Scanners: What's good? Recommendations?
3yr
Levi Simpson
Hello people, critters and creatures.
Just looking for any thoughts or recommendations for scanners specifically for scanning in traditional work (pencil, pen, watercolor etc.).
There seems to be a wide range of anything from a few hundred up to over a grand as far as the price range. I've been recommended a pretty good Epson that was on the expensive side, and maybe it is the way to go, but want to get more opinions before I pull the trigger on something in the thousand dollar price range.
Bonus would be that it can handle scanning in film negatives as I hope to start developing my own black and white film at some point in the future.
I use Epson V390... very sharp and the colour is about as accurate as you can get, not very expensive. It can scan 135 films but I can't remember if it does 120 as well. Currently I'm using an Epson DS50000 for my A3 drawings, it can't scan films tho. Generally Epson/Canon/HP make really decent ones, and they are so cheap compared to the cost of having any sort of a decent camera setup.
Film is a very tricky issue, because the focus would be a huge problem as the film is not flat (the frame holds it in mid-air and the scanner will switch to that "focus" when scanning films). The problem with cheaper to medium range film-capable scanners is that they don't have focus adjustment or continuous auto focus when scanning films, so although you should be guaranteed to get a decent scan, that's assuming you have your film completely flat and perfectly on the focusing plane, if not then more than often you will get focusing issue with a slightly warped film. You can search film scanning on youtube and there will be better explanation on how to choose a scanner best for you. You could invest a relatively cheap one and see if the quality matches your expectation.
I’ve enjoyed my Epson Perfection V600, for 7 years now and its still going strong. It can scan documents, negatives, slides and photos. It has something like a 6400 dpi range, although I traditionally use 300-600 with great results for my prints. I recently scanned in something about 1200 dpi and it handled it like the pro tool that it is. I found that the scan is so good, it will pick up things that I didn’t see at first glance with my naked eye. You can find it online under $300. I would happily buy this again if mine junked out. My only qualm is the size of the flatbed, but every flatbed gets more expensive after the size of this one.