Best Slide & Negative Scanner(s)

[pjm20]

I am looking for a scanner to scan slides and negatives I have accumulated over the last few years, both the standard Kodak slides and from what I can decipher 620/120 film negatives. It seems like DSLR photography and photo editing is the best result, but likely more involved than I ever would need to get. I have been doing research and it seems like the Epson V550/600 line is the most popular and I have also read some on the Clearclick QuickConvert 2.0. I was close to pulling the trigger on the Epson, but some more research indicates that machines specialized to negatives and slides would be better, which makes sense. So I come here to see what you all may or may not recommend and what experience you have in this field. Thanks for any help.

[ai5629]

I am looking for a scanner to scan slides and negatives I have accumulated over the last few years, both the standard Kodak slides and from what I can decipher 620/120 film negatives. It seems like DSLR photography and photo editing is the best result, but likely more involved than I ever would need to get. I have been doing research and it seems like the Epson V550/600 line is the most popular and I have also read some on the Clearclick QuickConvert 2.0. I was close to pulling the trigger on the Epson, but some more research indicates that machines specialized to negatives and slides would be better, which makes sense. So I come here to see what you all may or may not recommend and what experience you have in this field. Thanks for any help.

I have an Epson V600 and have been very happy with it.  You can scan items on “auto” or “manual” mode.  The manual mode allows you to compensate for things like low light.  I can definitely recommend it.  Thanks.

Jeff

[MK]

How many slides/negatives are we talking about?  And are you scanning for the utmost critical quality or just have decent scans to preserve your collection?

[pjm20]

For slides, probably under 200, and negatives under 50. I use these for research and modleing, so I would definitely be more interested in quality versus speed.

[MK]

 A few "if's" since those numbers are relatively small in the slide/negative scanning world.

If you are a Nikon guy and have the right lens, nothing beats the simplicity and quick and dirty, yet high quality, as these adapters.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/37453-REG/Nikon_3213_ES_1_Slide_Copying_Adapter.html

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1357884-REG/nikon_27192_es_2_film_digitalizing_adapet.html

But if you have high quality DSLR, you may be able to use this.  It's a new item so no reviews yet.

https://bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1760393-REG/vello_nsd_35_35mm_negative_and_slide.html

EDIT: of course ignore all this if you don't have a decent DSLR.

[pedro]

I don’t know about the “best” scanner, but I recently got the Epson V600 after experimenting with the DSLR/macro lens technique, which I never got the hang of. I was getting a lot of lost detail and softness. Quite possibly the result of using a lower quality macro lens. The good quality Canon “L” macro was beyind my current budget. 

Results are very promising with the V600. When the V600 was new, I was told that Kalmbach was using it for publications in their various magazines. Not sure that’s the case any more, but it’s a good scanner, and relatively inexpensive.

This is straight off the scanner without any adjustments except cropping/straightening. Kodachrome from 1997: