Lea
Just my 2 cents and you know that free advise is worth what you pay for it. Still first just accept the time, but if Vuescan is something I have been going to try with my older Minolta. Its hard to believe how much that sucker cost vs what its worth now. Oh well welcome to digital.
Time was always the big drawback of scanning. IF they could build a fast, relatively inexpensive scanner that could produce huge files without many of the digital body problems, film would make a come back.
Black and white negatives are even worse. Digital ice doesn't work on black and white (at least it didn't use to and I haven't checked in a while) so that means a lot of clean up after the fact. Scanning gives us much more information, but its not nearly as clean an information source.
My advise would be to set up the scanner next to the TV. Let the thing scan while you are watching tv or a dvd. Archive them all. Then you can clean them up as needed. Digital copy is a possibility as well as others have mentioned and it is much faster, but I didn't get as good of results.
One other possibility is to send the film off to a scanning service I saw a website that was offering really inexpensive scans, but the film had to be shipped to a point in the US, then off to India for the scans, then back. Personally I wouldn't want to risk the loss during transit, but that is just me. It is in India for the same reason MS tech support is there.
Let me know how vuescan works for you if you try it. I was thinking about it myself.
--- On Tue, 11/25/08, Herschel <herschel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> From: Herschel <herschel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: scanning negs?
> To: "List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students" <photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Tuesday, November 25, 2008, 10:22 PM
> Lea... What you need is a little Zen
> Good music, (Or a good audio book) good coffee and an
> immense amount of patience is the immutable fact of
> scanning...
> Whatever you do it's going to take T I M E Devote a
> full day to it and relax into it You'll be surprised how
> many you'll get done.
>
> By the time you've tested a few enlarger lenses, got
> the light even, colour corrected till you're blue in the
> face (If they're colour negs) spent ages lining the negs
> up etc. You may as well have just sat there and done the job
> with the Nikon scanner (Which does a great job, especially
> if you're using Vuescan. the software is $40 for the
> standard version and $80 for the Pro version (The standard
> is fine unless you have thousands of scans to do)
>
> Herschel
>
>
>
> Lea Murphy wrote:
> > I have borrowed a scanner from a friend. A Nikon
> Coolscan V ED.
> >
> > It seems to be doing a lovely job but is quite slow.
> I'm doing 35mm negs.
> >
> > Do I recall correctly that some on this lis have used
> a lightbox and macro lens to 'scan' negs?
> >
> > If so, would those who have done it share tips and
> tricks for getting the best images?
> >
> > I'd like to do several hundred negatives over the
> course of a year or so. Most if not all will be in black and
> white.
> >
> > Thank you.
> >
> > Lea
> >
> > life is short. photograph it.
> > www.leamurphy.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
