For example I wanted to look at the first picture in the horizontal gallery that scrolls horizontally when you scroll vertically. However, there is no way for me to view the whole image. Either it is cutoff at the bottom, or it starts horizontally scrolling. Switching from vertical to horizontal scrolling is awkward and I just want to skip the gallery.
scrolling on that page feels slow, sluggish, and if you switch to spacebar, you actually miss significant content since it only loads/becomes visible halfway into the page.
Like others have said, dust is a huge issue. Some film labs cut film into short strips. some film is just a single image (for example if previously cut to fit into slides).
The film is designed to form into a coil. So, if there's grit or any hard material you'll end up with scratches on the negative itself.
--is it only 35mm as well? I don't think I see any mention of formats it supports. So I can only assume it's just 35mm.--
EDIT: found the 120mm section in the FAQ.
I'm glad this exists but at ~1k EUR I would be interested if it could scan 120 medium format negatives...but the fact that it does not is an absolute deal breaker for me. It seems like they are considering it. I hope they do figure that out sooner than later.
Epson stopped making their flatbeds that do film, reportedly because they can’t get the CCDs anymore. That may be a rumor.
The result is they go for 2x MSRP on eBay for models that are many years old. Because that’s all that exists.
Without that, you can buy the kind of scanner meant for a photo lab ($$$$$), DIY it with a DSLR ($$$ if you don’t have one), or pay your a lab a lot per roll and hope they do a good job.
I’m not saying it’s a giant market but it certainly seems to me like there’s enough of one that it could support a small product.
You can get brand new Plustek OpticFilm scanners for 35mm and smaller starting around $300, and there are plenty of other options above that. Plus the DIY.
I’m sure 35mm is easier to make and certainly a bigger market but it’s also a lot more crowded.
I expect their specs are far better than the $300 one I’ve mentioned, I don’t know enough to know. But medium format people are desperate for anything.
I tried some scanning on a Plustek 8300, which is supposed to be the fastest. The process is still extremely manual/slow and I don't think it's practical on a large scale. Many families who owned cameras in the 60s-70s-80s-90s will have potentially thousands of negatives to scan, but I don't see a solution that will automate that digitalization process.
Software could also use some improvement. Automating batch correction and clean up should be easier, IMO.
Not that they're cheap, but you can get Imacon scanners for much less than they retailed for. I inherited a Flextight Precision II and it still does a great job.
PS to add more - I am unable to scroll, all I see is the picture with the dark background. If I use arrow keys instead of the touchpad, I can scroll a bit then after a second or so the page snaps back to the top. I have Firefox on MacOS.
(I know the HN rules say that we should focus on the contents rather than criticising the technical aspects of a website, but in this case the contents are not accessible).
As someone who has a mirrorless scanning setup for my film, and pondered getting a dedicated scanner... the price of this is quite steep given how inflexible of a tool it is.
A second hand DSLR setup is going to be roughly the same price or less. I'm also not sure what kind of workflow improvements it actually offers. If you want fancy and experimental, filmomat has arguably a more interesting but pricier offering.
But naysaying aside, I hope they manage to find a niche that allows them to survive as a company, and keep the analog photography revival alive.
I bought some time on a hasselblad medium format scanner (took fucking ages)
The results are good, as you'd expect. However can I tell the difference between that and me putting the negatives on a decent softbox and using a fancy camera to take a picture? yes, but not by much.
I think the main issue is film registration, that is getting the film to be flat and "co-planar" to the lens so the whole frame is sharp.
My negatives are slightly warped, so they really need a frame to make sure they are perfectly flat. But for instagram, they are close enough.
However scanning more than a few pictures is a massive pain in the arse. If I was scanning film regularly, then this is what I'd want, and its cheaper than the competition.
Assuming that its actually any good, I haven't seen any scans yet.
I almost missed the price. Wow you're right that's a lot! And the final retail price is 1599 euros. I have a good Plustek that cost me $300 or $400. Automated transport and unantiquated software sounds nice, but those features are not worth an extra $600-1,100 to me.
Am I missing something or is this supposed to be in another tier of image quality?
Honestly I feel like anything beyond 5 megapixels per frame is pushing beyond reasonable expectations with 35mm. This is certainly the case with any kind of available light or high speed work in silver-halide process, the area where I figure most people are going to be using this device. Lab-work in C41 and E6 is definitely possible at home but must account for single digit percentage of the home analogue market.
