Scanners > Film scanner (35 mm) Scanners > 48-bit colour

Advantages: Superb quality images and amazing ICE dust removal
Disadvantages: Poor user interface & price (especially for the optional APS adaptor)

...finally decided to get the Nikon Super Coolscan 5000 ED. All the reviews I read suggested a good balance between cost and performance, and I can confirm this. The scanner cost $1065 or about £600 from a US company called Cameta Camera who were selling the scanner new on ebay. When it arrived, it was very easy to install and get working, and came with the adaptors to allow me to scan both standard 35mm film and also slides. In order to scan APS films ...
...but it's around half what Nikon are charging for a brand new one! Unbelievable!! Anyway, 12 months later, and I've now scanned a lot of negatives (no slides though), and the scanner has been perfect. There's no point my listing all the technical detail about this scanner, the main feature is that it produces very high resolution scans (up to 4000 dpi) which can then be saved in a variety of file formats e.g. JPEG or TIFF. Some of the file sizes ... Read review

Advantages: Inexpensive, very fast, high resolution good quality output
Disadvantages: Unreliable and low quality construction

...minutes per full-resolution scan, the Plustek takes a minute. In fact I spent more time fiddling with the slides putting them into the mount than actually scanning. The resulting scans, while slightly noisier than other lower-resolution scanners I have used are wonderfully high resolution. Colours are also perhaps more subdued than the Canon, but of course, a few adjustments in Photoshop or Gimp soon fixes that. The bad news however is that it turned ...
...noises and something inside jamming (not sure what, but turning off the power usually fixed it) that became more frequent as time went on, eventually resulting in it being unusable. I returned it and got my money back in full. Would I recommend this scanner? At this price I probably would if you only want to scan a few of your favourite negatives or slides, but not if you are a professional. I am a very heavy user archiving my full back catalogue ... Read review

Advantages: A fine scanner at a budget price.
Disadvantages: Yet anotherthing to plug into your PC!

...years ago I bought a Minolta Dimage Scan Dual II brand new. These can now be found on Ebay for £100 or so and offer a fine machine at a rather more affordable price. The results I've had are truly superb, with fine detail and subtlties of colour faithfully reproduced. The Scan Dual II is a machine capable of scanning 35mm and APS (with optional adaptor) negatives with an output resolution of up to 2820dpi. This is more than enough to produce images ...
...slides. The drivers and Minolta Scan Utility software are supplied on a CD on which you will also find a 109 page User Guide in PDF format. There is also a Quick Reference Guide in paper form to get you started. The software lets you control such things as scan resolution, final image size etc. It also lets you choose between colour negative, black and white negative and colour positive (slides). OPERATION If you buy secondhand the supplied copy ... Read review

Advantages: good quality, lots of editing features, produces up to A3.
Disadvantages: slow, requires more time to edit than your digi photos, glitchy software.

Despite being in the digital age i still have slides and negatives that need 'digitising'. After careful consideration i decided on the 5400. Its tech spec and reviews said it all. After the first install i encountered a problem. The second install was fine. But the software has a few glitches. With my Apple (running OSx 10.4) and Windows XP machines i decided to use the software with Adobe Photoshop elements. This came with the scanner. Sometimes ...
...an error - and i'd have to restart the computer. This happened a few times. Once reloaded it worked fine. The scanner software, coupled with Elements, had plenty of features for tuning up the photographs. Although the scanner does a very good job with colours and contrast, its not perfect. You will almost certainly need to edit them afterwards. Depending on your editing skills the end result was, usually, pleasing. Though, for the price i paid (the ... Read review

Advantages: Sooooo many features
Disadvantages: None that I can think of

We use the CanoScan Lide 25 (which I'll refer to as Lide 25 from now on) at work and a handy little scanning tool it is indeed. It's very slim and lightweight and sits nicely on my desk, ready to jump into action whenever I need to scan a document or photo. You can copy directly from the platen (glass screen) to your printer or print or even email and it's very easy to set up. AN ABUNDANCE OF FEATURES The Lide 25 uses a USB connection so ...
...handy indeed - saving on energy is always a better option. Unlike other home scanners I've used in the past the Lide 25 scans to a fairly high resolution of up to 1200 x 2400 dpi so when scanning photos you get very good quality images. The software that comes with the scanned allows you to scan documents to PDF too and you choose whether you want them in colour or monochrome or select the image quality you want from 75, 100, 200, 250, 300 or 400 ... Read review