Negative Scanner

[DoubleK]

While not truly a "digital photograph" issue it will be once I get them scanned

Like a lot of older folks I have many 35mm and the APS format negatives laying around that need to be scanned with a negative scanner and converted to a digital format. My fear is if I wait forever these scanners will become less and less available.

With that said I have a Canon MP830 right now that will do:

# Optical Resolution 2400 x 4800 dpi
# Interpolated Resolution 19200 x 19200 dpi
# Gray Scale Depth 8 bit
# Color Depth 24 bit
# Color Depth (Internal) 48 bit

I do not think that there is really any way to scan negatives with the 830 however. So I am looking into this:

Epson Perfection 4990 Photo Scanner reviews - CNET Reviews

Which will do:

# Grayscale Depth 16-bit (64K gray levels)
# Grayscale Depth (External) 16-bit (64K gray levels)
# Color Depth 48-bit color
# Color Depth (External) 48-bit color
# Optical Resolution 4800 dpi x 9600 dpi
# Interpolated Resolution 12800 dpi x 12800 dpi
# Lamp / Light Source Type Cold cathode fluorescent lamp
# Scan Density Range 4.0D
# Scanner Speed Details - Color - 4800 dpi, - Black&white - 4800 dpi, - Film (positives) - 4800 dpi, - Film (positives) - 2400 dpi, - Film (negatives) - 4800 dpi, - Preview - Full-page, - Color - A4 - 600 dpi, - Color - A4 - 300 dpi, - Black&white - A4 - 300 dpi, - Film (negatives) - 2400 dpi
# Compliant Standards TWAIN

All I will ever essentially need is a decent 8x10 out of any of these negatives but I really want to automate the process and keep the quality good across the board. I looked into having a local photoshop do this for me but they informed me the price of $2.00 per negative at that resolution and around .25 cents 300 to 600 dpi. I really do not want to search all of these negatives and start hen pecking.

I will simply purchase my own scanner and plug away at the project. MUCH cheaper.

Now on to my final question. These do not seem to do aps? Essentially aps is a smaller negative that 35 mm rolled up into a handy dandy canister to protect the original negative. Anyone can extract the negative how about scanning them?

Any thought or suggestions are always appreciated! Thanks in advance.

[DoubleK]

Bump