I think I see what you mean. It’s the difference between having an image showing the shape and texture of each film grain, and an image which looks like what I saw in the camera and which isn’t going to be any sharper. The former has value but the latter was always good enough for me and, surprisingly, rather low in resolution compared to subsequent DSLRs and mirrorless cameras I bought in the 2010s.
Ilford Delta 400 pushed two stops to 1600 ASA in a 1970s Asahi Pentax SP1000 was always going to produce… artistic results, requiring as much imagination as acuity to appreciate the subject. (Read: see past the blur.)
> A second hand DSLR setup is going to be roughly the same price or less.
And if you get one with Pixel Shift, you can get way higher resolutions than the 22MP they're offering (e.g. my cheapo Olympus gets 40MP JPEG or 64MP RAW from a 16MP sensor.)
Filmomat looks fun. Many money. Love the hipster flex with the Weber HG-1 in background of the demonstration video. I do own an Intrepid enlarger (sort of experimental?), and I used to live near Ars Imago in Zurich who sell a "lab in a box", similar to Filmomat's Light system. The independent dev scene is pretty great, though none of it is particularly cheap and is rarely open source, which is disappointing.
> I'm also not sure what kind of workflow improvements it actually offers.
The obvious one is auto-feeding and portability, but without using it who knows. It doesn't offer IR, but even Filmomat's system needs a modified camera. You get that with most flatbed and Plustek-style scanners. I have a V850 Pro which wasn't cheap either, but it'll do a full roll in one go and I can walk away. Even if I shot a roll a day it would be more than fast enough. It has occasional focus issues, and you need to be scrupulous about dusting, but it works well enough. I've never been a huge fan of the setup required for copy-stand scanning and it's tricky getting the negatives perfectly flat in/frame. The good carriers are also not cheap, look at Negative Supply for example.
Frankly it also looks great, like the Filmomat. I think some of the appeal is a chunk of modern looking hardware and also the hope that it's maintained? My Epson works well, but I ended up paying for VueScan because the OEM software is temperamental.
I scanned a lot of 35mm film, of various kinds, using a high-end flatbed scanner (EPSON V700 Photo). The biggest problem is not the optical quality, but mechanics: flatbeds can only scan strips. And if your film is very old and has been stored in a roll, you might not want to cut it, and even if you do, getting the strips to stay flat is nearly impossible.
I tried various fancy holders, but in the end decided that I'll likely have to make my own holder from aluminum or steel sheet metal. And even then you run into the problem of lengthwise curvature. For those that are unaware of the problem with this, these scanners have a very limited depth of field, in the range of 1mm or less. So if your film is bent, some of it will always be out of focus.
I can't see much on this fancy webpage, because they made it so fancy that some of the images do not load and those that do load are oh so mysteriously dark. But if their scanner can scan both heavily curved rolls and strips, I will be buying it.
As to optical quality, if you can get your film to stay flat, this is a solved problem, that Epson mentioned above can produce fantastic results (more pixels that you want, generally).
Doesn't always work. I've got old Agfa negatives I developed from my grandpa in Korea in the 50s. Developed them after finding them in his attic maybe 10 years ago now. They sat between two panes of glass for 5 years with volumes of books on top, not a single change toward flat. I finally gave up and just put them in the archival sleeves and in the binder with the curve.
I applaud their intent to be repairable, but would really like to see a commitment to open sourcing the software under specific conditions (time, EoL, acquisition, closing down, etc).
> “Is Knokke open, repairable, and long-term supported?”
> “Absolutely. We're committed to building a scanner that lasts decades.
All schematics and repair manuals will be publicly available, replacement parts can be purchased directly, and the software will remain supported for as long as possible.”
Yes. Our control application, Korova, will be fully open source and maintained long term. It’s a native, lightweight application for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
The biggest pains of film scanning are in the post process color balance and dust removal. Unless this can improve those parts of the workflow, it's only going to be a minor improvement. I like the continuous reel movement of this scanner vs a flatbed though, that can improve the physical workflow quite a bit.
