Does the joy of shooting with film always have to come at the price of expensive scans, or the frustration that can accompany the often time-consuming and laborious process of scanning your own film? Maybe not with this fast, cost-effective, and high-quality alternative to traditional film scans.
It feels great to load your favorite film camera with a roll of your favorite film and head out on a photographic adventure. But how often is your initial enthusiasm for this idea tempered by the thought that the whole film scanning process stands between you and your final images? How many times have thoughts like this crossed your mind, and you end up convincing yourself that maybe just shooting digital this time might be easier?
Having shot, developed, and scanned many rolls of film myself, I can attest to the extra dose of gumption and stamina that it sometimes takes to willingly submit to the whims and demands of film when the instant gratification of a digital camera is so close at hand. While a lot of the magic of using film derives from the alchemical sorcery of coaxing your final images from grains of silver suspended in an emulsion, the process of scanning your negatives or slides is often time-consuming, fiddly, frustrating, and arguably the least fun part of the process. Even getting the lion’s share of all the dust and water marks off your film prior to scanning will likely still not spare you from the inevitable stint in front of your photo editor, carefully cleaning up your scanned images with the spot removal tool.
To be clear, I love shooting with film, and I do feel that the experience is absolutely worth the extra time and effort. But I also believe that any tool or approach that can reduce this overhead in time and expense, or even make the process more fun, is a good thing—especially if it inspires more people to discover the joy of film photography by making it more accessible.
The video presented here by Ben Staley on his excellent YouTube channel “Adventure & Art”, features an approach to film scanning that might hold the promise to do just that. I have already introduced Ben in a couple of my previous articles, and even if his name is not familiar to you, you have almost certainly seen his work. Ben is an award-winning videographer and filmmaker whose stunning imagery has been featured on popular TV shows like “Deadliest Catch” and “Ice Road Truckers.” Ben also happens to be an avid (and excellent) still photographer and regularly features his still photography work on his channel.
The Valoi easy35 film scanning kit featured in this thought-provoking video offers what is arguably a cost-effective and more painless method of scanning film in comparison with traditional film scanning approaches, and can even be extended to scan other film formats including 120, 110, and 35mm half frame.
"Frustrated With Traditional Film Scanning? Consider This Easy, Cost-Effective, and High Quality Alternative."
...or frustrated because it is Out of Stock at B&H?
I'm not seeing where it supports 120 film. It looks like the 120-related accessories are just for their other product, a film advancer. (hence the 35 in its name)
You're right Jonathan, that the Valoi kit specifically for 35mm only scans 35mm film, but the Valoi scanning system can be expanded using film holders that take other sizes of film as well. I should have made this more clear in the article.
I wouldn't call that easy or cost-effective. Perhaps if it could be computer controlled along with your camera to focus and expose properly per-frame. It's also limited to 35mm film.
Sadly, scanner technology has gone to shit today. None of the available units can focus. They're all "pre-focused" and compensate for focus inaccuracies by using digital sharpening and, more recently, so-called AI. I wish I could've gotten my hands on a Nikon CoolScan 9000 back in the day. That was a film scanner made right.
Looks like they are now coming out with a 120 film scanning system, but ouch is it pricey.