Film Scanners
Film Scanners are standalone units which are used to scan in your photo negatives and put them on your computer in digital format. You can get some really good results from some very reasonably priced units without too much work. Scanning photos can take a bit of time and is a little repetitive, but if you put the radio or some music on you can make light work of it in an afternoon. Digitising your old photos is definitely worth it so that you can preserve them for the future.
On this website I have reviewed the following film scanners:
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Ion Film2SD Negative Scanner
The Film2SD scanner is one of the best ones reviewed on this site. Ion already have experience making good film scanners and this one is no different. The main improvement on standard film scanners is that it does not require a computer to work! |
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Ion Film and Slide Scanner
This is a really nice film scanner from Ion. Not only will you be happy with the quality of the digital photos it produces, but you will also be happy that it doesn’t cost the earth either. This film scanner has a brilliant 5 mega pixel CMOS lens and works with Windows XP and Vista. |
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VuPoint Film Scanner
This is one of the best value film scanners on the market and will scan a photo in just half a second! This means you’ll be able to process your photos a lot quicker and you need not worry about any loss of quality as they will have an impressive 3600 dpi resolution! |
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Veho Negative and Slide Scanner
Veho are well known for making good, useful electronic items. Their film scanner is compatible with XP and Vista and will scan your photos in just 1 to 2 seconds. |
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Luminox Film Scanner
The Luminox film scanner is a very affordable film scanner which still offers really good results. It will allow you to speed through film scanning as it takes just half a second to be able to scan and preview your images! |
There are different types of film scanners. The main sort work by plugging into your computer via USB. You put your 35mm photo negatives or slides into a rigid plastic frame and then put them into your film scanner. There will be a button on your scanner which you push, it then scans the individual negative in. You will be able to preview the image on your computer to check it is okay. You do this until you have scanned all the photos in the row that you want to put on your computer. Once on your computer, most film scanners have appropriate software to rotate and crop the photos, along with making minor adjustments.
Ion has recently launched a popular new film scanner which stores scanned photos onto an SD card. This might not sound like a large advantage but it means that you do not need a computer to be able to scan your photos in. This would be really handy if you were at your computer-less parent’s, or grandparent’s house scanning in their photos.
Film scanners range in price, but all the standalone units I have reviewed on this page should be suitable for most budgets. Though film scanners are affordable to buy you do not need to be worried about the results. They all come with a high quality lens so you should be very pleased with the results.
Film scanners, also known as negative scanners, are a really good way of being able to turn an old collection of photos into digital photos which will last forever. Many of us either have, or knows someone with a nice big box of photos. This would be the perfect present for them! Film scanners require the photo negatives, so hopefully you haven’t lost them! They do not scan directly from the developed photo.
