Hi Richard,
I guess that where there is a will, there is a away. I have to admit that I'm am advantaged by having a photographic background, and admit that the sample pics from microfilm posted above were taken on a reasonably decent camera. Yet the benefits in investing in a DSLR camera are there, especially because such cameras can increasingly be used to photograph original documents in many archives around the world (TNA, NARA, National Archives of Canada and Australia to name a few), and thus save on time and photocopying costs.
Of course, vignetting is a common feature when dealing with microfilm, but there are ways to fix this. Adobe Lightroom, for example, is a fantastic program for post-production, and has controls to fix vignetting that work well (and batching options to apply the settings to a range of images). However, this software is expensive.
One of the disadvantages I found trying to scan, was that the
time invested in scanning was not rewarded with a high enough quality output. Using a DSLR with the right lens (i.e. a decent 50mm/f1.4) and photographing the mf from screen has just been way quicker than scanning and at a much higher resolution...
A company called Wicks & Wilson make professional microfilm scanners, but, no doubt, they are expensive...
http://www.wwl.co.uk/rollfilmscanners.htm
I'm sure that I've recently seen reference to a 35mm film scanner that had the option of being able to feed uncut 35mm microfilm through, but I cannot remember the make or model.
Cheers
Rod