Filmscanner ???

[filmgrain]

Hi everyone, that's my first post on this board. As a short introduction of myself, I unfortunately do not own any Zeiss glass (yet!), shoot with Nikkor & Mamiya lenses on film & digital.

Here my question for the scanning part of film, what scanners are folks using currently? I'm lusting after a Coolscan 9000, and wanted to know if it's worth the investment, or if I'm better off to spend $50 for an Imacon scan at my local lab. That gives me about 45-50 35mm & 645 formats scans, not alot. I'm scanning for aprox 16x20 inch prints from 645 negatives.

Any thoughts appreciated!

[daddio]

plustek is a good scanner, about $250.00 comes with software for windows or mac but not sure for medium format film i mostly shoot 35mm b&w

[LeeBee]

If you take a lot of shots I recommend using a flatbed like the Epson V700, it does a decent job of scanning anything, but can handle 12 35mm slides or 24 b/w negatives. While the images are not as good as the Coolscan (I had a ED-IV) they are fine to give a 90% quality review of your shots with a lot less effort. It will not damage your b/w negatives which is a real problem if you ever get any dirt into the Coolscan.
For the few great shots you want to print get a high res. scan at the local shop, in my opinion.
LeeBee

[Peter_S]

I second LeeBee's comment. I have a Epson 4990, similar (older) to the V700. Fine for webshots and the occassional print (if you feel inclined to print from a scanned file).
Each year I have my best 10 analog photos (or so) send to a scan service with a Imacon X1 and experience. This saves me from buying an expensive scanner and leaves the scanning to somebody experienced.

Look at hybridphoto.com. Lots of good advice there.

Peter