# Convert Film to digital



## KevinPutman (May 4, 2011)

Saw a dohickey the other day at Best buy. Plug it into a USB port, and it scans your film/negatives, and converts them to digital.

Was curious if anyone has played with one yet, and if it'd be worth getting.
My stepdad has a really nice Pentax that I'd like to play around with..but getting pictures developed is too much of a hassel.


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## Light Guru (May 5, 2011)

KevinPutman said:


> Saw a dohickey the other day at Best buy. Plug it into a USB port, and it scans your film/negatives, and converts them to digital.
> 
> Was curious if anyone has played with one yet, and if it'd be worth getting.
> My stepdad has a really nice Pentax that I'd like to play around with..but getting pictures developed is too much of a hassel.


 
You do know you have to get the film developed before you can scan it right.

And when you have that done, for a small fee or even for free they will put it on CD for you.

Negative and slide scanners are great if you have a lot of old negatives or slides that are already developed.


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## Josh66 (May 5, 2011)

We call that dohickey a scanner.  There are many types of scanners, and not all of them are good for film...

I've played with a few of them a lot.  Yes, they are worth getting - if you shoot film.

And like Light Guru said - you still have to develop the film...  Then scan it.

I would however skip the CD.  You'll get better files scanning on your own.


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## KevinPutman (May 6, 2011)

Of course I know nothing about film, 
how do you get it developed?
What's the cost, etc?


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## RauschPhotography (May 6, 2011)

Oh boy. Well, for developing the cost really depends on the specific lab, or if you're lucky and have access to a darkroom you can develop the negatives yourself. If you're interested, read up on it. Darkroom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## JohnBoy (May 12, 2011)

Be aware that there is a another type of "dohickey" that is sold as a scanner but is really a cheap digital camera with a very ordinary close focusing lens and it takes a photo of the neg or slide, reverses the image if it is a negative and outputs to a flash memory card; I think some might even connect by USB direct to a computer. Where I come from these sell for less than $100 and are essentially rubbish since it takes seriously expensive optics and other components to do that kind of photography well and even then the result would most often be inferior to that of a half-decent film scanner.


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## Paul Ron (May 18, 2011)

But if you convert your film pics to digital, don't complaign they suck... it's digital not the film!


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## JohnBoy (May 19, 2011)

Paul Ron said:


> But if you convert your film pics to digital, don't complaign they suck... it's digital not the film!


 
Yeah right. Most people who enquire about scanning want to scan colour negs or slides, quite often ones they already have. If you get film commercially printed it almost certainly will be scanned even if it is printed on RA4 paper. All this hard-nosed analog stuff is fine for black & white but unless you are going to do it yourself you can nearly forget about a pure analog product in colour because while you can get the film processed, almost nobody other than home workers still print optically on RA4 paper and those papers are now being specifically balanced for exposure by laser/LED not incandescent light. 

I remain a great fan of film based photography; particularly the unique qualities of colour negative film and I still use it but the subject of scanning is a legitimate one in an analog thread because it may eventually offer the only practical way to get colour prints from film. I think it is entirely unhelpful to the wider community on this forum to suggest that the printed result of a properly scanned film is inferior to its counterpart produced by shining light through the film. Both processes are capable of excellent results and all colour film users could enhance their wider photographic knowledge by learning how to do it well. You never know when that knowledge may become essential and while it is easy to make a scan, there is a significant learning curve in order to achieve great scans.


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## Paul Ron (May 23, 2011)

JohnBoy said:


> Paul Ron said:
> 
> 
> > But if you convert your film pics to digital, don't complaign they suck... it's digital not the film!
> ...



As one of the film snobs I have to agree, it is almost imposable to get anaolg prints anymore unless you pay a custom lab or do it yourself. Scanning is a great way to salvage old material but don't toss the old negs out thinking you now have the holy grail on CD, electronics gets outdated as fast as it hits the streets.

As for simply shinning a light through a negative is over simplifying it a tad bit, There is no comparrison of a hand made photograph to a regurgitated computer print, pixel perfect each n ever time... although you may feel it is similar. I feel the difference is the chemistry and the photographer's hands on, not impersonal electronics that makes what I consider a perfect photograph.... but that is not the subject here, just my 2 cents. 

Scanned negatives lose certain details that even the best of scanners miss when pixilating analog negatives thus the reason digitally printed analog media will always be second rate to a pure analog image made start to finish or visa versa digitally. Never mix your wine with beer. 

Scan your heart content suiong anything you can get your hands on. but don't complain the print is missing something.. it is... the checmistry. 
.


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## 1holegrouper (Jun 14, 2011)

I think a good scan is helpful for evaluating and sharing your work but you are losing a lot of detail in the original photograph if you print off your scanned photo. The best print resolution will always be one that is done straight off your negative. This is assuming that you do not need software-based post processing to fix problems.


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## Rossrevew (Jun 15, 2011)

As a beginner you had better concentrate with qualifying scanner elopements. 

Forerunner 610 Review


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## Railphotog (Jun 15, 2011)

I looked at these small inexpensive scanners, a read of their specs show they scan at 5MP, OK for posting on the web and such but not the greatest.   I bought a slide scanner attachment for my DSLR, it attaches to the front of a lens with a 10+ dioptre close up lens on one end.   I copy my slides and get output from my 12MP DSLR, which is suitable for my needs.  The copier came from eBay, cost around $55.00.


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## shortpants (Jun 15, 2011)

Railphotog do you know the brand? Do you have any scans posted up anywhere? I'd love to see the quality. I have probably a thousand slides I've been meaning to go through. Sorry to hijack OP.


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## Ron G (Jun 15, 2011)

I have batch scanned slides using my Microtek 9600 XL and VueScan software.Once you get it set up to do the scan you can start it and walk away while it works.
You can put many slides on the scanner surface and save yourself a lot of work.Ron G


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## Railphotog (Jun 15, 2011)

shortpants said:


> Railphotog do you know the brand? Do you have any scans posted up anywhere? I'd love to see the quality. I have probably a thousand slides I've been meaning to go through. Sorry to hijack OP.



Here's an old Kodachrome 64 slide I copied.  Mine is a Bowers "Digital Duplicator".  Just look up "slide copier" on eBay, there should be some listed.


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## shamal (Jul 19, 2015)

Thank you for your posts on this question


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