A photographer climbs a tree beside a restaurant where Beyoncé is dining and finds a perch where they can use their $6500 Canon 1DX Mark III camera with a $2400 28-300mm telephoto lens to get a shot of the singer slurping noodles. A young child wanders around their backyard taking pictures of bugs with a $60 FUJIFILM Instax instant camera. Two people using extremely different cameras for extremely different purposes. Film scanners are similar…
There are many different types of film scanners available — and it isn’t obvious which kind you should get. I created this guide to help you quickly figure out what you need. I explain all of the important features, skip overly technical jargon when it isn’t necessary, and help you find a model that fits your budget.
Meet all of the different film scanners!
People have varying needs when it comes to scanning film. For example, some people only want to use film scanners that work with smartphones. They don’t want to touch a computer and do everything on their phone.
Other kinds of people would rather use a standalone device — something that doesn’t need a smartphone or a computer to work. They might have a box of old family snapshots that they want to quickly digitize so they can share them on social media, and maybe make some prints with an inkjet printer.
Other people don’t mind using a computer with their film scanner. In fact, they prefer it, because it allows them to fine-tune the scans to get the best looking images. When you use scanner with a computer, it typically makes the scanning process a bit slower. Why? There are two devices involved, there is software that requires some clicking around, and the scanners themselves do longer, more involved image capturing. Some advanced scanners allow you to do “batch” scanning, which speeds up the process. I recommend scanners that do this later in the guide.
I refer to these separate categories as:
- Smartphone-Only Scanners (for people who want to do everything on their phone)
- Entry-Level Scanners (for people who want an inexpensive, standalone solution)
- Image-Quality Scanners (for people who want high-quality scans)
⚡️ Quick Tip: No matter what kind of scanner you end up getting, it’s important to clean your negatives or slides before you scan them in order to remove dust and debris. Blow air on them with a Giottos blower and wipe them with a special anti-static cloth.
There’s another type of film scanner that doesn’t fit into any of the above categories. They are the high-end machines that are in another stratosphere of price (used models cost over $5000 USD — yeah). I cover those at the end.
Are film scanners from outer space? 🛸
No. Film scanners are not from outer space. The name “scanner” sounds futuristic, but what these things do isn’t hard to understand. They operate in a similar way to traditional photo enlargers. A film scanner simply shines a light through negatives or slides and exposes them to a digital imaging sensor.
Some of the film scanners in this guide are nothing more than glorified light boxes with digital cameras inside of them. That’s pretty much it. Some have a way to store images, such as to a digital memory card. Other features are sometimes provided as well. I explain them later, when the information is pertinent.
👉 Important Thing: You need to identify the exact type negatives or slides you want to scan. Why? Not all film scanners are compatible with all film formats. You should gather together the film you want to scan and visit this webpage, identify the type of negatives you have, and make a note of them. Then, when you’re choosing a film scanner to buy, you can verify if it’s compatible with your stuff.
Smartphone-Only Scanners
Like the name implies, Smartphone-Only Scanners are used exclusively with smartphones. You stick your film into a slot, turn on the internal battery-powered light, place your phone on top, and then use the camera on your phone to snap a picture of the illuminated film. Smartphone apps let you further develop and manipulate the images (such as turning negative images into positive) and share them on social media.
What’s great about smartphone film scanners is that they’re totally portable. You can use them in the field without needing to plug into an AC outlet for power. You can bring them to flea markets and scan photos on-the-spot if someone is selling old negatives. A big downside is that they don’t provide impressive image quality. You can get much better results with the other kinds of scanners covered in this guide. Another downside is that even though they’re inexpensive, they don’t provide much value for the money. They’re basically little boxes with lights inside of them.
🤖 What specs should you be aware of ?
- Your phone camera: With Smartphone-Only Scanners, the camera on your phone captures the images. The performance of your phone camera plays a major role in the quality of your scans.
