I just received my new Nikon 9000 ED negative and slide scanner. It can scan 35mm negative, slide and medium format film. My old scanner could only do a reasonable copy of negatives and slides but wasn’t up to doing quality scans.

Having spent a lot of time reading reviews and information on scanners the Nikon 9000 stood out as a great scanner for doing most formats and at a reasonable budget. While film is in decline compared to digital there are photographers whom still shoot with film and there is 150 years worth of film still requiring copying/archiving. Now I won’t be needing to turn away customers with enquiries about film scanning. Preliminary scans show excellent reproduction. I’ll be putting it through its’ paces before adding negative and slide scanning services onto my website.

Anyone with any questions regarding scanning options and costs, feel free to ask them here or please go to my main website for further contact details - Neal.

Updated: The scanner does great output but is not a bulk scanning device, each scan requiring attention to detail and manual input.

Pricing varies from $1.00 (2000dpi) to $2/slide (4000dpi, 19 Megapixel Equivalent) depending on detail of each scan. However, if you’re looking for nice images the Nikon is perfect for the job.

Main Website

Derek and Jannie from the Whangaroa County Museum & Archive Society visited me regarding having some old photos restored. They’re involved with a large project to have a museum created from an old post office in Kaeo, Northland, New Zealand. They bought in a series on large photo frames with Masonic Lodge members taken around the start of the 20th century.

They wanted me to restore the photos to original condition as well as the matting around them. Hence I will need to do a complete scan of the whole frame a piece at a time, join the images together, then remove all marks, tears, stains and cracks. This will be a time consuming job so will take a while to complete. I’ll show stages as the work progresses. The above photo is one of the many jobs I’ll be working on.

Lesley emailed me this photo of some birds on beach sands on a rough windy day. Photographed at Pataua North, Northland, New Zealand, Lesley captured a really nice photo. However, she wanted to show all the birds on the front of a canvas print, so she had me extend the ends by filling in more beach and background. Small tweaks were made to the contrast to give a more vivid picture. The photo was printed to fit a 1000mm x 400mm frame. Lesley later called me ordering 2 more canvas prints to be given to friends - they liked it so much!

Teena Jelsma from Your Legacy Ltd contacted me regarding a photo in need of restoration. Teena’s business specialises in recording the history of people’s lives. Teena records the client’s spoken thoughts then compiles them into a life story book, including photos, for family and friends to cherish. This particular photo was the only one her client had of his father. At some stage water had got in behind the glass of the photo, causing it to stick then tear away.

Teena brought in the original photo still stuck to the glass, and also a good quality scan she’d done herself. As the scan was so good I used this instead of making another copy. The job was particularly tricky as the mark was dead centre around the nose/mouth area. I had to be sure no detail was lost.

The photo was finally fixed, with a copy printed off. Teena was really pleased with the photo and the following day emailed this reply after having shown the photo to her client.

“Thank you again for the fantastic job you did restoring my clients father to his former glory. As it is the only photo of his father in existence, my client is happy that it has come up so well. This photo can now be included in his life story book that we are producing on his behalf. Copies of the book will be distributed amongst his family meaning this photo will not fade into obscurity or risk being lost anymore. Making our clients history and lives accessible to future generations is our passion. We look forward to working with you again.”

Teena’s website can be found at

Andrew from Anglers Anonymous wanted to make his front webpage look more professional. Andrew runs a successful trout fish guiding business in Turangi, New Zealand, and wanted his website to reflect this. Andrew sent me some photos to work with, indicating what he’d like done. The top photo was reversed, with the colours and contrast enhanced to reflect more closely what the rivers normally look like for a good day’s fishing. I then extracted Andrew’s photo from its background and placed it in the stream background. Conferring with Andrew, we optimized it to what you see at the bottom. Andrew’s website can be found at

Two more galleries of field hockey photos added over the weekend. Northland senior men’s and women’s teams played Auckland on Sunday. Northland are in the red colours, being the host teams. The women started with a new look team this year, with a majority of the players having moved out of the district. Being their first game together the managed a credible 5-2 loss against their Auckland opposition.

The Northland men’s side did better - drawing 3-3 with Auckland, a vast improvement on their last match. These are warm up games in preparation for the National Hockey League tournament to be held later in September. I now have over 11,000 photos covering 4 years of hockey, so enjoy the pics!