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A modern 35mm film scanner for home

soke.engineering

11–20 of 198 posts

Re: A modern 35mm film scanner for home

#12
When it comes to the light source, it's a huge missed opportunity. The next wave of film scanning involves capturing Red, Green and Blue separately (separate narrow-band LEDs) to better isolate C-41 layers and counteract crossover on the image sensor. And yes, it should have an IR pass as well, for dust removal.

With that said, I'm happy to see new film products released in 2025/2026. Hopefully this is just the first at-bat.

Re: A modern 35mm film scanner for home

#17

I applaud their intent to be repairable, but would really like to see a commitment to open sourcing the software under specific conditions (time, EoL, acquisition, closing down, etc). > “Is Knokke open, repairable, and long-term supported?” > “Absolutely. We're committed to building a scanner that lasts decades. All schematics and repair manuals will be publicly available, replacement parts can be purchased directly,…

In the FAQs:

Is the software open source?

Yes. Our control application, Korova, will be fully open source and maintained long term. It’s a native, lightweight application for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Re: A modern 35mm film scanner for home

#18

Hmm, does seem pretty expensive but sounds interesting. I've got an old Canon FS4000 for 35mm, which works ok for me. I'm curious what people recommend for 4x5 film. Is there such a thing as a cheap drum scanner.

I haven't done 4x5 in a while, but I have an HP flatbed with a 4x5 adapter (purchased used on ebay) which does an OK job for the price.

Re: A modern 35mm film scanner for home

#19
post #6

As someone who has a mirrorless scanning setup for my film, and pondered getting a dedicated scanner... the price of this is quite steep given how inflexible of a tool it is. A second hand DSLR setup is going to be roughly the same price or less. I'm also not sure what kind of workflow improvements it actually offers. If you want fancy and experimental, filmomat has arguably a more interesting but pricier offering. B…

> A second hand DSLR setup is going to be roughly the same price or less.

And if you get one with Pixel Shift, you can get way higher resolutions than the 22MP they're offering (e.g. my cheapo Olympus gets 40MP JPEG or 64MP RAW from a 16MP sensor.)

Re: A modern 35mm film scanner for home

#20
Disappointed to see that the first reactions on HN are so dismissive.

I'm both amazed and really pleased to see anyone attempting to launch a totally new scanner in 2025, and genuinely hoping the actual scans are really made at the resolution and color-depth claimed in the text: too many recent scanners are simply upscaled, lower bit-depth devices marketed with exaggerated specs.

I also have a Nikon Coolscan 9000, so I'm not immediately in the market for this. But I don't expect the Coolscan to last forever, and the Firewire connections on the machine are already abandoned by Apple, who chose not to support the cables in their latest Operating System - so eventually I won't be able to connect it to a new computer.

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