When talking about photography, the majority of people think only about cameras, flashes, lenses, and similar stuff, forgetting that photography also involves the physical creation of the photos that demand not only for high-quality photo printers but the best slide scanners and photo scanners as well.
These devices are necessary to any photographer or photo enthusiast who wants to digitalize their negatives or slides for software editing and artistic creations or simple recreation of old memories. Whatever the reason, these devices are a necessity. Nevertheless, finding proper ones might become an issue.
However, with the help of this guide, the whole purchase process should be a bit less stressful. Now, let’s get down to business.
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Last update on 2023-10-03 // The links above are affiliate // Images from Amazon
How to choose the best slide scanner
When deciding which slide scanner to purchase, take the following characteristics into account:
Connectivity
The more connectivity your device has, the better versatility and functionality of the device you will get. USB connectivity is sort of a standard among scanners; however, some slide scanners also offer SD card slots, TV-out, HDMI ports, etc. For that reason, go after the device that fulfills your needs and offers the most for your money.
Film and Negative Support
The last thing you need is to purchase a scanner and find out it isn’t compatible with the slides or negatives that you have only afterward. Don’t be lazy and do your “homework”.
Ease of Use
Nobody wants to spend hours and hours in front of the instructions figuring out how a device works. Therefore, choose one that offers the easiest scanning process possible and save yourself both time and nerves.
Scans Quality
The scanner might offer fast performance and scan tens of scans per minute; however, if they are of poor quality, all that is worthless. In other words, buy the slide scanner that will give you the best quality possible.
Best Slide Scanners
KODAK SCANZA Slide Scanner
An Excellent Tool for Digitalizing Your Entire Film Collection
KODAK SCANZA Digital Film & Slide Scanner is a decent quality slide scanner that delivers fast performance, ability to be used without a computer, as well as good connectivity that involves micro USB and HDMI outputs, SD card reader and TV output.
Although it doesn’t provide professional-quality scans, this device is a perfect choice for home use and scanning films and slides for social media. It is equipped with an intuitive interface, and a fairly decent 14MP sensor that delivers scans with a resolution of 4320×2880 pixels, while these numbers raise up to 5728×3824 pixels with the help of interpolation, which isn’t great, but for digitalizing your home collection, it is certainly more than enough.
KODAK SCANZA Digital Film & Slide Scanner is compatible with both Mac and Windows-based devices, it comes fitted with 3.5” tilting LCD screen and more importantly, supports scanning of 35mm, 126, 110, Super 8 and 8mm negatives and slides. However, it doesn’t support the medium format and can scan only in .jpeg format, which is certainly unacceptable according to many.
All in all, KODAK SCANZA Digital Film & Slide Scanner probably isn’t the best negative scanner you can find on the market; nevertheless, if you want to easily digitalize your entire negatives collection in a straightforward manner, this is probably the best tool for that.
- Easy to use
- Good connectivity
- Fast performance
- It can work without a computer
- Feels a bit cheap
- It doesn’t support medium format
- It can save only in .jpeg
KODAK Slide N SCAN Scanner
The Ideal Scanner for Digitalizing your Photo Memories
KODAK Slide N SCAN Film and Slide Scanner is a device that will help you transfer your old negatives collection into a digital form with ease. This is a device that provides fast scanning performance and supports a variety of formats, including 50mm, 110mm, 126mm, and 135mm slides, as well as negatives in 135mm, 126mm, and 110mm format.
KODAK Slide N SCAN allows saving your files directly to an SD card or your computer through the USB Type-C connection and comes fitted with proper slide adapters (Quick-Feeding Tray) that help you scan them fast and simple. Moreover, this device is equipped with a high-quality 5” LCD display and more importantly, Capture Software that enables you to make numerous edits on your scans, including conversions, resizes, and similar.
Just like KODAK SCANZA, KODAK Slide N SCAN scanner comes with a 14MP CMOS image sensor and allows for the image interpolation at up to 22MP. In other words, it offers decent performance and features for the price and is very easy to use, which makes it a highly attractive option and one of the best film and negative scanners for home use available on the market.
- Fast performance
- Decent software
- Easy to use
- The device needs to be rebooted from time to time
Epson Perfection V600
A Scanner Dedicated to Film and Negative Scanning
Epson Perfection V600 is a high-quality film and negative flatbed scanner that delivers great accuracy and excellent quality of the scans.
Unfortunately, this scanner isn’t perfect and won’t give you blazing fast performance; however, if you are after 6400×9600 dpi high-end slide, negative and film scans, this device is simply a great deal.
It is easy to use, compatible with 35mm and medium format films, and it provides USB2.0 connectivity. Moreover, its software package, although a bit clunky, offers plenty of options, such as film dust and scratch removal and photo fix, and it includes a highly capable ABBYY FineReader Sprint Plus OCR software.
Epson Perfection V600 offers auto, home, and professional mode; it saves scans in .jpeg format and overall provides fairly decent value for the money if you are looking for the best film scanner.
- Can scan photos and negatives
- Good quality scanning
- Highly accurate
- Easy to use
- Fairly priced
- Not the best software
- A bit slow
Wolverine Titan Digital Converter
If you are after a slide scanner that offers good connectivity, fast performance, as well as solid compatibility, Wolverine Titan 8-in-1 High-Resolution Film to Digital Converter is the device for you. However, have in mind that this is an entry-level device. Therefore, don’t expect miracles, because you certainly won’t get them.
Wolverine Titan 8-in-1 Converter is able to scan a slide in three seconds; it works with both Windows and Mac and provides an assortment of connectivity options, including HDMI and Mini USB ports, as well as a built-in SD card reader. Moreover, it comes equipped with fast loading slides and negative adapters, and more importantly, it can be used alone, without any software or computer.