I'd never run film at claimed top speeds unless it was a disposable copy print, but seems exciting. Long way have we come from linear array cameras and telecine to these. Different light sources would be useful for dust and scratches mask. $1k price is also insane. For full mechanical assembly with casters etc it probably comes within five or ten, but still a bargain. I wrote here years ago where I had a side hustle scanning and processing ye olde reels with an absolute beast of a scanner (think room sized) that did 2k in real time with an SGI and Hippi fiber network. Tech almost interesting as films themselves. :)
I still have an expensive Canon dedicated slide/film scanner from 20 years ago.
IIRC at some point their value started going up as they became rare.
Mine did something like 50MP scans of 35mm film/slides. The quality was more than enough.
But it was painfully slow.
This thing is not 100x faster, so I think it's still painfully slow. If it takes 5 minutes to do a roll of 24 that still means someone with hundreds of rolls needs to have a lot of time on their hands.
Not sure I can actually figure out software to get my old one to work FWIW, but I don't think I care to deal with it, I have a big enough mess dealing with the ~200k digital photos that are already on disk.
For the "this is crazy expensive" crowd: this competes with the Pakon F135 - an ancient lab scanner that involves booting up Windows XP, finding old drivers on a CD, etc
No, this competes with a lightsource, some stand and a macro lens+DSLR/M. It's a good price if don't have the later ones. But chances are high that you do if you are into photography.
5-10 minutes depending on equipment/skill. You "lose" most of the time if your strip is cut into stripes of 4-6 images, otherwise you can do it in 2 minutes.
Presumably the negatives, but not the pictures, as this is intended to scan only negatives. You'd probably have better luck with a cheap flatbed scanner that comes with adapters for slides and negatives. (I've used both dedicated film scanners and flatbed scanners to scan thousands of rolls of film and prints taken over a span of 50 years.)
No. 4x6 negatives are large format and requires a different type of scanner (flat bed). If you look at the photos the 35mm roll slides into the device so you can’t fit a larger format sheet into the feed.
Hmm, does seem pretty expensive but sounds interesting. I've got an old Canon FS4000 for 35mm, which works ok for me. I'm curious what people recommend for 4x5 film.
I've been camera scanning 4x5 and I'm happy with the results. Take two offset photos and stitch them in post. Mind you, I scan with pixel shift for higher res.
Film doesn't really make sense anymore outside the realm of luxury-budget art. And if so, why 35mm? Why not medium format / Hasselblads, or large format? Why not actually go for the format sizes where there's a reasonable argument that film can produce a better end result compared to DSLRs?
> Why not medium format / Hasselblads, or large format?
That has also been superseded in the digital realm. I can use a top DSLR from the last decade to blow film medium format cameras away under most conditions, especially in low light. If I just use a digital medium format camera, it invalidates almost any rationale for film medium format (there is a minor, minor argument to be made about depth of field when the lens is wide open).
Large format can squeeze slightly more resolution out of an image, but the ability to actually use that extra resolution is rarely satisfied. Again, a MF digital subs in for almost every conceivable use case.
The reality is that people do this because it is fun, or a challenge, or for a feeling. Basically, its interesting. The technical excellence of the 'end result' is secondary.
There's tons of things that people do that don't make sense from a purely pragmatic point of view, and that's what makes the world so much more fun to live in.
35mm wins by a mile on price per shot. And for web scans (where most photos end up), it's got more than enough resolution.
35mm film and 120 film are a similar cost per roll, but with 35mm you get 36 exposures vs 8-16 exposures on 120 film (6x12 and 6x4, with square 6x6 in the middle at 12 exposures). And if you shoot half-frame, the cost/shot really goes in the 35mm direction.
That said, I have a handful of of 35mm cameras (all fixed lens vintage rangefinder) and a post-war Zeiss Super Ikonta IV (6x6 120 format). The Olympus 35DC is my favorite of the bunch - it's automatic except focus - really sharp and fast lens - just a pleasure to use. And a Polaroid Go 2 because it's just dumb fun (way overpriced for the quality, and sensible people buy Instax cameras instead, but the Polaroid form-factor was just too much for me to pass up).
I shoot film because it makes me slow down and think a bit. With my mirrorless cameras, I'm too prone to spray and pray and sorting through hundreds of shots can kill the fun for me. That, and the film look is nostalgic for me - sometimes I just want rough snapshots - feels more like a memory vs the crystal clear high res digital output.
35mm is super cheap to get into if you just want to experiment. Old 35mm cameras and even home darkroom equipment are gathering dust in tens of thousands of households, cheap on FBM or thrift shops.
