for the advanced user.
Professional quality. With a 4800 x 9600 dpi CCD sensor capturing incredible detail, the CanonScan 8600F delivers superb, crisp images suitable for enlargement and high-resolution printing. The 48-bit colour depth ensures your scans have exceptionally accurate colour reproduction.
Film scanning
The CanonScan 8600F is equipped with a versatile built-in film adapter unit (FAU), allowing you to scan 12 x 35mm negatives in a single operation. It can also take up to 4 mounted slides and 120 format film.
Automatic retouching. Using infrared scanning detection, FARE Level 3 technology automatically restores scratched, damaged or faded film to its former glory, saving hours of manual retouching. It also reduces graininess resulting from high speed film, and includes backlight compensation. QARE Level 3 performs the same functions for photo prints.
Ultra-fast scans. The CanonScan 8600F’s super fast scan engine optimises your productivity, providing previews in just 4 seconds. Even when scanning at maximum resolution, workflow remains efficient as the USB 2.0 Hi-Speed connection ensures speedy data transfer.
Powerful software. The CanonScan 8600F is bundled with a suite of powerful software tools that deliver outstanding functionality, performance and productivity. LaserSoft’s SilverFast SE gives you professional level control over the scan process, reducing the requirement for post scan image processing. Also included are the award winning Adobe PhotoShop Elements, for powerful image processing, and ScanSoft OmniPage SE for Optical Character Recognition. Canon’s ScanGear and CanonScan Toolbox have been upgraded to include better than ever image quality and functionality.
EZ buttons. Offering flexibility and saving you time, seven scan buttons provide one-touch operation of common scan tasks. Customise these to perform the functions you use most: copying, scanning, PDF file creation, or sending to your e-mail program. Four of the buttons are dedicated to scanning straight to PDF, including scanning in colour or mono.
Scan Multi-photos. The CanonScan 8600F further saves time with Canon’s fast Multi-Photo mode, which allows you to scan up to 10 separate images in a single pass, then work on each one separately. Multi-Photo automatically identifies, crops and straightens multiple images, even recognizing the type of original you use (film or photo).
Conclusions
What did I like most? The ability to scan documents, brochures, magazine articles and similar as PDF files. As my usual PDF creation application is Adobe’s Acrobat, I was very surprised at how well it did this. User input is minimal. Place the original document face down on the platen, select the EZ PDF button, colour button for colour PDFs, or Black and White (Greyscale) buttons if you want it in that format and off it goes and scans. When the first page has been scanned you’re asked whether you want to scan further pages etc. When you’ve finished, the PDF is created, saved to the location you select, given a file name like 0001.pdf and that’s it. Give it a better and recognisable file name as you wish, but retaining the .pdf extension — it’s remarkably simple and easy.
Scanning your photos or transparencies is just as easy and as an SE version of OmniPage Pro is bundled this makes OCR scanning and recognition painless and easy.
With its bundled software which includes Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0, SilverFast SE, OmniPage Pro SE and first-rate optical performance, this scanner is in my opinion superb value for money.
Pricing and Availability
£137 from Amazon.co.uk

NB. As an example of how well the CanonScan 8600F scanned, I scanned in an over 50-year old 4in x 3in print of London Heathrow taken from the air, the contrast and brightness of which had deteriorated over the years. I enhanced the scanned image using Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI and the photo itself can be seen at:

http://groups.msn.com/TonyHawesRAFService195163/rafbovingdon1956.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=1060

PM me if you'd like a copy of the newsletter containing the review in question (16-pages in PDF format, 2Mb in size).

Tony

BusyB
26th Mar 2007, 08:26
Tony,
Thanks for the info. One further question is does the software work on Macs or do they do a mac version.
Thanks:)

Warmtoast
26th Mar 2007, 10:04
BusyB

Scanner itself works with a MAC, but the bundled Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 software is Win XP/Vista only as far as I recall.

I'm not a Mac user and only tested it using Windows XP.

