Scan Film or Buy a Digital Camera?

For many of us who already have a substantial investment in film cameras, an interest in digitally manipulating our images entails a choice: keep our film cameras and scan; or get rid of it all and buy a digital camera. This is not a clear cut decision.

News about digital cameras is everywhere. In fact there is so much of it that it now totally overshadows any news about films or film cameras at most photography trade shows. Does this mean that film is dead? Definitely not. As you will see in this article there are still very good reasons to shoot film, at least for some people.

Film and Scanning - Pros and Cons

Film is a known product. Around for a very long time, the manufacturers are still improving it; making the grain finer and the colour better. There is a wide selection of films, from the mainstream colour negative films, through colour slide and monochrome films to specialised films, like those for infrared photography, widely used by fine art photographers and scientific and forensic photographers.

Scanners are, in a way, the precursor to digital cameras. Available in two types of relevance here: dedicated film scanners and multipurpose flatbed scanners. Flatbed scanners are multipurpose. All of them can be used to scan photographic prints. This will not give an ideal result but is more than adequate for many users. For example, the real estate agents whose computer systems I installed are very happy with a simple flatbed scanner that scans their prints for use in producing simple property fliers and for uploading to the Web site. Many flatbed scanners also now incorporate the ability to scan negatives and slides. Film scanners do one thing only, scan your negatives and slides. They will do a better job than a flatbed scanner will, but at the cost of a dedicated piece of hardware.

Film Pros

Good flatbed scanners are made by HP, Canon and Epson, who also provide scanners in their multifunction scanner/printer/fax devices. Pretty well any model will do well scanning photographic prints. Remember that since the print was produced as a second generation from the original, most prints cannot really support scans at higher than 600 dpi. So if you need to scan prints almost any recent flatbed will do the job well. Personally, I like the Canon LIDE scanners since they are very thin and also get their power from the USB cable, so there is no additional power supply. That also makes them great to take out into the field with a laptop computer.

For film scanning with a flatbed, you need a model specially designed for this. Good models are made that can scan film from strips of 35 mm negatives and slides up to 4x5 sheet film. The top end of these seems to be the Epson Perfection 2450 Photo, a 2400 x 4800 dpi scanner.

For dedicated film scanners there are a good number of models also. The best ones in my testing are the Kodak RFS 3600, Canon FS4000U and the various Nikon models. The Kodak RFS 3600 is a 3600 dpi, 35 mm only film scanner that has the unique feature of being able, with no accessories, to scan a whole 36 to 40-exposure roll of 35 mm film automatically in one strip. It takes a long time but is a great feature if you need to scan a lot of photos. For some reason Kodak seem to have forgotten they sell this scanner, though it is still available. The Canon FS4000U is a 4000 dpi, 35 mm and APS film scanner that also has the ability to optically remove dust and scratches as the film is scanned. This scanner works very well, but most people prefer to use third-party scanner software rather than Canon's drivers. Nikon make a number of models for scanning APS, 35 mm, medium format and large format films. These are the most expensive scanners but do an excellent job.