Scanner purchase assistance please

[Billy T]

Hi Team

I've been looking to purchase a new scanner and I've been reading reviews for the CanoScan 5600F, 8800F and 9000F. I am leaning toward the 9000F despite its price as I often wish to do high resolution scanning.

I also need to scan a fair number of colour negatives and 35mm slides, and looking at one review (which I can't find again ) I noted that the reviewer said it took 8 minutes to scan one negative strip and that simply didn't make sense, given repeated mention of 8 second scan times, admittedly for simple tasks. This review says about a minute.

Does anybody use a 9000F for slide and negative scanning, or any Canon LED scanner in the 5,8,9 range for that matter?

Cheers

Billy 8-{)

[Nomad]

Billy, I still do a bit of photog with film.

I have a V700 which is price comparative to the one you are on about.
The advice I received from hobbyists and pro's incl a color mgmt consultant which I met at the camera club is that high end consumer flatbeds are ok for medium format film but for 35mm they may not provide enough real resolution given the smaller 35mm size.

Given the price of those units $600+ arn't they, you may want to get a $400-600 dedicated scanner on Trademe, they are pretty much discontinued unless you get the medium format version new which is insanely expensive in NZ.

People have said a flatbed scanner may have a real resolution of 1,000 dpi, if you scan anything higher it's just larger filesize.

Re: time. It varies considerably. If you scan 4000 dpi which is what dedicated scanners do, flatbeds may spend 5-8min per shot, yes with ice, I think if you don't use ice a shot may take 1min If you doing strips automatically that would just increase proportionally. I've never scanned strips in high reso, only small reso, too painful on the hard drive space and too long.

Re: auto scanning strips. If the shot is quite dark and stuff, it could crop your images. LIke the top and bottom is cut off (esp fireworks or dark indoor museums etc) You may also get shots in between the two - like half of frame 2 and half of frame 1. You may need to resort to manual scanning per shot and maybe increase the brightness just so that you can see the film mask, make your crop selection and then preview scan again and then fully scan it etc.

I got the flatbed b/c I intend to get into sheet film. If I was just doing 35mm I would of gotten a dedicated scanner for the same price (new at the time) and way better quality. The thing between flatbeds and dedicated is the dmax, dedicated scanners are able to extract more shadow detail. A more $$ flatbeds will do a similar job compared to say a cheaper flatbed. If you just want a record scan any of the cheaper flatbeds will do.

[Nomad]

I'll add that dedicated scanners have auto focus ability for each diff frame.

Flatbeds have fixed focussing, the film holders might have feet that you can install rubber feets on them but if the film curls etc .. your focus may be off so you may get less sharp images.

[Billy T]

People have said a flatbed scanner may have a real resolution of 1,000 dpi, if you scan anything higher it's just larger filesize.

Personally I don't just accept 100% what 'people' say, they may be right, but I prefer to research specifications for myself to confirm or reject.

Apparently the 9000F is Canon's top of the line flatbed and according to them it is 9600 x 9600dpi optical (not interpolated), though I wouldn't want or need to use that level of resolution.


Full specs here

It is supposed to scan very fast, which seems to be confirmed by some of the reviews I have read, apart from the 20 minute example. Price is just over $400 so it is not a bad buy and it comes with very good Canon and third party software.

Reviews for the 8800F and 5600F are similarly complimentary, and I read a review of the 8800F by a professional photographer as well. He showed some of his work, which looked pretty good to me, which is why I thought I'd take a look at the 9000F.

Haven't decided yet though.

Cheers

Billy 8-{)

[Billy T]

Well, I went and bought the 9000F. After much thought I passed on the 5600F and 8800F because the saving was minimal and the 9000 offered much better features overall including the best optical resolution (whether I use it or not ).

One of the best prices on PriceSpy was ExpertInfoTech, a company I would normally crawl over broken glass to avoid, but then I discovered that they were just down the road from me and had one in stock, so I shot down and picked it up. Nice new premises, well stocked and friendly staff.

The installation was straight forward, including Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 bundled with it, so later today or perhaps tomorrow I'll start experimenting with photos, negatives and slides!!

Cheers

Billy 8-{)