It's expensive compared to digital for snapshots, but if you enjoy working in the darkroom as a hobby, you can probably get everything you need for free or cheap.
I don't see any infrared sensor. This makes it drastically worse than the competitors on the market, as it's an essential sensor for dust and scratch removal.
Did they not research the competition?
I can buy a brand-new 7200 (virtual) DPI machine with infrared, proper color metering, wide software support, and multi-exposure system for $400, less than half the price of this offering.
It also supports slides and single frames, whereas this has a min. of 3 in a strip.
When it comes to the light source, it's a huge missed opportunity. The next wave of film scanning involves capturing Red, Green and Blue separately (separate narrow-band LEDs) to better isolate C-41 layers and counteract crossover on the image sensor. And yes, it should have an IR pass as well, for dust removal.
With that said, I'm happy to see new film products released in 2025/2026. Hopefully this is just the first at-bat.
Disappointed to see that the first reactions on HN are so dismissive.
I'm both amazed and really pleased to see anyone attempting to launch a totally new scanner in 2025, and genuinely hoping the actual scans are really made at the resolution and color-depth claimed in the text: too many recent scanners are simply upscaled, lower bit-depth devices marketed with exaggerated specs.
I also have a Nikon Coolscan 9000, so I'm not immediately in the market for this. But I don't expect the Coolscan to last forever, and the Firewire connections on the machine are already abandoned by Apple, who chose not to support the cables in their latest Operating System - so eventually I won't be able to connect it to a new computer.
The open source aspect seems worthy of attention if nothing else. Even if this is a middle-of-the-road scanner - the community being able to customize, improve and support it would be incredible. Especially considering your scanner is considered one of the best despite being over 20 years old.
I thought you use a camera on stand is the common way now. Did one in Edinburgh and ordered one back home waiting for delivery. After decade of epson it is not comparable for speed and option …
for just contact sheet fast … you can just move and push the blue tooth button … for one particular treasure slow … you can do pixel shift and focus stacking …
I gave up trying to read the article when animations started happening when I scrolled. It's annoying and I have better things to do than waste time waiting for your animations to stutter and finish moving around when I'm trying to scan the article. Good luck with whatever you're trying to do.
The interesting thing is w gen Ai images, a reliance in terms of photographic evidence may come down to analog. Plus Kodak returning to film stock, the future looks bright for 35mm
yeah static mostly. You can get a pizeoelectric antistatic gun to neutralize it. You can also get antistatic brushes that use alpha emissions from polonium 210 to do this.
every optical system attracts dust - dslrs / mirrorless cameras with removable lenses have extensive hardware and software systems to handle dust detection and removal from the sensor.
I wish the fancy scroll nonsense would go away.
For example I wanted to look at the first picture in the horizontal gallery that scrolls horizontally when you scroll vertically. However, there is no way for me to view the whole image. Either it is cutoff at the bottom, or it starts horizontally scrolling. Switching from vertical to horizontal scrolling is awkward and I just want to skip the gallery.
scrolling on that page feels slow, sluggish, and if you switch to spacebar, you actually miss significant content since it only loads/becomes visible halfway into the page.
Like others have said, dust is a huge issue. Some film labs cut film into short strips. some film is just a single image (for example if previously cut to fit into slides).
The film is designed to form into a coil. So, if there's grit or any hard material you'll end up with scratches on the negative itself.
--is it only 35mm as well? I don't think I see any mention of formats it supports. So I can only assume it's just 35mm.-- EDIT: found the 120mm section in the FAQ.
It’s a cancer on the web. Apple started it and I hate them for it. And I’m an Apple fan.
If I wanted to wait 1/2 second for each part of the page to load I’d have stayed on dialup.
The fact that there is still no sample scans has me heated - instead of showing us all these specs, how about some sample images!!
I'm glad this exists but at ~1k EUR I would be interested if it could scan 120 medium format negatives...but the fact that it does not is an absolute deal breaker for me. It seems like they are considering it. I hope they do figure that out sooner than later.
Medium is the problem. There’s nothing.
Epson stopped making their flatbeds that do film, reportedly because they can’t get the CCDs anymore. That may be a rumor.
The result is they go for 2x MSRP on eBay for models that are many years old. Because that’s all that exists.
