scanner

David Becker

High-Res DIY Film Scanner Made from a DSLR, Lumber and an Arduino

Consumer film scanners don't provide enough detail, and professional models require too much money and pampering. What's a dedicated film nerd to do? For Peter De Smidt, the answer was to build his own high-res scanner using the Nikon D600 and 50mm Micro lens he already had on hand, a bit of lumber and a lot of patience.

Michael Zhang

Pictures of Fast Food, Captured Using a Flatbed Scanner

"Fast Food" is a series of food photos by photographer Jon Feinstein. The images have a rather unusual look to them -- each food item is captured in front of a purely black backdrop, and is squashed on the surface as though it's being pressed against a pane of glass.

Well, actually they were: Feinstein created the images by scanning the foods with a flatbed scanner.

Michael Zhang

High-Resolution ‘Scanned’ Portraits Using a DSLR Mounted to a Track

Gigapixel photography has become all the rage as of late, as photographers around the world are using special rigs to shoot numerous photos of a scene and then stitching them together into an uber-high-res panorama. Austrian photographer Kurt Hoerbst is taking the high-res photo-stitching concept and applying it to a different subject: human subjects.

Michael Zhang

Focus Stacking Macro Photographs with a Hacked Flatbed Scanner

Focus stacking is when you combine multiple photographs of different focus distances in order to obtain a single photo with a much greater depth of field than any of the individual shots. This can be done by turning the zoom ring on your lens, but this can be difficult to control (especially for highly magnified photos). It can also be done using special rigs designed for the purpose, but those are generally quite pricey.

Photographer and software engineer David Hunt recently came up with the brilliant idea of turning an old flatbed scanner into a macro rail for shooting focus-stacking photos.

Michael Zhang

Photos Showing the Beauty and Diversity of Seeds, Created Using a Scanner

In addition to being passionate about image making, photographer Svjetlana Tepavcevic is also an avid collector of seeds. After finding and collecting a new specimen, Tepavcevic creates a highly-detailed high-resolution photo of the seed using an ordinary flatbed scanner. The resulting images form a project titled Means of Reproduction.

Gianluca Bevacqua

Why You Should Digitize Your Film Using a Camera Instead of a Scanner

If you shoot film and aren't much into chemicals (or don’t have a basement in which to keep a gigantic 5×7″ enlarger), you’ll soon find yourself needing a way to import those beautiful pictures you’ve taken onto your computer. What? Why didn’t I say, “you'll need a scanner”? After all, it’s not 1987 anymore -- scanners are as common as toaster ovens.

Michael Zhang

A Look at the Image Quality of Plustek’s $2,000 OpticFilm 120 Film Scanner

One of the latest entrants in the at-home film scanning game is the Plustek OpticFilm 120. Just announced a few months ago and made available for pre-orders earlier this month, the OpticFilm 120 is a professional caliber scanner that can digitize both 35mm and 120mm medium format film. With a price tag of $2,000, it's not exactly wallet-friendly for the average film shooter, but is quite affordable when compared to other medium-format pro-grade scanners on the market.

If you've been wondering about the image quality of the scanner (and whether or not it stacks up well against your local photo lab), Plustek has released a few full-resolution untouched scans.

Michael Zhang

How to Scan Film Using Your Phone or Tablet Computer

We shared a couple weeks ago that it's possible to scan film using an ordinary flatbed scanner and a DIY cardboard adapter, but did you know you can also use a large-screen cell phone or tablet computer to provide the necessary backlighting? All you need is a way to turn a large portion of the screen entirely white (e.g. a "flashlight" app). Simply place the device facedown over the film on the scanner, and scan it with the cover open.

Michael Zhang

How to Scan Film Using Your Ordinary Flatbed Scanner

If you've tried to scan film using an ordinary flatbed scanner as you would a piece of paper, you've probably discovered that it didn't turn out very well. The reason is because film needs to be illuminated from behind, while conventional scanners capture light that's reflected off what they're scanning. Before you give up hope and shell out money for a film scanner, here's some good news: you can build a cheap and simple cardboard adapter that turns any scanner into a film scanner!

Michael Zhang

Take Fun Portraits of Your Cat Using a Flatbed Scanner

Did you know that flatbed scanners make fun portrait cameras as well? Just place your cat on the glass, do a quick scan, and you'll have a strange looking portrait shot from below! Apparently this is pretty popular among cat lovers -- a Flickr search for "cat scanner" returns thousands of results! This gives "cat scan" a whole new meaning!

Michael Zhang

Use Your Webcam as Scanner Camera

Texas A&M graduate student Roman Kogan has written an interesting program that turns your webcam into scanner camera.

This program turns your webcam into a scanner camera, similar to the ones used to record photo finishes, but much, much, much slower. With it, you can create images like the ones on this page with ease and with no digital manipulation! It works by taking one pixel line at a time and arranging those slices in a line to produce the image. Thus one dimension of the image is spacial, and the other is temporal.