Smartphone-Only Film Scanner shopping guide
The Kodak Mobile Film Scanner is made of cardboard, so it’s lightweight and folds down to just 1.5″ (38mm) for storage and travel. It has an accompanying app for iPhone and Android that lets you crop, rotate, and adjust the images to your liking. It’s compatible with color and B&W 35mm negatives and color slide positives, and runs on two AA batteries. The reviews of this product vary drastically. Some people are expecting more from Kodak than just a cardboard box with a light that delivers mediocre scan quality. Other people are delighted with the ease of use. This is one of the most affordable film scanners available, and you can buy one right now at Amazon, B&H Photo or eBay.
The Lomography Smartphone Scanner is similar to the Kodak: it’s a box with a light in it that runs on two AA batteries. You put film into a slot and snap photos of the illuminated images with your phone. It had an app called the Lomoscanner app, but it no longer exists. Not a big deal though, there are plenty of third-party apps that do a better job (search “film scanner” in the iOS App Store or Google Play and you’ll find a bunch). It’s compatible with 35mm color, B&W, slide films, panoramas from the Horizon or Spinner 360° and 35mm movies from the LomoKino. The reviews are mixed. Some people like it, but an equal amount dislike it. You can buy one right now at Amazon, B&H Photo, or eBay.
Entry-Level Scanners
The category of products I’ve named “Entry-Level Scanners” are compact, standalone devices that range in price from cheap to somewhat not-so-cheap. If you buy the least expensive models available, don’t expect acceptable image quality. But, if you spend around $100 USD, the quality is passible enough to satisfy some kinds of people. If any part of your brain is saying, 🧠 “Hey, I want these scans to look great,” please skip this category completely and only consider the Image-Quality Scanners in the next section.
Entry-Level Scanners need to plug into an outlet 🔌 for electricity. Most of them have plastic film holders that you manually place your film into. You slide this film holder into the device, press a button, and a scan* of the film is saved onto the built-in storage or a memory card.
* It’s not truly a scan, it’s a digital camera taking a photo of a piece of film
The most basic Entry-Level Scanners don’t have screens. They’re just plastic contraptions with a scan button, and that’s about it. As they go up in price, they gain features like having a built-in screen. This lets you preview images before you scan them — so you know they’re lined up correctly. Some models have dedicated modes that handle different kinds of negatives and slides more competently.
🤖 What specs should you be aware of ?
- Megapixels: The digital cameras inside Entry-Level Scanners have a megapixel spec. In theory, the more megapixels, the better. The problem is that the cameras in these devices have different image-sensor sizes, and that impacts the quality as well. But, image-sensor size isn’t a spec the manufacturers share. So your best bet is to read lots of verified customer reviews to determine which model most people are happy with, or just choose one from the shopping guide below.
Entry-Level Film Scanner shopping guide
My shopping guides list products from the lowest to highest prices, and the zonoz FS-ONE was the least expensive Entry-Level Scanner I could find that had a large number of positive customer reviews. Some of the reviews on Amazon look fishy 🐠, but there are enough legitimate ones to convince me that it’s a good choice. It’s compatible with color and B&W 35mm negatives and mounted slides. It saves to internal memory or SD cards. It scans the entire area of the negative or slide without cropping. The downside is that there isn’t much information about it. I could not find a manual, so I can’t tell you how much built-in memory it has, and other basic facts about the device. It has a 14-megapixel sensor with software that interpolates that up to 22 megapixels (don’t ask me how), but if you expect high image quality, I recommend skipping this one and getting something else. If you want an okay film scanner for under $100 USD, then this is the one. You can buy it right now at Amazon or eBay.
