I got this Vello 35mm & 120 Film Digitizer for Smartphones from B&H. It is a lot faster than the old flatbed scanner I used for a long time, and I think it produces scans that are just as good as I got from the flatbed.
I used this outfit recently when I wanted to rescan and rework some old pinhole images. I thought some previous scans made by just hand holding the iPhone 14 were not bad, but the Vello's film holders and the device's vertical and horizontal adjustability makes the process easier and more precise.
I used GIMP for photo editing of these pictures. It has most of the same tools as Photoshop and it is free to downlaod. There are apps which allow image adjustments on the iPhone, but I am more comfortable just importing the negatives to the photo editor and doing the inversion to positive and other adjustments there.
9 comments:
This has me curious. Going to head over to B&H's website and have a look!
I haven't found any downside to this method of scanning, and the time saved alone makes it worthwhile for me.
Hi Mike, hope all's well. Who'd have thought, 25 years ago, that a phone would outperform a scanner? Your set-up looks very good and, I imagine it's footprint is somewhat smaller than the Epson's, to say nothing of speed of operation. Great stuff! Take care, Ralph.
Getting the film strip properly seated in. the. 35mm film holder is a little fussy. Other than that I hav e no complaints about the device. It really seems there is no reason these days to put money into the old scanner technology and the software to operate it..
Do you need to use this phone scanning setup in a darkened room to prevent glare from external lights? I think a dedicated film scanner would have an advantage in that the light path is internal.
Quite. There are so many options these days for camera scanning. I still have my 4870 and it still works ok, but I rarely use it. My camera scanning rig (based around a Fuji X-A3) out-performs it for quality and speed, even with 120 (though the differences diminish beyond 6x6 unless I scan in sections and stitch them. Even then, for what I mostly do, this technique is overkill. That's sent me off on one of my mental tangents, wondering if it's possible to apply the scan and stitch technique to phone camera scanning if required.. mm🤔☺️
Sorry, Mike, I've done it again - commented without putting my name at the top
Thanks for sharing your experience. Stitching does seem like it could be a useful option. However, I think you could scan any of the larger negative sizes easily, though not using the Vello device. I have a large LED tablet which I have used before with the phone.
I hadn't given any thought to the effect of ambient light. My digitizing scanner sits on my desk in front of a large window. It certainly wouldn't hurt to shield the screen with a sheet of cardboard. I'm not sure that will have any effect on the scan, but it would likely assist my vision in the process as I have quite a bit of difficulty these days in seeing when going from a bright scene to a dim one.
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