Hi Everyone, I currently have a Cannon 5000f flatbed scanner. It does a decent job but its really slow. I have about 20 years of film (35mm) photography that I would like to put on CD. So I'm looking to upgrade to something much faster. I don't have deep pockets but I can set aside funds if the cost is within and easy range 300-600 dollars. Some work I have just in film and the rest I have both film and print. I have been reading the several magazines on the issue but would like to hear those who use their scanners regularly.

Matt

I'm probably not the best person to answer this, as I'm still using a really old and cheap-at-the-time Black Widow scanner, which as well as having a low resoultion is also pretty slow. Oh yeah, and it doesn't scan negatives either!

You might want to take a look at the new Epson model - Photo-i are doing an interactive review of it at the moment:

http://www.photo-i.co.uk

I've used several Epson scanners over the years and just bought a new one which can handle medium and large format negatives and positives since my husband is doing a lot of work in both of those. I do mostly 35 mim and also have decades worth of 35 mm negatives, slides, and prints to digitize. I found my Epson 1650 Photo scanner quite good and not too slow if the computer I was using was fast. I've used Epson scanners with both PCs and Macs and the speed of the processing units as well as the amount of RAM are important in scanning speeds.

The 1650 Photo came with a 35 mm slide and film strip adaptor and that was a nice bonus. I think we paid about $200 US for it when we bought it, maybe a little less, through Costco. We are still using it on a regular basis but the newer one will probably take over most of the scanning when it arrives since it'll probably have some improvements which we'll appreciate, including more speed.

Other things to consider when scanning film to digital formats include the resolution the scanner is capable of (I believe in purchasing the scanner which is capable of the highest resolution in my price range) and what scanning software you're going to be using. I am a PhotoShop junkie so I use that (and I recommend PhotoShop Elements to people when they ask me about it and they don't want to commit to PhotoShop). But, there are lots of good scanning software options available, including the software that comes with whatever scanner you purchase. But, if you have specific needs, be choosy about what comes with the scanner and that can make more of a difference than baseline cost, IMO.

Hi Mark, thanks for the information on the website. I checked it out and was impressed with what I found. Thanks again. I would like to point out that sometimes I ask the general public about about hardware because they had to do all the unpacking, the software installation and regular setup and use. Most people will not know how to work around a problem without first asking for help from someone. So you sometimes get a fresh opion about some hardware and you can decide if thats what you want to go through. So it does help in the decision process. The website you recomended was great, very down to earth. It had more than I was expecting.

Matt

Thanks Carla, I hadn't considered that my computer would be lacking in RAM I'll have to check into this. I have 512 now but it could be a combination of things computer wise.

Thanks,
Matt

A LOT depends on budget. There are some very high speed high-volume scanners designed for document scanning solutions, but they can be seriously pricey.

I assume if you want high speed, it isn't because you'll be scanning a single document from time to time and care if it takes 10 seconds or 20 seconds? I assume you'll be scanning documents in some volume?

If so, a good feeder is worth its weight in gold, if you're doing single sheets at a time, because it means you can load a stack and do something else wheile they scan. Otherwise, you'll be standing there changing documents every few seconds, whether it be 10 or 30.

In that context, I bought an HP 5590C, and am pretty pleased with it. It's NOT the highest quality, but I have an upmarket Epson for that. It doesn't do film, but I have Minolta, Microtek and Epson film scanners for that, and it's A4 not A3 (but I have an Epson A3 flatbed for that).

But for document scanning for archiving purposes, it does me fine.

Thanks

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