It takes me around 1h to scan a roll of 35mm film on my film scanner (Plustek 8200i). The process involves VueScan, Negative Light Pro, Photoshop (some people have simplified it with standalone apps but that’s still my workflow).
When I feel lazy, I just book an hour of time at Photolaundry and use the lab scanners they rent out by the hour. I can do 8 rolls in an hour, very little post-processing needed. Straight to jpg is already great
I built a DSLR scanning rig, and decided I hate it more than 1980s lab scanners.
Photolaundry has a Fuji Frontier SP-3000, which is fantastic for color photos especially medium format color photos. The Noritsu LS-600 is great for 35mm, especially black and white. The Imacon 848 is really nice, but it takes 20-30 min PER FRAME. I now know why my local lab charges $60 for a single Imacon frame scan.
Harvey Milk photo center, the darkroom run by the city of San Francisco, has a beautiful huge black and white darkroom, but their scanners are mostly flatbed (which I don’t like) and there’s one Nikon LS-50. Not terrible, better than not having a scanner, but the Fuji Frontier and Noritsus are beasts I adore.
Photolaundry also has color darkroom, and is close to burritos, so all in all I spend most of my time there.
If you’re in Oakland, east bay photo collective has a decent darkroom set up but their scanning situation is worse. Maybe with donations they can offer more scanners. Still, great spot for events and classes in Oakland.
@skinnylatte do you happen to know of any darkrooms/scanner options in the south bay? There used to be one at DeBug in SJ but I think they shut down...
@skinnylatte Curious... do you scan every image? I'm too impatient to scan everything, so I usually selectively scan just the images that look good to me. (Same scanner, btw!)
@skinnylatte one of my partners scans my 120 film for me and that scanner is of a quality for his 8x10 negatives and well...this is what love looks like
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