What's A Good Film Scanners?

Question

I was informed today that it was possible to scan black and white film negatives onto the computer, and process them as if they were shot digitally using a film scanner. I thought this was only possible using slide film. Long story short, I'm considering getting back into film photography. What is a good film scanner, other than the Nikon Coolscan, that is around $200 or less, but still very good. Also, will the scanned negative be suitable for sizes of around 8x10? While still retaining all the details? I was considering the Canon 8800F, Canon 600 lide, and the Epson V200. Any suggestions? Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

Epsons are generally considered the best.

Ilford XP2 scans beautifully, indeed, you could call it amazing. (No silver crystals for the scanner to diffract through.)

Answer 2

I have used an Epson scanner, that also does negatives, and it does a decent job.  

What I have noticed, is that you can scan the negatives at the highest possible quality, which might give you like a 300MB file. But then when you take it into Photoshop you can adjust the size, and resolution to what you need.  It just helps to scan it at the hight possible setting.  The Epson scanner I have is several years old, so I do not know anything about the new ones.  But I have always been satisfied with any and all Epson products I have used.

Thanks for reading!

Answer 3

I have to point out that you are asking two different questions:

1) What is a good film scanner, and

2) What is a cheap scanner

I say this because I've never found the results from a combination flatbed/film scanner to be anywhere near as good as the results from a real film scanner. The Epson units give OK results, but nothing like what the Coolscan will give you. The PPI rating (some call it DPI) is only one specification and can be misleading.

You can probably find a decent dedicated film scanner used, since more an more people are going to DSLR cameras and getting out of film.