Fw: Entry Level Negative Scanners

[Trowbridge <Trowbridge@xxxxxxxxx>]

I'm very much an amateur photographer, and I went through a similar
selection process recently (although in my case only 30 years of negs and
slides!).  I went for the Nikon Coolscan II, mainly for the build quality
over the HP Smartscan. The price was slightly higher, but I think the
resolution is about the same.  I use an Epson Stylus Photo printer, with
very good results.  For panoramic negatives I use the cut film holder of the
coolscan, and do the scan in two pieces, and then join them up, normally
with Spin Panorama.  One important issue is memory on the PC - uncompressed
TIFF images with 16m colours give big image files (~30Mbytes) and if you are
joining two images at that resolution your PC starts paging very quickly.
However, you can always make a cup of tea...
I needed to keep the cost low, (which is why I use 35mm) but was not
prepared to sacrifice too much quality.  Mail me direct if you would like
any more details.
Regards and seasons greetings to everyone on the list
IanT
-----Original Message-----
From: Geuler32@xxxxxxx <Geuler32@xxxxxxx>
To: panorama-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <panorama-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 10 December 1998 18:06
Subject: Entry Level Negative Scanners



Would anyone care to suggest or comment on the features of the lower priced
negative scanners for a beginner in scanning?  I am talking about the price
range of the HP Photosmart and I understand there is a Minolta model close
in
price.

I want to be able to scan 24 x 66 mm negatives as well as standard 24 x 36
mm
negatives and slides.  I want good enough resolution and quality to make
nice
8 x 10 prints as well as 8 x whatever panoramics.  Possibly upgrading later
to
a wider printer for 11 x whatever panos.

I have a fifty year accumulation of 24 x 36 mm images that I want to work
on.
Many of them were multi-shot, tape the prints together "panoramics".

It is clear that most of the traffic on this mail list is either
professional
or advanced amateur photographers with much more liberal budgets than mine
and
that the subjects are usually on a higher plane than this but I hope someone
will share their experience and opinions on this subject.

Thanks in advance,  Gary