Digital Photography: Flatbed & Film Scanners

Scanners are very similar to digital cameras as both capture images using a CCD or similar chip. There are two types of scanners available - flatbed and film.

Flatbed scanners can scan photographs, text documents and 3d objects. Some of the higher end flatbed scanners can also scan 35mm or medium and large format slides (transparencies) and negatives as a scanner's optical resolution has increased over the years.

High quality flatbed scanners from Epson, Canon, HP and other manufacturers are now highly affordable and have become an essential part of both the home and work based digital photography studios.

Scanning speeds have also increased over recent years with even multifunction devices performing at acceptable levels in both scanning and printing.

Film scanners are more specialized and more costly than flatbed scanners. Film scanners are used for scanning strips of slides or negatives at very high resolutions. The range of film scanners is very small in comparison with flatbed scanners and although some high end film scanners can scan medium and large format slides and negatives, most can only deal with 35mm. Some of the bestselling flatbed and film scanners on the market today are shown below:


Canon CanonScan 8800F Scanner		Epson Perfection V500 Photo Scanner		Nikon CoolScan V ED Film Scanner