Wolverine Titan 8-in-1 Converter is fitted with 4.3″ color screen and supports a variety of formats, including 126kpk and 35mm film and 127 and 110 slides.
Unfortunately, where it matters the most, in the scans quality department, this scanner doesn’t really shine. Its scans of scenes, with a lot of shadows and highlights, may offer mediocre color balance, artifacts, and similar stuff that nobody wants to see on their scans. Thankfully, the majority of its scans are of decent quality and don’t show this type of a problem, but be aware that this problem does exist and that you might end up with a few scans that demand future editing.
In other words, this is a perfect portable scanner for posting on Social media and similar tasks. However, if you want to bring your old memories to life, Wolverine Titan 8-in-1’s performance might be unpredictable.
- Easy to use
- Fast performance
- Good connectivity
- Portable
- In some cases, it has a mediocre color balance of the scans
- Only modest scans quality
Magnasonic All-in-One
A Practical and Easy to Use Slide Scanner
Magnasonic All-in-One is a compact and easy-to-use slide scanner that can scan negatives in less than five seconds. This scanner is fitted with a 5” LCD screen that lets you make color and brightness corrections, as well as other small adjustments, to create the images that fit your preferences. More importantly, Magnasonic comes equipped with a 14 MP CMOS sensor that allows the creation of 4490 by 3412 pixels images, with the help of interpolation, and supports a wide variety of formats such as 35mm, 110 and 126, Super 8 film negatives, as well as 110, 126 and 135 slides.
Magnasonic All-in-One is an FCC, ICES, and cETL/ETL certified device that allows individual use, without the need for a PC, driver installation, or other time-consuming activities. To be exact, with this device, you can directly share scanned images to Social Media, send them over email, or save them on built-in 128MB memory, or an SD card that can be up to 128GB in size.
In other words, if you need a useful and versatile slide scanner that brings everything you need and much more, Magnasonic All-in-One is a device to consider.
- Fast performance
- Easy to use
- Good compatibility
- 5” LCD screen
- Images may be a bit reddish
KODAK Mobile Film Scanner
If you are looking for a film scanner that will give you fast performance, ease of use, and good mobile and Social Media connectivity, KODAK Mobile Film Scanner is the device for you. This device is cheap, it works with 35mm negatives and slides and can work with both iOS and Android-based smart devices.
Everything you need for it to work is the already mentioned smartphone or tablet, as well as the dedicated app that comes with numerous enhancement functions, such as exposure, saturation, sharpness, filters, and similar, helping you easily edit the scans before their Social Media posting.
In other words, for Social Media, this cardboard scanner is a perfect companion and probably the best 35mm slide scanner there is. However, for any other, more serious use, it is simply out of the question.
- Cheap
- Easy to use
- Good mobile and Social Media connectivity
- Cardboard construction
- Not that great scans quality
- You need to manually move the film to next frame during scanning
KODAK Mini
A Slide Scanner that Has Everything You Need
KODAK Mini is a reasonably priced, compact, easy-to-use all-in-one slide scanner that offers fast performance and excellent compatibility. This scanner can be used with 110, 126, and 135 slides and negatives, Super 8 film negatives, and many other negative and slide types.
KODAK Mini is a standalone device that can be used without a PC and it offers multiple options for image editing, as well as the ability to post the scans directly to Social Media, save them on the built-in 128MB memory, or an SD card that can be up to 32GB in size.
KODAK Mini is fitted with the 14” CMOS sensor that creates 22MP images, with the help of interpolation and a 2.4” LCD liquid crystal display that, along with the intuitive commands, offers ease of use and allows you to back up your old memories with ease.
In other words, KODAK Mini is a pretty good all-in-one device that brings a good value for the money, belongs to the sheer top among the best slide scanners, and makes itself a great overall choice.
- Good compatibility
- Compact
- Easy to use
- Good scan quality
- It doesn’t automatically remove scratches from the scans
Fujitsu ScanSnap iX1600
A Feature-Rich, User-friendly Scanner
Fujitsu ScanSnap iX1600 is a high-quality multipurpose scanner that brings excellent-quality scans, whether they are documents, photos, or receipts. Its scans are crisp, with good color accuracy, and without any smudges or unevenness.
Fujitsu ScanSnap iX1600 comes with a 50-sheet auto feeder and is capable of scanning up to 40 pages per minute. To make things even better, this scanner comes with an excellent, user-friendly ScanSnap Home 2.0 software that offers ease of digitalization, saving, and organization of scans.
Also, this scanner comes with USB and Wi-Fi connectivity (in both 2.4GHz and 5GHz range), and allows a standalone use, without the need for a PC, letting you easily share files with your smart devices or cloud services. Of course, Fujitsu ScanSnap iX1600 can also be paired with a computer and is compatible with both Windows and Mac.
Moreover, this scanner supports up to 4 user licenses; it comes in black and white color and offers ease of use that software makes a winning combination when combined with the responsive 4.3” touch-screen and intuitive ScanSnap Home 2.0.
All in all, if money isn’t an issue and you are willing to invest in the best photo scanner possible that brings nothing but perfection, Fujitsu ScanSnap iX1600 is an amazing choice and a device that certainly won’t disappoint you.
- Fast performance
- Good connectivity
- Intuitive software
- Excellent quality of the scans
- Touch-screen interface
- Pricey
Summary
Ready to revive your old memories? We hope this manual was helpful and we are sure you can find the right device to do that in the list above! Have fun!
