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A modern 35mm film scanner for home

soke.engineering

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Re: A modern 35mm film scanner for home

#181

Post by snowwrestler »

roblh wrote: post #108
snowwrestler wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re for sure exceeding the linear resolving power of 35mm film at 40MP or 64MP. However , a Bayer-filtered sensor has lower color resolution, since each pixel only sees one color. So the pixel shift really helps quite a bit here since the sensor (and Bayer array) are shifting relative to the film multiple times per exposure. High-quality film scanners maintain color resolution by using linear sensors without Bayer…

All the current Nikon Z bodies (and probably other brands too) have different levels of pixel shift where it’ll take 4 or 8 images and basically cancel out that it’s a bayer sensor. The bayer array is a 4 pixel pattern, so it moves one pixel to the right then one down and then one back to capture all 3 channels for each individual pixel. For things like film scanning it works flawlessly, I use it all the time. Then i…

It’s been a feature of Olympus (now OM System) high-end cameras for years. I did not realize that Nikon had picked it up as well.

Re: A modern 35mm film scanner for home

#182

Post by metal_am »

ralferoo wrote: post #176

Seems weird. The fact it talks about rolls of film and reading DX codes suggests that it's able to scan undeveloped film. Maybe that's possible, but I've never heard of that before. If it only scans developed film, then it's unlikely to still be in the cannister with DX codes, and I've never seen that film delivered to a customer in a roll - it's normally cut up into strips so they can be stored flat.

Developed film has a bar code type of encoding for DX info. The talk about the whole roll is the ability to scan the entire thing in one go vs having to load in multiple strips.

Re: A modern 35mm film scanner for home

#183

Post by jdelman »

skhr0680 wrote: post #116
jdelman wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The workflow for this scanner would allow you to thread an uncut roll of 35mm film through it. You'd have to spend more than $0 to get that kind of speed on a DSLR rig.

1. I had never even heard of an uncut developed roll of film before, so I guess it's useful for that. 2. Time is money, but who is honestly shooting that much 135 film that it's worth 1600 Euros to buy a faster scanner for it? I don't think a museum wants to feed degraded film through a fast scanner, and surely pros who still shoot film would use a larger format, since that's where it has some differences / advantage…

> I had never even heard of an uncut developed roll of film before

That's how film is developed. Someone at a lab has to cut it.

> who is honestly shooting that much 135 film

How about a film lab? A place where "uncut developed film" is extremely common.

>it's worth 1600 Euros to buy a faster scanner for it

Price is 999 euro.

> pros who still shoot film would use a larger format

Some do, some don't. It depends on the project. I'm a little surprised by your comment looking at your history. You say you're a retired professional photographer and you've never heard of "uncut developed film" before? If you're retired in 2025, you must have been working when all photography was on film. You never developed a roll of film before?

Re: A modern 35mm film scanner for home

#185

Post by pentakkusu »

ceving wrote: post #184

Is there anyone in the world who hasn't cut their negatives into strips? https://www.beauphoto.com/product/printfile-archival-negativ... The ability to scan an entire film seems rather useless to me in light of that.

I for example develop my (black and white) films myself and leave them to hang dry uncut, then proceed to store them in a box. When I have the time, I "scan" them using a MILC on a tripod, a 3d printed holder and a LED backlight panel. Afterwards I cut the strips up and file them properly for long term archival. Many of us do it this way.

Re: A modern 35mm film scanner for home

#187

Post by MBCook »

jamil7 wrote: post #177
MBCook wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medium is the problem. There’s nothing. Epson stopped making their flatbeds that do film, reportedly because they can’t get the CCDs anymore. That may be a rumor. The result is they go for 2x MSRP on eBay for models that are many years old. Because that’s all that exists. Without that, you can buy the kind of scanner meant for a photo lab ($$$$$), DIY it with a DSLR ($$$ if you don’t have one), or pay your a lab a lo…

I don't shoot 120, only 35mm. But I thought you could get away with a high end flatbed scanner for 120 negatives?

From what I’ve seen people mostly used the Epson scanners like the V600, V700, V850, etc.

They stopped making them early this year. Only the top end model for $1500 still exists and I don’t know if that’s because they still make it or just that there is still stock left at Amazon/etc.

Re: A modern 35mm film scanner for home

#188

Post by tomatocracy »

trauco wrote: post #174
alistairSH wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slides are going to manual because they’re (usually) individually mounted. I haven’t seen any consumer scanner that has an auto feed. Good ones have a nice sprocket wheel but you still feed manually with a wheel.

You can get a slide feeder for the “modern” (early aughts) Nikon Coolscans, the SF-210: https://studio-supplies.com/products/nikon-sf-210-239995

The slide feeder is good but it's worth being aware that if you have slides mounted on cardboard (I had a lot of old family photos like this I used it for) it will often grab a couple at once. You can fix that by clipping eg a driver's licence in the right place to narrow the gap it pulls the slides through, but it will still need some manual supervision.

If you get one, have a look at VueScan on the software side - the original software needs (I think) a Windows XP virtual machine to drive it.

Re: A modern 35mm film scanner for home

#189

Post by mastazi »

mastazi wrote: post #54

Archive link for those who, like me, are unable to scroll on that page https://web.archive.org/web/20251111210606/https://www.soke.... PS to add more - I am unable to scroll, all I see is the picture with the dark background. If I use arrow keys instead of the touchpad, I can scroll a bit then after a second or so the page snaps back to the top. I have Firefox on MacOS. (I know the HN rules say that we should focus o…

Just to add to it: I found out that disabling the plugin Logitech SetPoint allows me to scroll (it's slow and unpleasant but at least I can scroll)

Re: A modern 35mm film scanner for home

#190

Post by rekabis »

JFC, for that price I can get a NiB Epson Perfection v850 Pro, and have something that can scan film almost as effectively and is a full-blown generalist scanner, to boot. The best consumer scanner ever released, IIRC.
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