Which scanner?

We buy a lot of our equipment through Amazon. It’s the first place I look, not just when buying books but for computer kit too. They won my loyalty for life a couple of years ago when they were endlessly patient with the useless Nikon APS adaptors which shred their gears after one or two rolls of film.
I’ve bought a couple of scanners from them so every so often I get marketing emails telling me which scanners are popular. In fact I got one this morning, so which scanners are popular?
From the top ten six aren’t really scanners, they’re these multi function printers with a scanner tagged ontop. primarily aimed at document scanning they’re easy to sneer at from a “pro scanner” view point. Actually, they produce more than acceptable results. Every so often I read of someone asking how they can scan negatives or slides on one. The short answer is you can’t, to scan slides or negatives you need a light source above the target, which is not how these units operate. Simple photo scanning and they’ll be fine.
Two manufacturers take the other positions - Canon and Epson. Both manufacture what I’d call “serious” scanners but their top end scanners don’t appear in the listings. However the popular units do have the additional light source which will enable you to scan slides and negatives. If you look at the raw specs of these units you’ll get a pretty decent scanner at a modest price.
Why pay more? Well there’s the obvious of getting a higher quality image but beyond that there are two features worth investing in. Speed is the first, you’ll be amazed how long it takes to scan a collection of 35mm negatives or 35mm slides so it makes a big difference if you can do 8, 12 or more in a single batch. Second, the technology that automatically removes dust and scratches which will save you hours and hours in post processing. Epson use Kodak’s Digital ICE while Canon have their own alternative called FARE.