35mm film photography drove me nuts for many years. I had always been envious of the freedom and economics of 35mm cameras, however poor quality scans from my flatbed scanner kept me shooting medium format.

However I found a too cheap to be true, mint condition Leica M6 for sale and I impulsively drove 3 hours to get it. Loved using the camera, but still frustrated with my home scans, I relented and just started to pay the lab to scan my negatives.

In the end though, surrendering the control of my scans just didn’t sit right with me. There had to be a better option. 

I’d been scanning with an Epson v700, and before that a Canoscan 9000f. Being flatbed scanners I found the quality of 35mm scans were patchy at best. Black and white photos were soft with zero chance of seeing any real grain. The colour photos always had inconsistent colour casts, regardless of the money I spent on expensive software, photoshop plugins and aftermarket negative holders. 

What was the point of buying expensive cameras and lenses if the scans were going to be rubbish?

Other Options

DSLR scanning results were much better than the flatbed scanners, but it was a bit of a tedious, fiddly process.

Determined and obsessive, I started looking at professional scanners. It didn’t take long to discover that pro level medium format scanning was well out of my reach ($15k and upwards). A dedicated 35mm negative scanner was my best option.

The first quality scanner that came to mind was the Pakon 135 Plus. The limit of a 2000×3000 file size, and the ever spiralling upward prices of those machines turned me off. And I looked at the Nikon Coolscan series, but I just could not find enough glowing reports to convince me to take the risk.

Then I stumbled across an ad post on Instagram from AAA Imaging, selling reconditioned Noritsu LS600 scanners for $995 US. Could I really get a recognised brand pro scanner for that sort of price? Was this company legit? And was the scanner any good?

After a bit of research, I came to the conclusion – yes, yes and yes. 

It seemed that the Noritsu would tick every box; 24mb 6000×4000 TIFF file output at the highest quality level was perfect. Every review I read was very positive (especially this one – I’ve read it about a dozen times – http://www.gostreetphoto.com/noritsu-ls-600-film-scanner-review/). Plus the fact that Noritsu still makes these scanners, and parts and servicing are still available was a big plus. 

I bit the bullet and ordered a Noritsu. 

First Impressions

The LS600 arrived from its journey across the Pacific ocean about a week later, exceedingly well packed. My first impression was that it is a serious piece of gear. The scanner is a big, chunky unit, about the same footprint size of a regular desktop flatbed scanner, but about 4 times as tall. Or about the size of a desktop tower PC, but half as wide again.

Setup was pretty straight forward. AAA Imaging provided a setup disk with clear instructions and there are videos on youtube outlining the procedure. I initially set it up on an old Windows laptop, but soon decided to have a crack at getting it working on my Mac. As there is no software or support for running it on a Mac, I had to install a Windows emulator. That was no where near as scary as it sounds – I found a very handy Youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT8IyZTeaYo&index=35&t=558s&list=WL) which walked me through the process. Twenty minutes later I was up and running. 

There is no on/off switch – turning the scanner on is a matter of plugging the USB cable into the computer. The LS600 takes around 4 or 5 minutes to warm the light source up (improves consistency in colours, apparently) and then you’re ready to go.

I had read somewhere that it took about half an hour to scan 36 shots at the very highest quality setting, but mine is much faster – it takes just on 11 minutes to scan a 39 shot roll. It sucks the entire roll up into the machine for prescanning, then displays 6 preview images at a time for adjustment. As soon as you’ve approved the first 6 the scanner goes to work scanning them, and slowly ejects the roll as it goes about its work.

The LS600 is probably a little bit louder than a flatbed scanner when starting up, but when its scanning and slowly ejecting the negative its actually fairly quiet.

It can scan entire rolls of 35mm film or even single frames. I’ve even scanned old slides with it, although you have to remove the frame from the cardboard slide holder to do this.

But is it any good?

I’m very happy with the results. The colours right out of the scanner are spot on…they’re a bit warmer and less contrasty than the Frontier scans I’d been getting back from the lab, and are much more pleasing to my eye, but I’m not about to get into a whole Frontier vs Noritsu thing. Black and white shots are a huge improvement on flatbed scanning too – the extra crispness of the grain just looks amazing. 

I haven’t had any need to adjust the colour settings on my scans. I generally knock the contrast down a little and adjust the exposure where needed. After scanning I adjust the contrast back up in Lightroom if required, and thats it. No sharpening required.

Every now and then the scanner will throw up a warning message, letting me know that theres dust in the film advance, the photometric area or somewhere else. The scanner has a door on the front and another on the side where you can open it right up and give it a quick blast with air from a spray can or rocket. Very handy and takes about 30 seconds to resolve any dust issues.

This wonderful beast is a big game changer for me; I’ve since sold most of my medium format gear and have become a dedicated 35mm photographer. I’m enjoying a much lighter camera bag as a result, and haven’t missed medium format whatsoever.

What are the negatives?

Trying very hard to think of a downside, the only aspects I can come up with is the considerably higher purchase cost over other scanners, and the overall size of the machine. Other than those two things it’s all gravy.