When you jump up in price a little bit from the last model, you get a more capable device. This is the story of the Wolverine Data F2D Titan 8-in-1 film scanner. It features a large 4.3″ (10.9 cm) screen and it works with 8 different film formats: 35mm, 127, 126, 110, APS, 8mm, Super 8mm and 35mm Archive film. It has only enough built-in memory to scan 30 to 40 images, but it’s compatible with SD cards up to 32GB. I chose this model as one of the Best Film Scanners of 2020, based mainly on the many legitimately positive reviews it gets. Even though this model is well liked, if you are looking to superior image quality, you need to get a different scanner. This is still just a small box with a light in it and a 20-megapixel digital camera with a small image sensor. If you want something that works decently and is compatible with many film types, this is it. But, if you want to scan 120 film, you can’t do that with the Titan. You need to the Wolverine F2D Saturn for 120 film. You can buy an F2D Titan 8-in-1 film scanner right now at Amazon, B&H Photo, or eBay.
The Kodak Scanza is similar to the Wolverine Titan in many ways, but it also gets lots of positive reviews so I decided to include it as well. It has a 3.5″ (88.9mm) screen, which is smaller than the Titan, but the screen on the Scanza swivels, which is nice. Many entry-level scanners make you load each set of negatives or slides into a holder, then insert it. The Scanza has a slightly more elegant approach: you insert the appropriate holder into the unit, then you feed the negatives or mounted slides in by hand so you don’t need to keep putting them in and out of holders. It’s compatible with 135mm, 126, 110, Super 8, and 8mm film (again, 120 film is not supported, Hasselbladders look elsewhere). Like the zonoz FS-One, the Scanza has a 14-megapixel sensor with 22-megpixel interpolation. You can buy a Kodak Scanza right now at Amazon, B&H Photo, or eBay.
Image-Quality Scanners
I’ll be frank: Smartphone-Only Scanners and Entry-Level Scanners are both kind of lousy. They fill a need, but they’re not good film scanners. Smartphone-Only Scanners are interesting because you can keep one in your bag, and when you go to a thrift store you can quickly scan any negatives or slides you find to see if they’re something you want to buy. Entry-Level Scanners are good for people who have a box of old family memories that they currently cannot see. These inexpensive devices give them a way to see these images, albeit in a somewhat fuzzy, low-resolution way.
Image-Quality Scanners actually scan film, and do so in an accurate and appealing-looking way. Think about it, you are probably the only person on the planet that is ever going to scan your negatives and slides. You may as well do it in a definitive way. Get the best looking images you possibly can. Make it worth the time and effort.
Image-Quality Scanners start off in price a bit higher than the other categories, around $200 USD, and go up from there. But you can get a surprisingly good machine for a reasonable amount of money. Considering the superior quality of the scans you get, they deliver great value for the money.
Image-Quality Scanners are split into two separate subcategories: Film-Only Scanners and Flatbed Scanners (which are primarily used to scan printed photographs and documents). Of the two subcategories, Film-Only Scanners deliver higher quality images than the flatbeds.
Film-Only Scanners
Like the name implies, Film-Only Scanners can only scan film, such as 35mm negatives and slides. The Entry-Level Scanners covered in this guide use low-quality digital cameras to make “scans,” while Film-Only Scanners use advanced CCD sensors that are capable of 48-bit color depth and optical resolutions up to 10,000 dpi. Simply put, they provide a much higher level of image quality.
Film-Only Scanners typically come with software for Windows and Mac that let you set parameters and do basic image adjustments. Many models are also compatible with third-party software that lets you take image manipulation much further. This kind of software is not a substitute for Photoshop or Affinity Photo. Think of Photoshop and Affinity Photo as what you use afterwards for post-production. Scanner software acts as a tool that you use in the darkroom before you get to post. A program called VueScan is a popular option.
Flatbed Scanners
When you think of a traditional scanner for a computer, you are likely picturing a flatbed scanner. You place printed photographs inside of its lid, or documents and other flat things. Some flatbed scanners also come with inserts for different kinds of film and slides.
The big advantage of getting a flatbed film scanner is that you will also have a good-quality device for scanning old family photographs. The big disadvantage is that Film-Only Scanners will produce superior looking scans of your film over what you get from a flatbed.