Tony

IO540
26th Mar 2007, 19:11
For slides, I have a Nikon ED5000 with a SF-210 bulk feeder. Made an easy job of my ~ 5000 slides, with top quality results. Total cost about £1500, which is half of the cheapest quote I got for getting them scanned.

I am thinking about offering a slide scanning service...

Warmtoast
26th Mar 2007, 19:40
£1,500 is a lot. I'm not sure I could persuade "er-indoors" that it was a vital purchase!

I've got around 2,000 slides, both 35-mm Kodachrome and 2½-inch square Ektachrome. The 35-mm slides are normally viewed with a slide projector whilst the 2½-inch slides have been scanned in and are now backed up digitally. My current scanner is a 2-3 year-old Epson Perfection 4990 Photo that works very well and has suitable masks for scanning both slide sizes.
As a bonus Epson have posted Vista drivers on their support web pages so the 4990 works well with the new OS.

Tony

bladewashout
27th Mar 2007, 08:16
I have a pixma 780 all-in-one, bought about a year ago.

Ink is very cheap, quality is unbelievable - with a 7MP+ camera it's no different on an A4 size print to a blown up SLR image processed professionally.

Fax is fine, and the 780 has an autofeeder which works really well, up to 35 pages. It s also supposed to have software which will recognise several photos on the platen and split them up when scanning, so you can import lots at a time, but I haven't got round to using it. Photocopies fine in colour or B&W.

Only downside was that a small tooth on part of the mechanism which allows you to open up the thing to access ink has broken, makes opening it a pain. I could order the replacement part but, again, I haven't got round to it and I only need to open it every few months.

I did a fair amount of research before buying, and the Pixma all-in-one machines are a very good buy.

BW

IO540
27th Mar 2007, 19:27
I agree £1500 is a lot but I did a lot of tests against lesser scanners and there is a very visible difference in things like the contrast range.

You can get a slide scanner for a few hundred which gets close but if you are into nature /outdoor shots (I mean landscapes rather than nudes :) ) then contrast is quite important.

Contrast range, rather than plain colour accuracy, is also what you mainly pay for in flatbed scanners nowadays. Resolution is two a penny...

PilotsPal
14th Feb 2008, 13:48
In the interests of continuity, I thought it might be more appropriate to resurrect this thread rather than start something new.

I'm contemplating the purchase of a Hewlett Packard Scanjet G4050. If there's anyone out there with experience of using one for scanning transparencies, I'd be very grateful to read your views.

makintw
15th Feb 2008, 05:11
IO540, interested to hear how the bulk loader works. Is it a case of stacking a pile of slides, press start, and come back later?

I have an old Minolta Dimage scanner - 4 at a time, quality so so and gave up long ago as was too much like hard work to bulk process box after box.

Can also recommend Hamrick Vuescan

cats_five
15th Feb 2008, 13:07
For slides, I have a Nikon ED5000 with a SF-210 bulk feeder. Made an easy job of my ~ 5000 slides, with top quality results. Total cost about £1500, which is half of the cheapest quote I got for getting them scanned.

I am thinking about offering a slide scanning service...


Gosh - the price has gone up since I got mine a couple of years ago! I brought the ED5000 new for about £800 and the feeder on Ebay for £200. The feeder needs watching as it tends to feed two slides at once, despite the adaption with an old credit card.

IO540
15th Feb 2008, 20:11
IO540, interested to hear how the bulk loader works. Is it a case of stacking a pile of slides, press start, and come back later?

Yes, in essence. The bulk feeder holds the slides horizontally and it is spring loaded, and they get extracted from one section and end up stacked in another section of the feeder. Works well - I recall having problems only with some obscure (very thin) cardboard mounts.

Gosh - the price has gone up since I got mine a couple of years ago! I brought the ED5000 new for about £800 and the feeder on Ebay for £200. The feeder needs watching as it tends to feed two slides at once, despite the adaption with an old credit card.

I bought the ED5000 from Park Cameras (Burgess Hill) about 2-3 years ago. I've still got it, and would sell it.

makintw
18th Feb 2008, 11:22
ta IO540 - sounds like the way to go