Without that, you can buy the kind of scanner meant for a photo lab ($$$$$), DIY it with a DSLR ($$$ if you don’t have one), or pay your a lab a lot per roll and hope they do a good job.
I’m not saying it’s a giant market but it certainly seems to me like there’s enough of one that it could support a small product.
You can get brand new Plustek OpticFilm scanners for 35mm and smaller starting around $300, and there are plenty of other options above that. Plus the DIY.
I’m sure 35mm is easier to make and certainly a bigger market but it’s also a lot more crowded.
I expect their specs are far better than the $300 one I’ve mentioned, I don’t know enough to know. But medium format people are desperate for anything.
I tried some scanning on a Plustek 8300, which is supposed to be the fastest. The process is still extremely manual/slow and I don't think it's practical on a large scale. Many families who owned cameras in the 60s-70s-80s-90s will have potentially thousands of negatives to scan, but I don't see a solution that will automate that digitalization process.
Software could also use some improvement. Automating batch correction and clean up should be easier, IMO.
Not that they're cheap, but you can get Imacon scanners for much less than they retailed for. I inherited a Flextight Precision II and it still does a great job.
Archive link for those who, like me, are unable to scroll on that page
https://web.archive.org/web/20251111210606/https://www.soke....
PS to add more - I am unable to scroll, all I see is the picture with the dark background. If I use arrow keys instead of the touchpad, I can scroll a bit then after a second or so the page snaps back to the top. I have Firefox on MacOS.
(I know the HN rules say that we should focus on the contents rather than criticising the technical aspects of a website, but in this case the contents are not accessible).
As someone who has a mirrorless scanning setup for my film, and pondered getting a dedicated scanner... the price of this is quite steep given how inflexible of a tool it is.
A second hand DSLR setup is going to be roughly the same price or less. I'm also not sure what kind of workflow improvements it actually offers. If you want fancy and experimental, filmomat has arguably a more interesting but pricier offering.
But naysaying aside, I hope they manage to find a niche that allows them to survive as a company, and keep the analog photography revival alive.
I bought some time on a hasselblad medium format scanner (took fucking ages)
The results are good, as you'd expect. However can I tell the difference between that and me putting the negatives on a decent softbox and using a fancy camera to take a picture? yes, but not by much.
I think the main issue is film registration, that is getting the film to be flat and "co-planar" to the lens so the whole frame is sharp.
My negatives are slightly warped, so they really need a frame to make sure they are perfectly flat. But for instagram, they are close enough.
However scanning more than a few pictures is a massive pain in the arse. If I was scanning film regularly, then this is what I'd want, and its cheaper than the competition.
Assuming that its actually any good, I haven't seen any scans yet.
I almost missed the price. Wow you're right that's a lot! And the final retail price is 1599 euros. I have a good Plustek that cost me $300 or $400. Automated transport and unantiquated software sounds nice, but those features are not worth an extra $600-1,100 to me.
Am I missing something or is this supposed to be in another tier of image quality?
It's actually a lower DPI and no IR sensor.
Honestly I feel like anything beyond 5 megapixels per frame is pushing beyond reasonable expectations with 35mm. This is certainly the case with any kind of available light or high speed work in silver-halide process, the area where I figure most people are going to be using this device. Lab-work in C41 and E6 is definitely possible at home but must account for single digit percentage of the home analogue market.
You are right in that a lot of advertised DPI over 5MP is interpolated and not actual sensor DPI.
Never. 20 Mp if you want "lossless".
I think I see what you mean. It’s the difference between having an image showing the shape and texture of each film grain, and an image which looks like what I saw in the camera and which isn’t going to be any sharper. The former has value but the latter was always good enough for me and, surprisingly, rather low in resolution compared to subsequent DSLRs and mirrorless cameras I bought in the 2010s.
Ilford Delta 400 pushed two stops to 1600 ASA in a 1970s Asahi Pentax SP1000 was always going to produce… artistic results, requiring as much imagination as acuity to appreciate the subject. (Read: see past the blur.)
> A second hand DSLR setup is going to be roughly the same price or less.
And if you get one with Pixel Shift, you can get way higher resolutions than the 22MP they're offering (e.g. my cheapo Olympus gets 40MP JPEG or 64MP RAW from a 16MP sensor.)
The Olympus pixel shift bodies are underappreciated stand cameras. The quality is just bananas.
