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| Microtek's ScanMaker i800. |
After years of shooting film you've switched to digital for good. Now you have to deal with the horde of negatives and chromes you have in storage. Some represent your best work. Others were given to you for safe keeping by family members. All of them need to be scanned into digital images, but thinking about it makes your palms drip.
You know that you are going to need a new piece of hardware, and you've heard some conflicting information about the choices. Reading an advertisement for scanners is like reading a breakfast menu in Iceland -- the alphabet's the same as ours and you recognize some of the food, but it's hard to tell exactly what to order. Unless you're careful you can end up with a plate of lutefisk and wassa bread.
Relax -- scanners are not nearly as complicated as they may seem.
There are three types of scanners: drum, film and flatbed. Drum scanners are priced too high for home use. They're mostly popular with service bureaus and wholesale labs who charge upwards of $40 to scan 4x5 transparencies for pros.
We've all heard bad things about office variety flatbed scanners. We've been told that flatbeds are fine for snapshooters, but not for "serious" photographers who want the kind of resolution that allows making big prints. That's still true in most cases. Despite high ppi (pixels per inch) ratings, only a few flatbeds such as the Epson Perfection 4990 Pro Scanner ($600 street) actually focus on the film plane and give you more than 1000 ppi resolution -- or enough for a 4x6 print from 35mm film. If you have just a few slides or a lot of paper prints to scan, a flatbed makes a great choice. But if you want to get the very best results from film originals you need a film scanner.
The three major film scanner manufacturers are Nikon, Microtek and Pacific Image, with Nikon owning the largest share. Konica Minolta also was a well-regarded player in film scanning, but since the company's withdrawal from the photography category earlier this year, the only KM scanners available are those still sitting in dealers' inventory.
A dedicated film scanner is going to cost as much as a high quality digital camera -- and could cost more than a top digital SLR. Nikon's lowest priced film scanner, the Coolscan V ED, sells for $550 (street) and handles film sizes up to 35mm. If you have a hodgepodge of older film sizes (828, 126, 127, and so forth) or medium format material you'll have to step up a level. Larger formats up to 6x9 (2¼ x 2¾ inches) require a scanner like the Nikon Coolscan 9000 ED (view test results) -- which will set you back a cool $1900 (street).
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