Scanning 8x10 negatives

[Matthew Rolfe]

I'm on a bit of a budget (£500 max) and looking for a scanner so that I can scan my 8x10 negatives with the intention of getting them onto the web and also creating a digital portfolio. I'm not looking for anything amazing - that is no doubt obvious from the budget - but I would like some advice on what scanners are good at a reasonable price. I've used Epson before and found them to give good results, unfortunately a lot of scanners I have looked at are way out of my price range. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks.

[Jeremy Moore]

Matthew, what do you mean by "creating a digital portfolio"? Are you talking about an online gallery of images or do you want to scan them to make inkjet prints from the files? If it's just to have an online gallery of the images and you are already printing the files in an analog fashion why not photograph the prints with a digital camera and save the expense of the scanner.

In terms of scanning 8x10 negatives for large files to make prints from, I use the Epson v700 which is £383 at the UK Amazon right now.

[Matthew Rolfe]

Jeremy, what I mean by a 'digital portfolio' is to create a digital backup of my work, which I can then use for displaying my work online, sending samples of my photographic work to someone or to make prints from.

thankyou for you advice on the scanner.

[Brian Ellis]

You should be able to find a used or refurbished Epson 4990 for well under your budget. Even a new Epson 700/750 is right around your budget, at least in the U.S., depending on exchange rates. If you didn't care about prints there probably are less expensive scanners that would work just fine but you mention making prints. If you want to make prints I think either of these two scanners would be a good choice. The 4990 is basically the same scanner as the 700/750 in terms of resolving ability (both are around 2100 ppi according to the tests I've seen, not the 4000 or so claimed by Epson). But 2100 is more than adequate, especially for 8x10 negatives.

[Daniel_Buck]

Epson 700/750 for sure. The Epson 4990 would be good (and cheap!), but you need to do some finagling with ANR glass because the scanner glass gives newtons rings when you just lay the film on the glass (or at least it does for me). I believe this is not a problem with the 700/750 models. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. You should have no problems scaning for a print that is a few times larger than 8x10!

[ljsegil]

Epson 700/750 for sure. The Epson 4990 would be good (and cheap!), but you need to do some finagling with ANR glass because the scanner glass gives newtons rings when you just lay the film on the glass (or at least it does for me). I believe this is not a problem with the 700/750 models. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Don't worry, I can get Newton's rings on my 750 any time I don't want them. Still playing with ways of getting the film off the scanner glass--like taping it to an 8x10 ANR glass (betterscanning.com) and then elevating the film off the scanner glass by placing coins under the corners of the ANR glass to raise the whole film/ANR mess, but this takes the film off the level of supposedly ideal focus when using the low resolution (film area guide) mode of the 750, which is necessary to scan at that size. I'm still experimenting to see if this significantly degrades the image, but real life keeps cutting into my "lab" time. One of these days.
Larry

[Daniel_Buck]

Larry, that's exactly what I do, tape the film to ANR glass suspended by 4 pennies :-) But, on the 4990, I believe the focus is just off the glass, so this works out great for me. It's a bit of a pain to tape the film to the glass each time, but it's not horrible. Would be nice if I could just throw the film onto the scanner and scan, but that doesn't work. I've thought about replacing the scanner glass with ANR glass, maybe someday I'll give that a try :-)

[L&Scape]

Matthew,
Newtons rings unavoidably develop when scanning 8x10 negatives or slides on glass. These are impossible to remove in PS. I have used Agfa 1200 (also Arcus) flatbed scanner where I have removed the glass and replaced it with 1mm plastic sheet where I have cut opening for 8x10" film. No more Newton rings, very good scanning result up to 16x20" enlargements and very cheap (less than 100 EUR on the Bay). The scanner will need SCSI card on your PC.

[Jim Michael]

We used to keep cornstarch in a plastic bottle with a squirt top around to prevent Newton rings. Give the bottle a quick squeeze so that a little cloud of cornstarch goes in the air and pass the shiny side of the neg through it.

[Brian Ellis]

Epson 700/750 for sure. The Epson 4990 would be good (and cheap!), but you need to do some finagling with ANR glass because the scanner glass gives newtons rings when you just lay the film on the glass (or at least it does for me). I believe this is not a problem with the 700/750 models. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. You should have no problems scaning for a print that is a few times larger than 8x10!

With my b&w 8x10 negatives on my 4990 I only got Newton rings if the emulsion side was down. With the emulsion side up they disappeared (or maybe it's vice versa, it's been a while since I scanned 8x10s but I know that one way I got the rings and the other way I didn't).

[Ken Lee]

Emulsion side down helps on the 4990, but you can still get Newton's Rings.

That's another reason I only shoot 5x7: the BetterScanning (http://www.betterscanning.com/scanning/models/4490.html) holders don't support 8x10.

[pandachromatic]

Where do you guys get 8x10 ANR glass? I can't find any on betterscanning.com.

[Jeremy Moore]

Where do you guys get 8x10 ANR glass? I can't find any on betterscanning.com.

Focal point, Inc.

Product: EPSON V750 AN GLASS 10.75 X 8.75 INCHES (Used to overlay film layed on the existiting scanner glass) ($ 95.00 ea.) [sic]