A modern 35mm film scanner for home

there is no such thing as a scanner for undeveloped film nor will there ever be.

It doesn't seem to exist yet. The specifications are not specifications, they are design goals. I don't see how they can get the color coverage they're claiming with RGB LEDs.

Seems about as credible as a lot of the crowdfunded stuff.

There are a few scans on Instagram, I'd charitably describe them as "dogshit".

On Firefox Mac, it doesn't scroll with the scroll wheel, though it does with the down arrow key. Go figure.

Looks cool, but I'll stick with my DSLR scanning setup.

https://dontfuckwithscroll.com

It’s a cancer on the web. Apple started it and I hate them for it. And I’m an Apple fan.

If I wanted to wait 1/2 second for each part of the page to load I’d have stayed on dialup.

Annoying as hell. WTF.

I bought some time on a hasselblad medium format scanner (took fucking ages)

The results are good, as you'd expect. However can I tell the difference between that and me putting the negatives on a decent softbox and using a fancy camera to take a picture? yes, but not by much.

I think the main issue is film registration, that is getting the film to be flat and "co-planar" to the lens so the whole frame is sharp.

My negatives are slightly warped, so they really need a frame to make sure they are perfectly flat. But for instagram, they are close enough.

However scanning more than a few pictures is a massive pain in the arse. If I was scanning film regularly, then this is what I'd want, and its cheaper than the competition.

Assuming that its actually any good, I haven't seen any scans yet.

I almost missed the price. Wow you're right that's a lot! And the final retail price is 1599 euros. I have a good Plustek that cost me $300 or $400. Automated transport and unantiquated software sounds nice, but those features are not worth an extra $600-1,100 to me.

Am I missing something or is this supposed to be in another tier of image quality?

> A second hand DSLR setup is going to be roughly the same price or less.

And if you get one with Pixel Shift, you can get way higher resolutions than the 22MP they're offering (e.g. my cheapo Olympus gets 40MP JPEG or 64MP RAW from a 16MP sensor.)

Filmomat looks fun. Many money. Love the hipster flex with the Weber HG-1 in background of the demonstration video. I do own an Intrepid enlarger (sort of experimental?), and I used to live near Ars Imago in Zurich who sell a "lab in a box", similar to Filmomat's Light system. The independent dev scene is pretty great, though none of it is particularly cheap and is rarely open source, which is disappointing.

> I'm also not sure what kind of workflow improvements it actually offers.

The obvious one is auto-feeding and portability, but without using it who knows. It doesn't offer IR, but even Filmomat's system needs a modified camera. You get that with most flatbed and Plustek-style scanners. I have a V850 Pro which wasn't cheap either, but it'll do a full roll in one go and I can walk away. Even if I shot a roll a day it would be more than fast enough. It has occasional focus issues, and you need to be scrupulous about dusting, but it works well enough. I've never been a huge fan of the setup required for copy-stand scanning and it's tricky getting the negatives perfectly flat in/frame. The good carriers are also not cheap, look at Negative Supply for example.

Frankly it also looks great, like the Filmomat. I think some of the appeal is a chunk of modern looking hardware and also the hope that it's maintained? My Epson works well, but I ended up paying for VueScan because the OEM software is temperamental.

What scanner are you using, out of curiosity?

Funny thing is, in general, low and midrange desktop scanners that public can generally buy, haven't changed much in 10-20 years since they started using led lights and IR dust removal (Canon Fare, Digital ICE or similar stuff). Some are even the same hardware just slightly rebadged or with a different USB connector. But they're the same price or more expensive.

And, at a different level, professional film scanners are EXPENSIVE. Lots of people are now scanning their film using a digital camera and led backlight (now that there is affordable good quality led lights) instead of a dedicated scanner. But that's not very fast and requires some extra manual work. If this scanner offers reasonable quality and a good workflow (that not very proprietary or closed), 1000-1500 dollars is a reasonable price, especially if you have lots of film coming in, or an old collection to scan.

I could imagine my dad buying one of this to scan his hundreds and hundreds of rolls from the 70s/80s and then selling it once he finish. It would be like 1-3 USD per rolled scanned :)

Medium is the problem. There’s nothing.

Epson stopped making their flatbeds that do film, reportedly because they can’t get the CCDs anymore. That may be a rumor.

The result is they go for 2x MSRP on eBay for models that are many years old. Because that’s all that exists.

Without that, you can buy the kind of scanner meant for a photo lab ($$$$$), DIY it with a DSLR ($$$ if you don’t have one), or pay your a lab a lot per roll and hope they do a good job.

I’m not saying it’s a giant market but it certainly seems to me like there’s enough of one that it could support a small product.

You can get brand new Plustek OpticFilm scanners for 35mm and smaller starting around $300, and there are plenty of other options above that. Plus the DIY.

I’m sure 35mm is easier to make and certainly a bigger market but it’s also a lot more crowded.

I expect their specs are far better than the $300 one I’ve mentioned, I don’t know enough to know. But medium format people are desperate for anything.