Filmomat looks fun. Many money. Love the hipster flex with the Weber HG-1 in background of the demonstration video. I do own an Intrepid enlarger (sort of experimental?), and I used to live near Ars Imago in Zurich who sell a "lab in a box", similar to Filmomat's Light system. The independent dev scene is pretty great, though none of it is particularly cheap and is rarely open source, which is disappointing.
> I'm also not sure what kind of workflow improvements it actually offers.
The obvious one is auto-feeding and portability, but without using it who knows. It doesn't offer IR, but even Filmomat's system needs a modified camera. You get that with most flatbed and Plustek-style scanners. I have a V850 Pro which wasn't cheap either, but it'll do a full roll in one go and I can walk away. Even if I shot a roll a day it would be more than fast enough. It has occasional focus issues, and you need to be scrupulous about dusting, but it works well enough. I've never been a huge fan of the setup required for copy-stand scanning and it's tricky getting the negatives perfectly flat in/frame. The good carriers are also not cheap, look at Negative Supply for example.
Frankly it also looks great, like the Filmomat. I think some of the appeal is a chunk of modern looking hardware and also the hope that it's maintained? My Epson works well, but I ended up paying for VueScan because the OEM software is temperamental.
Related, not a 35 mm scanner but a super-8 scanner with true hacker ethos: https://tscann8.torulf.com/
(I have submitted it earlier but no traction)
I scanned a lot of 35mm film, of various kinds, using a high-end flatbed scanner (EPSON V700 Photo). The biggest problem is not the optical quality, but mechanics: flatbeds can only scan strips. And if your film is very old and has been stored in a roll, you might not want to cut it, and even if you do, getting the strips to stay flat is nearly impossible.
I tried various fancy holders, but in the end decided that I'll likely have to make my own holder from aluminum or steel sheet metal. And even then you run into the problem of lengthwise curvature. For those that are unaware of the problem with this, these scanners have a very limited depth of field, in the range of 1mm or less. So if your film is bent, some of it will always be out of focus.
I can't see much on this fancy webpage, because they made it so fancy that some of the images do not load and those that do load are oh so mysteriously dark. But if their scanner can scan both heavily curved rolls and strips, I will be buying it.
As to optical quality, if you can get your film to stay flat, this is a solved problem, that Epson mentioned above can produce fantastic results (more pixels that you want, generally).
Seems like an obvious question, but why not sandwich it between panes of glass?
Newton's Rings. Anti-newton glass is frosted, loses resolution.
Professional drum scanners would immerse the film in mineral oil. Epson used to ship a kit for their flatbeds. Popular with 8x10 photographers.
Doesn't always work. I've got old Agfa negatives I developed from my grandpa in Korea in the 50s. Developed them after finding them in his attic maybe 10 years ago now. They sat between two panes of glass for 5 years with volumes of books on top, not a single change toward flat. I finally gave up and just put them in the archival sleeves and in the binder with the curve.
This is crazy expensive. I built my own copy stand recently from this post's specs and even adding in a digital camera, it's still a lot cheaper than 999 euros. https://alexandermatragos.com/blog/2023/1/15/building-a-copy...
I applaud their intent to be repairable, but would really like to see a commitment to open sourcing the software under specific conditions (time, EoL, acquisition, closing down, etc).
> “Is Knokke open, repairable, and long-term supported?”
> “Absolutely. We're committed to building a scanner that lasts decades. All schematics and repair manuals will be publicly available, replacement parts can be purchased directly, and the software will remain supported for as long as possible.”
In the FAQs:
Is the software open source?
Yes. Our control application, Korova, will be fully open source and maintained long term. It’s a native, lightweight application for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
The biggest pains of film scanning are in the post process color balance and dust removal. Unless this can improve those parts of the workflow, it's only going to be a minor improvement. I like the continuous reel movement of this scanner vs a flatbed though, that can improve the physical workflow quite a bit.
I'd never run film at claimed top speeds unless it was a disposable copy print, but seems exciting. Long way have we come from linear array cameras and telecine to these. Different light sources would be useful for dust and scratches mask. $1k price is also insane. For full mechanical assembly with casters etc it probably comes within five or ten, but still a bargain. I wrote here years ago where I had a side hustle scanning and processing ye olde reels with an absolute beast of a scanner (think room sized) that did 2k in real time with an SGI and Hippi fiber network. Tech almost interesting as films themselves. :)
RGB LED backlight is a terrible choice. Wide gamut but terrible color rendering.
