A box of slides or old film negatives sitting in the attic isn’t much good to anyone.
Sure, you might luck out and find an older Kodak Carousel projector still in working condition and convince friends and family to endure a slideshow evening, but a much more practical option these days is to scan those slides and films to digital. You can then share them with family and friends on social media, make photo books as gifts and keepsakes, make large prints to hang on the wall, use them for family tree tracing, or any number of other uses.
There are several ways to take those old slides and films and digitize them. The simplest is to pack them up and send them to a service that will take care of it all for you. But those can get expensive very quickly, and can become prohibitively expensive if you have a massive collection.
Your local neighborhood copy shop might also offer this service, though quality and prices vary widely. Some flat-bed scanners have the ability to scan slides and film, so if you already have one of those, it can be worth looking into whether there are film and slide holder accessories available for your model and whether the scanner is able to scan transparencies (film and slides are transparent in the sense that light shines through them, as compared to prints where the light reflects off them).
But what I’m focusing on here are dedicated film and slide scanners. I’ve used dedicated scanners for many years in my own work — I started shooting a long time ago and have accumulated quite a large analog archive. Recently, though, I’ve been putting some of the most popular consumer models to the test as part of a review series. I’ve found that there are some surprisingly cost-effective options out there that are easy to use and still give very good results.
The Wolverine F2D Titan
The Wolverine F2D Titan Film to Digital Converter falls into that category. It’s a compact, single-purpose device that takes old slides and negatives of various formats and converts them to digital images with the push of a button. It’s at the entry-level end of the market, which is great for price and ease of use, although more demanding users might prefer something with more advanced features (which also come with a higher price tag).
I’ve previously reviewed the entry-level Kodak Mini Digital Film & Slide Scanner. The Wolverine F2D Titan Film to Digital Converter shares quite a few similarities.1 They’re both small, standalone, manual-feed scanners that take old slides and films and convert them to digital image files. Some of the components are so similar that it wouldn’t shock me to learn they’re made in the same factory.
But there are still some notable differences. The F2D Titan is a bit bigger than the Kodak Mini, and it has a much bigger screen, which makes it easier to see in detail what you’re scanning. It also has some extra features.2 So it’s generally a step up. But it’s still at the entry-level end of the market and doesn’t have the advanced features that some of the fancier and more expensive models have.
Key features
First, a rundown of some of the key features and how I found they actually handle.
Entirely manual. There is no auto-feeder on this scanner to advance to the next frame. I had to load each slide or film frame, one by one.
Large Screen. It has a 4.3″ color viewer on top. While that seems pretty straightforward, it’s notably larger and clearer than the Kodak Mini Film Scanner. In use, while you don’t strictly need that larger screen, it does add convenience by giving me a better view of what I’m scanning. It helps me see whether the scan is sharp, whether there’s a lot of dust that needs to be wiped off, and whether the frame is properly aligned. And when I’m using the in-scanner color and brightness correction, it’s very useful for that too.
Power. As a standalone scanner, I didn’t need to connect it to my computer to do the scans (but I could connect it via USB later to download the files). It does need power, though. It comes with an AC adapter, but the good news is that I could run it off many standard USB power sources. I’ve successfully run it from a USB power hub and from a USB power brick.
Output resolution. The files that come out of the scanner are 20-megapixel JPGs. The files measure 5472 x 3648 pixels.
HDMI Output. This connection lets you connect the scanner directly to a TV or an external display. It doesn’t come with an HDMI cable, though — I had to arrange that separately.
Using the Wolverine F2D Titan Film & slide scanner
The gist of how the Wolverine F2D Titan works is that I load the slide or film strip into a holder and then insert that holder into the scanner. The image shows up as a live preview on the screen. I have some basic corrections I can make, such as brightness, before pressing scan.
The image file is saved either to the internal memory of the scanner (holds about 35 to 40 images) or to an SD memory card (an optional extra). I can then copy that file to my computer and do with it as I will.
