Critique on my old scanner setup made me ditch the flatbed forever

I used to scan old Polaroids and 35mm negatives on a flatbed scanner from 2008. A guy on a photo forum told me my scans looked "flat and lifeless" and to try a dedicated film scanner instead. Picked up a used Plustek 8100 for $150 on eBay and ran my first roll of Kodak Gold through it. The difference in color depth and sharpness was night and day, even on 8-bit files. I spent three hours re-scanning my favorite shots from a trip to Portland six years ago. Anyone else hold onto a scanner way longer than they should?

2 comments

2 Comments

robin77716d agoOG Member

Flatbed scanners from that era really weren't made for that fine detail work. I had a CanoScan 8800F that I kept for years just because it was there, even though every 35mm scan came out looking like it had a faint layer of Vaseline on it. Finally swapped to a little Pacific Image PrimeFilm XA and my old Kodachrome slides from the 90s looked like different film stock entirely. The colors popped and those little grain specks actually looked like grain instead of muddy noise. Your mileage may vary but those dedicated scanners make a huge difference on stuff smaller than 6x9.

sullivan.elliot16d ago

Man you just convinced me, I always thought flatbeds were fine enough but now I gotta rethink.