I Tried CHEAP Film Scanners so You Don’t Have to...

We've all seen some cheap, weird looking film scanners littered across the internet with no idea how good they are. Today we're going to find out, and see if we can squeeze some good, decent, or just to horrible film scans out of them.

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[linusandhiscamera]

RIP to my poor shirt that has a rip in the shoulder that I didn't notice while editing but now cannot unsee 😭😭😭 hope y'all enjoy this video it was honestly such a fun one to put together!!

[WillemVerb]

Volvo laptop saving the day once again

[aliarby]

The Minolta one would be sick to just have in the living room with some rolls next to it, kind of like a record player for film 😄

[fotoralf]

Minolta has left the photo business in 2006. Their camera branch has been taken over by Sony and they haven't made a film scanner ever since. Supposedly, someone has bought the rights to the name to put it on some cheapo stuff.

[Koolken]

Them being the same scanner internally is CRAZY lol

[allen_snapped]

Yo! Linus... how about a video on your whole scanning process? That would be dope as hell and incredibly useful. We got two scanning videos from you, and we could see a lil bit of how you do it, but not anything in depth. Would really appreciate it. Thanks again for this and seriously, so glad you're back on YT. Peace.

[FeralGinger]

This was an insanely fun journey! Thanks for taking us on it! Will continue scanning with my X-T4 and Nikon macro lens until an easier/quicker option comes along!

[Francois_L_]

Crosley and Innovative Technologies are the same manufacturer. I have a cheap IT model with an LCD screen which I somehow love. I paid 5$ for it about 10 years ago. But the thing is that I don't use it like is intended. I use mine exclusively for for rapidly scanning a roll after I develop it (mine had the rollfilm adapter) and making an index print. When I then see an image I deem worthy of spending time on, I then pop it in the Epson.

[copdog]

I use an old Wolverine F2D. Does great on black and white, and is pretty decent for color. No computer needed, just an SD card. It has a screen on it. Poached it from my parents, it was collecting dust from when I was a kid and they were actually shooting film still. Can scan a whole roll in the time it takes my Epson V37 to do five shots.

[tsbrownie]

So funny when you said your first laptop had Win XP!!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[Max_Mustermann]

I was going to recommend Plustek for a cheap-ish decent quality film scanner, but I see it's mentioned at the end of the video already.

[g]

You made a more valiant effort for a $5 scanner you bought off ebay than I would have expected anyone to make lol, even the VM not working so you pluck out your friend's odd laptop

But now I'm more interested in the Volvo branded laptop????

Comparing the Frontier scan of the car to the Crosley it's shocking how the car looks entirely different when you see the reflections defined! There's just so much more depth there, I wonder why the cheaper scanners mushed it all together

The Minolta one was quite nice for $100. Also, it's interesting that they made some very capable professional scanners (like the Multi Pro or the Scan Elite 5400).

I've been looking into high end scanning a lot and it was pretty surprising to me that drum scanners can be beat in almost every way by camera scanning setups. With how little movement there is on drum scanners versus cameras and their sensors, it's not surprising. But good setups there can get really crazy, like using a camera with a high pixel density and getting a macro lens that can resolve that much (or more with a higher magnification).

Even other ways of assessing film quality have seemed interesting, like use a slide projector with a good lens, or a microscope. There are so many possibilities!

i might just have an unhealthy obsession lol

Anyway, great video on these scanners!

[parranoic]

A friend gave me an "old pc" that turned out to be a Nikon CoolScan 4000, That thing is amazing

[patrickjclarke]

For the Plustek with Silverfast, I'd still recommend scanning negs to get the positive as the combo of the built-in film profiles AND the special pass it does to read the rebate color and slight tonal differences per frame and are consistent and high quality. NLP is great for camera scans tho as it's trying to do something similar in software to what the Plustek provides to Silverfast in hardware.

[DavidDacaro]

An industry colleague I know has a 1 million dollar scanner which apparently is the best in the history of scanning. There's quite a range of film scanner options it seems, from $5 all the way up to the equivalent cost of a house. That scanner I'm referring to is a one of a kind analog unit in the family of drum scanning machine, and they charge around $1500 per scan/image.

[KajiRider]

I still have my 5 megapixel film scanner. which works good enough for the things I want. But I really would like to upgrade. certainly because I can just barely squeeze a 120 negative in there without damaging it.

[lindsaydiaz]

Serious question, which scanner would you recommend for film photography?

[alhOOOO]

That Crosley scanner is a hell of a deal. $5 for the scanner, 7 hours of installation labour at $180/hr, and you too can scan negatives at home for only $1265 (plus tax)

[baubau]

Hey Linus, thanks again for this great video ! Would be amazing to have a comparison between the two famous scanner on the market, your frontier SP3000 and a Noritsu HS-1800

[dudhu]

What do you think of the KODAK Slide N SCAN, is it worth it? I wanted to buy a scan to develop my Kodak h35n films but I didn't want something very expensive. I prefer something more accessible and practical, what do you recommend?