Which scanner to chose?

[fischelbyxa]

My German is too poor for me to search through earlier threads, so please forgive me if there are tonnes of replies to this question before!

I need a scanner, but I don't know which to chose. I don't even know if there's anyone that fits my bill.

My requirements are:

• - Negatives and Dias

• - 135 and 120 films (only negative 120 films)

• - Small form factor (have no room for A4 sized flat bed scanners)

• - Not too pricey (< €1000)

• - Prefer Linux, but Mac/Win could do

Thanks,

• fischelbyxa

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Mats Löfström

[Joe]

How many slides and negative do you have to scan?

Or do you mean 135 Slide Films a 35 Slides etc.?

[fischelbyxa]

I'm in the process of scanning all my films since when I was a kid, as well as all my wife's films. And since we're both 50+, there are a lot of images to scan. I have also got a lot of slides from my father.

My guess is that we have

• - 5'000 - 8'000 135 film negatives, in strips of 4 - 6 images

• - 3'500 - 4'500 135 slides

• - 2'000 - 3'000 126 film negatives, in strips of 4 images

One requirement that I forgot to mention earlier, it that I have a large number of slides that are fairly thick (3 mm).

• fischelbyxa

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Mats Löfström

[Joe]

If you would have only one Scanner the Canon CanoScan 8800F would be a good choice. But that is a A4 flatbed Scanner.

The only other solution is to use two scanners:

- Reflecta RPS 7200 or ProScan 7200 for the Negative
- Reflecta DigitDia 5000 for the slides (but this one is nearly as big as a flatbed scanner).

But the 3mm slides could be a problem with the DigitDia - so I suggest to try this before you buy. (with the 8800F this is no problem).

For that amount of negative and slides you need a scanner which allows to scan them automatic or like the 8800F a few in one process. (8800F up to 12 negative or 4 slides).

To use a scanner which can only handle one negative or slide will be frustrating after about 100 scans.

I think there is no slides scanner who can do that which is much smaller than A4.

You will find some scanner test from me on my website http://www.jostark.de - but all in German.