No IR sensor for dust removal?
I still have an expensive Canon dedicated slide/film scanner from 20 years ago.
IIRC at some point their value started going up as they became rare.
Mine did something like 50MP scans of 35mm film/slides. The quality was more than enough.
But it was painfully slow.
This thing is not 100x faster, so I think it's still painfully slow. If it takes 5 minutes to do a roll of 24 that still means someone with hundreds of rolls needs to have a lot of time on their hands.
Not sure I can actually figure out software to get my old one to work FWIW, but I don't think I care to deal with it, I have a big enough mess dealing with the ~200k digital photos that are already on disk.
For the "this is crazy expensive" crowd: this competes with the Pakon F135 - an ancient lab scanner that involves booting up Windows XP, finding old drivers on a CD, etc
This sounds excellent to me, personally.
No, this competes with a lightsource, some stand and a macro lens+DSLR/M. It's a good price if don't have the later ones. But chances are high that you do if you are into photography.
How long does a roll take you to scan that way?
5-10 minutes depending on equipment/skill. You "lose" most of the time if your strip is cut into stripes of 4-6 images, otherwise you can do it in 2 minutes.
Granted, I got sick of doing this myself so I ended up happily forking over the money for the local lab to do it on their Macon
I’ve got a decade’s worth of 4x6 pictures and negatives from my childhood. Would something like this help me digitize them?
Presumably the negatives, but not the pictures, as this is intended to scan only negatives. You'd probably have better luck with a cheap flatbed scanner that comes with adapters for slides and negatives. (I've used both dedicated film scanners and flatbed scanners to scan thousands of rolls of film and prints taken over a span of 50 years.)
No. 4x6 negatives are large format and requires a different type of scanner (flat bed). If you look at the photos the 35mm roll slides into the device so you can’t fit a larger format sheet into the feed.
The industrial design is really nice! I like the fun LED display as opposed to an LCD. I am surprised there doesn't seem to be any physical controls!
I'm sure this will be on every photography youtuber's channel shortly, can't wait to see it in action.
Hmm, does seem pretty expensive but sounds interesting. I've got an old Canon FS4000 for 35mm, which works ok for me. I'm curious what people recommend for 4x5 film.
Is there such a thing as a cheap drum scanner.
I've been camera scanning 4x5 and I'm happy with the results. Take two offset photos and stitch them in post. Mind you, I scan with pixel shift for higher res.
The Epson scanners are supposed to be nice but they stopped making them and they’ve shot way up in price second hand.
Yeah I do remember hearing good things about the Epson scanners, will have another look, thanks.
I haven't done 4x5 in a while, but I have an HP flatbed with a 4x5 adapter (purchased used on ebay) which does an OK job for the price.
Film doesn't really make sense anymore outside the realm of luxury-budget art. And if so, why 35mm? Why not medium format / Hasselblads, or large format? Why not actually go for the format sizes where there's a reasonable argument that film can produce a better end result compared to DSLRs?
> Why not medium format / Hasselblads, or large format?
That has also been superseded in the digital realm. I can use a top DSLR from the last decade to blow film medium format cameras away under most conditions, especially in low light. If I just use a digital medium format camera, it invalidates almost any rationale for film medium format (there is a minor, minor argument to be made about depth of field when the lens is wide open).
Large format can squeeze slightly more resolution out of an image, but the ability to actually use that extra resolution is rarely satisfied. Again, a MF digital subs in for almost every conceivable use case.
The reality is that people do this because it is fun, or a challenge, or for a feeling. Basically, its interesting. The technical excellence of the 'end result' is secondary.
There's tons of things that people do that don't make sense from a purely pragmatic point of view, and that's what makes the world so much more fun to live in.
35mm wins by a mile on price per shot. And for web scans (where most photos end up), it's got more than enough resolution.
35mm film and 120 film are a similar cost per roll, but with 35mm you get 36 exposures vs 8-16 exposures on 120 film (6x12 and 6x4, with square 6x6 in the middle at 12 exposures). And if you shoot half-frame, the cost/shot really goes in the 35mm direction.
