film Scanner

I am looking into a scanner to get 35mm negatives and slides onto my pc for editing and printing. Does anybody have any advice of what to look out for in a scanner or a model that is really good. My budget is up to 500 pounds
any help would be great,
cheers

We have a Nikon Coolscan IV which gives good results and will happily produce A3 prints from its 2920 dpi scans. However, if we were buying now we would go for the Coolscan V at 4000 dpi and I guess the quality will be even better.

The Coolscans come complete with slide and negative holders, are simple to operate and seem to do a very effective job.

I can recommend the Minolta Dimage Scan Elite 5400. I bought mine on Ebay for almost £400 and it has impressive specifications (maximum resolution of 5400x5400 dpi), see them here at:

http://shopping.yahoo.com/p:Minolta%20Dimage%20Scan%20Elite%205400%20Scanner:1991283333age=details

The scanner has been very well received and reviewed by the press and has some reviews on the following website:

http://www.pcphotoreview.com/Film,Scanner/Konica%20Minolta/PRD_173258_3126crx.aspx

Good luck
Simon

An alternative is the Epson 4870 flatbed and film scanner. The results are as good as a dedicated pro film scanners with some tweaking of settings. It also has workable batch scanning, dust and scratch removal and great colour management. I havn't used my coolscan since getting one as a flatbed replacement.

Cheers Pierre

I would also recommend the Minolta Dimage Scan Elite 5400. The Minolta software is quite good but as an alternative I have achieved some good results using Vuescan.

I bought myself an Epson perfection 4180 for christmas and have been scanning slides and pictures. I really like it, though it's only around 200 $ dollars here in the US, and if you can drop 500 pounds, you can get a much better scanner. I am only now getting into slides, and it has the inserts for slides & negatives. I think the next perfection is like 500$ plus. My only beef was the lack of documentation, though i figured it out.

David.

another vote for the Konica Minolta elite 5400. www.Dabs.com seem best for price and service

digital ICE is a must in the spec of any scanner used for old slides and negs

I couldn't afford an expensive film scanner so I went for the Minolta scan dual IV. I think the resolution is 3,120 x 4,680 dpi. It cost me about GBP210 from www.cameras2u.com

I second the suggestion of the Epson Perfection (Photo) series. The very high resolutions offered by some high-end dedicated film scanners are impractical for most of us because they output gigantic files.

The Perfections offer quite sufficient resolution for most purposes, and have the advantage that they also scan ordinary documents or photographs. This means you only need one scanner, not two.