NB: Make sure that the SD card is 32GB or lower. The scanner is only compatible with SDHC cards (not SDXC).
Because it is standalone, there’s no new software to install and learn on the computer.
There are some controls that I managed using the scanner’s physical buttons and menu system:
- Flip image. If I put the image in back-to-front, I could use the arrow buttons to quickly flip it. It doesn’t have a rotate function, though, so anything I shot in portrait/vertical mode appeared on its side in the viewscreen.
- Exposure Correction. I found I could actually get some fairly fine-tuned exposure correction right in the scanner. I can adjust the overall exposure and also tweak each of the red, green, and blue channels. In practice, the overall exposure compensation, which is basically a brightness control, was the most useful to me. In general, I’ll get much better results doing this in image editing software later, but there is some convenience to having basic manual exposure correction built right into the scanner.
- Scan/Convert. The scan button on this is called the “Convert” button. Doing a scan is a two-button process. First, I press the Convert (or C) button. It then asks if I want to save the image, so I press OK.
Compatibility / film types
The scanner is compatible with some of the most common film types:
- 35mm (135)
- 110
- 126
- 127 Kodak Pocket
- 8mm / Super 8
- APS
It’s important to note that I had to manually feed each individual frame into the scanner — there’s no automatic advance to the next image. That also applies to the Super 8 compatibility: it’s strictly for scanning individual still frames, not for converting a movie film to digital video.
Scan examples
These were all shot without any exposure compensation or other corrections. They’re straight out of the scanner. I’ve been using mostly the same set of slides and negatives in testing this and other scanners to keep things consistent.
For these, I used the default auto settings. I found that it often tends to overcook (or oversaturate) the colors, and that sometimes the white balance correction can go a little haywire. The results are more vibrant, which is often a good thing, but they can tip over into “too-vibrant” territory. In a high-end scanner, I’d find that unacceptable, but factoring in the typical use of an entry-level scanner like this, I find it more forgivable. In large part, that’s because old slides and old films often bring their own weird color shifts just from the age of the emulsions and how they degrade over time. So you’re often starting with flawed originals.
That said, I’d prefer if the auto settings were dialed back a little, especially on contrast and saturation (I didn’t run into these issues with black and white negatives). Of course, it’s possible to turn off the automatic exposure and treat each one individually, but that’s a much less convenient option when working through a box.
Old slides
I got the best results straight out of the scanner when using slides. There’s always room for post-processing, of course, but the automatic settings did a decent job, although there is sometimes a tendency to overdo the vibrance and contrast.
Color film negatives
Black and white negatives
I found that the automatic exposure settings didn’t work all that well on black and white negatives. They definitely need some fixing of the contrast and brightness in an image editing app.
What’s in the box?
- Scanner
- 35mm (135) strip negative adapter
- 35mm (135) slide adapter
- 110/APS negative insert
- 110 slide insert
- Super 8 insert
- USB wall adapter
- USB cable (mini USB connector)
- Cleaning brush
- user manual
Wrap up
The F2D Titan is simple, compact, and relatively inexpensive. I’ve found it to work well. Like the Kodak Mini Film Scanner, it’s on the simple and straightforward end of the market. And that simplicity has its virtues, especially if you’re just looking to digitize a relatively small collection of slides or negative strips.
But once the number of scans climbs into the thousands, manual loading one by one will get tedious. That’s where a higher-end auto-feed model will come into its own. The higher-end models also offer greater control over image quality, including resolution, file type, batch scanning, color correction, and dust & scratch removal.
The scan quality is good, although the auto settings often result in oversaturated images. That’s very much a matter of preference, though, and straightforward to fix afterward.
But for simple, relatively small scanning jobs, the Wolverine F2D Titan is an excellent option and well worth a look.
Price & availability
You can find the Wolverine F2D Titan 8-in-1 Slide and Film Scanner at B&H Photo. It retails for around $150, thought it can often be found on sale for closer to $100.