That said, I have a handful of of 35mm cameras (all fixed lens vintage rangefinder) and a post-war Zeiss Super Ikonta IV (6x6 120 format). The Olympus 35DC is my favorite of the bunch - it's automatic except focus - really sharp and fast lens - just a pleasure to use. And a Polaroid Go 2 because it's just dumb fun (way overpriced for the quality, and sensible people buy Instax cameras instead, but the Polaroid form-factor was just too much for me to pass up).
I shoot film because it makes me slow down and think a bit. With my mirrorless cameras, I'm too prone to spray and pray and sorting through hundreds of shots can kill the fun for me. That, and the film look is nostalgic for me - sometimes I just want rough snapshots - feels more like a memory vs the crystal clear high res digital output.
35mm is super cheap to get into if you just want to experiment. Old 35mm cameras and even home darkroom equipment are gathering dust in tens of thousands of households, cheap on FBM or thrift shops.
It's expensive compared to digital for snapshots, but if you enjoy working in the darkroom as a hobby, you can probably get everything you need for free or cheap.
Would've been an auto-buy at $500. Looks cool though I hope they have success
I don't see any infrared sensor. This makes it drastically worse than the competitors on the market, as it's an essential sensor for dust and scratch removal.
Did they not research the competition?
I can buy a brand-new 7200 (virtual) DPI machine with infrared, proper color metering, wide software support, and multi-exposure system for $400, less than half the price of this offering.
It also supports slides and single frames, whereas this has a min. of 3 in a strip.
When it comes to the light source, it's a huge missed opportunity. The next wave of film scanning involves capturing Red, Green and Blue separately (separate narrow-band LEDs) to better isolate C-41 layers and counteract crossover on the image sensor. And yes, it should have an IR pass as well, for dust removal.
With that said, I'm happy to see new film products released in 2025/2026. Hopefully this is just the first at-bat.
This sounds really interesting! Do you have any info about that scanning process?
I should have dropped a link! Check out this project:
https://jackw01.github.io/scanlight/
Disappointed to see that the first reactions on HN are so dismissive.
I'm both amazed and really pleased to see anyone attempting to launch a totally new scanner in 2025, and genuinely hoping the actual scans are really made at the resolution and color-depth claimed in the text: too many recent scanners are simply upscaled, lower bit-depth devices marketed with exaggerated specs.
I also have a Nikon Coolscan 9000, so I'm not immediately in the market for this. But I don't expect the Coolscan to last forever, and the Firewire connections on the machine are already abandoned by Apple, who chose not to support the cables in their latest Operating System - so eventually I won't be able to connect it to a new computer.
The open source aspect seems worthy of attention if nothing else. Even if this is a middle-of-the-road scanner - the community being able to customize, improve and support it would be incredible. Especially considering your scanner is considered one of the best despite being over 20 years old.
I thought you use a camera on stand is the common way now. Did one in Edinburgh and ordered one back home waiting for delivery. After decade of epson it is not comparable for speed and option …
for just contact sheet fast … you can just move and push the blue tooth button … for one particular treasure slow … you can do pixel shift and focus stacking …
I gave up trying to read the article when animations started happening when I scrolled. It's annoying and I have better things to do than waste time waiting for your animations to stutter and finish moving around when I'm trying to scan the article. Good luck with whatever you're trying to do.
I have 3 Nikon Coolscans and I also repair them…
I would love a new scanner for 21st century but there just no way anyone serious is trading CCD (or PMT if you got the cash) for CMOS.
But I applaud the initiative and will definitely buy it to try but not to keep.
Stick to my Nikon scanner until this comes down in $
It's quite punchy in price for a niche market. I'm struggling to see much of a USP for me.
The interesting thing is w gen Ai images, a reliance in terms of photographic evidence may come down to analog. Plus Kodak returning to film stock, the future looks bright for 35mm
This site seems kind of pointless. There are no examples of the product's output or any demonstration of how it compares with other film scanners.
Why does film attract so much dust?
No expert but I'd guess "thin shiny material being rubbed against things -> STATIC AHOY -> clingy dust".
yeah static mostly. You can get a pizeoelectric antistatic gun to neutralize it. You can also get antistatic brushes that use alpha emissions from polonium 210 to do this.
every optical system attracts dust - dslrs / mirrorless cameras with removable lenses have extensive hardware and software systems to handle dust detection and removal from the sensor.
Why not use a blower fan?
Quite expensive though...