To scan or not to scan

Hellooo. Hope everyone's good! If you follow me on twitter or instagram you might of seen I went on a little trip to the Seaside at the weekend. I stayed in Clevedon, North Somerset, with my family and we enjoyed a lovely sunny day at Weston Super Mare. I took lots of pics as per usual so I'll be sure to share them once their developed :)  

Back to this post though I've been getting my films developed at Asda for years now. It's cheap and I can do my weekly shop while I wait for my prints. However about two years ago I started to notice that they weren't printing all my images, I'm not sure whether this was a fault with the machine or not but there were quite a few times I'd notice negatives that had been missed. Alot of the time the images also came back cropped, I started to wonder whether my composition was just totally off!

(Image 1 is the print, image 2 is the scanned negative)

I decided to invest in a negative scanner to see if this made much difference, I bought an Epson perfection V370 scanner from PC world. As soon as I scanned that first negative I kicked myself for not buying one sooner. I couldn't believe the difference it made.

(Image 1 is the print, image 2 is the scanned negative)

I think you can see from the images I've included just what a difference it can make. The first image is the one I got back from Asda. The second is the actual scanned negative.

(Image 1 is the print, image 2 is the scanned negative)

Most of the time I find that the colours on the print are alot duller than the scanned negative. The one below is a prime example of this. I quite liked the printed image but as soon as I scanned the negative I was in love!

(Image 1 is the print, image 2 is the scanned negative)

The same goes for the one below, the purples on the negative just pop. You can also see below how the print is actually cropped quite alot. You can see the whole water tower on the negative image, alot of it has been cut off the print.

(Image 1 is the print, image 2 is the scanned negative)

The scanner is really easy to use and very quick when scanning the prints. However when scanning the negatives it can take up to 5 minutes per neg. So it is very time consuming but I actually enjoy it and find it abit therapeutic.

(Image 1 is the print, image 2 is the scanned negative)

I tend to scan almost all of the films I get back these days, I'll then compare the negative to the print to see which one I prefer. I've become abit of a control freak about my scanning to be honest. I had a lot more free time before I bought the scanner let's put it that way!

When choosing between the print/neg I think it's just all down to personal preference, sometimes I'll love the print way more than the negative and visa versa. I'd say 75% of the time I prefer the negative though.

Do you have a negative scanner or are you thinking of getting one? I hope this have helped anyone who might of been toying with the idea. It's definitely the best £95 I've ever spent!