In addition to having film inserts, specific models of flatbed scanners also come with software to better handle the task of scanning film. In the recent past, scanners like this were made by both Canon and Epson, but Canon recently decided to discontinue their film-scanning flatbeds, so now Epson is the only option. More info about this is supplied in the shopping guide section below.
🤖 What specs should you be aware of?
- DPI: This stands for Dots Per Inch. It’s a way of expressing the resolution of the scanner. The higher the DPI number, the better.
- Bit Depth: This is a measurement of color depth. Basically, the spec you want to see is 48-bit.
- Dmax: This stands for Maximum Optical Density. The higher the Dmax, the more detail you will see in the highlights and shadows of your scans.
Image-Quality Film Scanner shopping guide
Epson offers a range of flatbed scanners that do a decent job of scanning film. The least expensive option is the likely the best one to get, because as the price goes up considerably for the more advanced options, the quality isn’t remarkably better to warrant the higher prices. For this reason I recommend getting the affordable Epson Perfection V550. It comes with holders to scan 35mm negatives, mounted slides, and notably medium format film (none of the other Image-Quality Scanners in this shopping guide are compatible with medium format). The V550 has a DPI of 6400, 48-bit color depth, and a Dmax of 3.4. Epson sells an extremely similar model called the V600, which costs $20 more. The only difference between the V550 and the V600 is that the V600 can apply dust and scratch removal processing (software called Digital ICE) to both photos and film scans (the V550 can only apply Digital ICE to film scans). If the V550 is out of stock, then get the V600. Epson also sells two much more expensive scanners called the V800 and V850, but I don’t think they supply enough value for the money. You can buy an Epson Perfection V550 right now at Amazon, B&H Photo, or eBay.
If you want a film scanner that truly hits the sweet-spot for affordable price with excellent performance, look no further than the Plustek OpticFilm 8100. This scanner handles 35mm color negative film, B&W negative film, slides, reversal film and Kodakchrome film. It offers 7200-dpi resolution, 48-bit color depth, a Dmax of 3.6 and it comes with SilverFast SE Plus software that’s compatible with both Windows and Mac. The software lets you adjust the image to your liking before you commit to a high-resolution scan. It does not do batch scanning, you need to advance each frame by hand, and the highest resolution scans it does take a few minutes to complete, so this is not the fastest workflow. But the quality it provides blows away even the most expensive Epson flatbed scanners. This model was my pick as the Best Film Scanner of 2020. Priced at $350 USD, it provides excellent performance for the cost. You can buy one right now at Amazon, B&H Photo, or eBay.
The Plustek OpticFilm 8200i Ai film scanner is similar to the affordable 8100, but it adds a few key features that justify its increase in price. First of all, it can do motorized batch scanning, handling 4 mounted slides or 6 35mm frames at a time (if you want to batch scan more than that, the Plustek PowerFilm handles up to 60 frames of 35mm at a time). Like the 8100, the 8200i Ai has 7200-dpi resolution, 48-bit color depth and a Dmax of 3.6. In other ways it goes beyond what the 8100 can do, the 8200i Ai has an infrared channel that removes scratches and dust, and IT 8 calibration which helps you get more consistent color and detail with less post-processing work needed from you. Plus, it comes with more advanced SilverFast Ai Studio 8 software. You can buy the OpticFilm 8200i Ai right now at Amazon, B&H Photo, or eBay.
Are there any super fancy film scanners? 🤑
If only the best of the best will do, there are also some high-end film scanners available. A brand called Hassleblad, which is a premier maker of high-end cameras, used to produce several lines of advanced film scanners.
What made them different was that the trays you loaded film into were flexible, and when taken into the machine they would be bent around a drum to make the film as flat as possible for precision scanning. These models, which have names like Flextight and Imacon, are still available on eBay, just be prepared to pay high-end prices.
😀 Thank you for reading this! 😀
If this buying guide has been helpful, you can easily help me. Just click on these links before you buy something at Amazon, B&H Photo, or eBay. When you do, I get a tiny commission at no additional cost to you, even if you’re just buying camera socks. 🧦
