recommendation for scanner that does negatives

[Knightmessenger]

I thought I posted this two days ago but maybe I never hit post.

I'd like to get a new scanner that does negatives but I'm not sure which one out there might be best. I've seen a few in stores for 140-160 USD so that's about what I'm looking to spend.

The current one I have is an HP all in one 6332. It did a pretty good job with some advanced level and contrast options before we upgraded from XP. Now the scanner window only allows brightness and contrast adjustment but again, for prints they still turn out pretty good. I mean, it's better than my aunt's scanner and gives much better results than your typical throwback thursday post on facebook.
I know it's best not to use the auto fix settings on a scanner but sometimes that is valuable to scan it at the right midtone and highlight levels to get the most detail in the first place.

The biggest frustration that I'd like to avoid is that if I put the picture on the edge of the scanner glass, it usually crops part of it off. But if I put it in the middle, it often comes out tilted and needed the white edges cropped off. This can be very time consuming to do manually, is there something that has a more automated tilt correction and white space crop out?
It doesn't have to be included with the scanner software, just something I can use to speed up the process.

The HP scanner did have good optics, am I safe to assume that any dedicated scanner that is also not a fax and printer will have scanning capability at least as good as that?

I want it to have the ability to scan negatives because we have a bunch of those and I know those can get better quality than the prints. Not to mention they will be less out of order than our photos in boxes.

[ahhaa]

A few tips from my experiences-
First, there is a huge difference between great B&W and color scanning.
You want to be using a lossless file format, and have control over dust removal, sharpness, etc and at the same time not spend 5 minutes per scan.
On the flatbed scanner I have (an ancient Acer) it does a whole contact sheets worth of negs at once, but set at any kind of higher resolution and it takes more time than a Windows shutdown to run the whole job- but it is handy to get a handle on a whole box of negs and select out the best for specific handling.
Color files at high res are huge, especially if you are the kind that does several variations on the settings to find the best.
I also have a lil FilmScan35, which (was a cheap closeout at Staples) is easy as pie to use, quick as a bunny (few seconds) but only 5 megapixels- it also handles slides.
If you have 120 negs & an iphony, you might want to google this guy's vid on Youtube, he is using a light box and the phone to copy larger format negs, seems to work quite well.

My main advice may seem counter-intuitive, but people will just give you an old XP computer. If you do not connect it online, you can avoid the overhead of malware software and such, and there is a ton of great software & devices like the Nikon Coolscan that are available on ebay for peanuts because they won't work with W-ait or 10.

Mostly, good scanning is time consuming... hth!

[Knightmessenger]

What do you think regarding these models? These seem like the most high end models that are within my budget.

EPSON
http://www.amazon.com/Epson-Perfection-Negative-Document-Scanner/dp/B002OEBMRU/ref=sr_...gative+scanner

http://www.amazon.com/Epson-Perfection-V550-Negative-B11B210201/dp/B00E1O74SW/ref=sr_1...gative+scanner

Canon
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-CanoScan-9000F-MKII-Scanner/dp/B00AGV7TQG/ref=sr_1_16?ie=U...gative+scanner

[ahhaa]

Everything really depends on what you are going to do & how you do it (meaning the software & hardware combo).

I have an old Canoscan that powers & operates from the USB port (very handy on the road) but the LED design seems to scan somewhat slower than than the traditional flatbed.

You need to look into the software you will use, the Canon software seems to be proprietary & simplified, but from my Canon camera experience they don't do anything half-baked. The Epson includes Digital Ice an old 'standard' that fixes scratches and such.

You also need to think about what else you might do with the machine, for example OCR. Is the software compatible or will you be using other software entirely?

The main thing is that you will be spending LOTS of time doing this digitization, especially if you are fussy about 'Best Quality' over batch work. You may remember negs varied a lot in density, contrast, etc, even with the best film cameras, even from one shot to the next in a strip.

Any of these appear to be OK machines, but it would be interesting to know the overall load>process>view>rename>save time per batch on each.

You might want to ask on pro photography forums like Canon, Nikon, & Epson support, and find a couple people who have actually used the machines in question.