Scanning old film negatives

jinny

Hi I don't know if I'm on the right thread
I have a load of old film negatives and rolls of old films from the family from years ago.
Can anyone tell me if it's possible to scan the negatives at least onto
A computer by using an ordinary printer scanner?
I've watched a couple of tutorials on y toob but it seems to involve digital cameras as light boxes.

One showed just scanning them then using an iPad or iPhone with reverse colours in the setting to view through the camera on to the screen I'm would try it but I don't want to risk spoiling my negatives
I'm just looking for a cheap way to preserve them

Le_Kirk

I use an Epson Perfection 4490 Photo. Not plugging Epson as other scanners are available but it works for me. It comes with frames into which you can clip negatives of various sizes (but not at the same time) and the software that was bundled with mine allows an Auto, Home and, for when you get more proficient, a Professional mode. Quality is good but it will not be better than the quality of the original negatives. Photoshop or similar photo editing software can clean up scratches, blemishes and correct colour tones. I have recently upgraded to Windows 7 and had no trouble getting the relevant drivers from the Epson web site.

InsideInsurance

It is possible to use a scanner but you normally need an adapter as a normal scanner works by the light being shined from below and reflected back by the thing being scanned and the image captured by the head.

Negatives obviously work in the opposite way, needing light to come through them rather than it being reflected off the surface. Generally the light on a regular scanner isnt bright enough to pass through the negative, reflect from the lid and pass back through the negative again.

The scanners designed to deal with negatives have a light built into the top too so it can work in either direction. Sometimes its sold as an optional extra, or at least there used to be some Epson that did, but the base scanner must be able to deal with it. I've not seen any multifunction printers that can but they could well exist.

These dont tend to be cheap but you can often buy basic dedicated negative scanners that are more cost effective.

macman

How many is 'a load'? Depending on the number of frames you need scanning, it may be cheaper to get this done commercially than by buying a film scanner just to do a one-off job.
There are film scanners available down to about £70 though, I couldn't vouch for the quality or ease of use.

droopsnoot

I bought a cheapo Maplin slide / negative scanner which I'd describe as "pretty good for the price". It won't be as good as a proper Nikon slide scanner, but then it was only £20. It's basically a close-focus webcam, light source and mount in the same box, and produces reasonable images which is fine for me, as I only have reasonable negatives to start with. If you were digitising a collection of great images, it would probably be worth a better scanner, for me it suffices.

jinny

Thanks for the quick replies
They are from old family photos some I want to keep
and some I don't. We had to wait until they came back from the chemist in the old days before getting rid of unflattering shots.
I might try the cheapo maplin scanner
Although they are precious I don't want to spend a lot
Thank goodness for modern digital cameras you can delete
Nasty ones at source.

InsideInsurance

jinny wrote: »

Thank goodness for modern digital cameras you can delete
Nasty ones at source.

Unfortunately there are some modern cameras that can post to the internet automatically. Yes you can delete them after taking them unlike film but potentially not before others have possible seen it, duplicated it and let it loose online.

GunJack

my dad ( keen photographer for years) scanned his with something like the maplins one. Took a long while as he had thousands but worked well enough

lofielectronic

As said mentioned you can buy slide/negative scanners at quite low cost, Aldi had one recently at £30 which was similar to the maplins ones I think.

The quality is quite good though I found the Aldi one I tried tended to chop off about a 10th of the photo depending on size and this was not adjustable. I would think even something like that though would be quicker and give better results than many of the home made options.

Sooler

Epson Vxxx or Canon 9000F are the affordable flatbed methods for scanning slides/negatives

http://akhildev143.hubpages.com/hub/6-Best-Flatbed-Photo-Scanners-Worth-Your-Money-Compare-Prices-and-Buy-Online

Epson - It'll take a minimum of 5 minutes per set of 4, longer with dust removing - Digital ICE

Mr_Toad

I asked the same question some time ago. I have my old family photographs taken by my parents who were both keen photographers from when they were teenagers right through my childhood and up to fairly recently. My father never went anywhere without a camera.

I have thousands of 35mm slides and thousands more negatives.

I had this idea that if I digitised them I'd have a computer record that I could browse through easily.

It's not going to happen, I've tried several of the cheap scanners and they might be OK for some but the quality is pretty dire compared to a slide or negative taken with a good camera, both parents had excellent cameras. Even better expensive scanners are no good as when I worked out how long it would take to scan them all I'll be long dead before I got half way.

Getting them professionally done was going to cost a fortune and at the end of the day who knows what storage devices and data format will be used in a few years or decades from now.

Properly stored the slides and negatives are probably the best, if not the easiest, way to keep them. My parents kept them in proper slide and negative boxes clearly labeled by date, location and subject but even so they are still a pain to look through and find stuff simply because of the sheer quantity.

Then there's the endless boxes of prints taken from the negatives..............