Flat Bed v. Film Scanner

[Roger E. Oppenheimer]

I am interested in purchasing a scanner for my 35 through 4x5 negatives. Does a nyone know what type of scanner I should by?

I currently have a Nikon LS1000 which is limited to 35mm only.

Thanks for your help!

[Mike Mahoney]

Roger, the answer to that depends on your requirements. for web work, i'm getting by with a UMAX e3470, a low end scanner by all accounting, but at 600 dpi with a good 4X5 neg, it's adequate for most web applications. when i need printing done, or when my scanners limited Dmax shows, i get a drum scan. so that's both ends of the scanning spectrum, and it all depends on what the final output is gong to be. the archives should provide some limited scanner opinions, and there are numerous sites offering scanner reviews -

[john g]

You should have a 35mm or 35mm to medium format scanner and a flatbed scanner with a transparency adapter. The flatbeds work great for 120- 4X5 but do a horible job. This may sound expensive but I have a Canoscan 2710 {$500.00} and an Acer 1200UT flat bed {$150.00} both do an incredible job.

[Pierre Kervella]

I have also a pair of scanners: one film scanner for 35mm only (Canoscan 2710F, $500), and a flatbed for the medium and large format scans (Canoscan D2400UF, $500). They are providing very good results for their respective scanning formats (from~30 Mb 24bits files for the 35mm up to ~600 Mb 48bits for a 4x5" with the flatbed).

The desktop alternatives to two separate devices are quite expensive: they are called Polaroid Sprintscan 45 or Imacon Flextight, multi thousand $ solutions... :-)