Slide scanner advice

[Sly]

I have been commissioned to scan and digitize around 3000 - 4000 35mm film slides, mostly B&W. I need to purchase a scanner OS X 10.5 compatible that will allow fast scanning at a reasonable resolution. Importantly I don't want to spend too much as it will all come out of my very small commission to do the work. I would consider any suggestions for older scanners that I might find on eBay but they would need to be usable under 10.5 either USB or Firewire?

[mattw126]

I purchased an Epson Perfection V500 Photo recently, and have been very pleased with what I have gotten for the money. It allows the use of Digital Ice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_ICE) on slides/negatives, but not on prints, which is fine by me because all I shot were Fuji slides. Using this feature does slow things down a bit, but it's worth it. You can also scan in medium format which has proven handy for digitizing my Father's & Uncle's film. I primarily made my decision based on what those who post on Amazon said (http://www.amazon.com/Epson-Perfection-V500-Photo-Scanner/dp/B000VG4AY0/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1226502798&sr=8-1).

Hope this helps & good luck with whatever purchase you decide to make. :)

BTW, I can give you some comparisons/times with and without the Digital Ice feature, probably sometime this afternoon if you want it. Let me know.

[Lovesong]

3000-4000 slides? Mostly B&W? Small commission?

I just hope you're doing this for a friend, or as a charity to cure some disease in Africa, because that is such a pain that you might reconsider the assignment halfway through it.

The best, and only reasonable way to scan that many slides is through the use of a dedicated slide scanner (with a slide feeder). I would look at something like the Nikon Coolscan V, or if you're searching the world of e-bay, look at some of the Minolta scanners, or the Canoscan (4000?). When scanning, do not look at the DPI that the manufacturer is advertising. Instead look at the DMax (dynamic range value). Most flatbed scanners will have about a 3.2, with the best of them maxing out at 4. The Coolscans have a DMax of 4.8. What that means is that you simply can capture more of the information that is captured in the slide or negative, and produce a better exposed image.

Your biggest issue with the B&W will be the fact that IR will be unreliable, and thus you won't be able to use dust removal hardware (such as ICE). If this is a paid job, and the client is expecting professional results, then you will need to touch up each of the 3000-4000 slides by hand in PS.

[Sly]

It's for an elderly family member and its all his memories, he's been shooting slides since he was in his 20's. His slide projector is ancient and has packed up, I thought it would be nice if i could burn them to a DVD so he can view them on his TV. My mother and farther have chipped in £200 to help.

I have had a look on ebay, most of the scanners list only Windows as an operating system, would these still work on a Mac with a PS plug in or with image capture?

[Moof1904]

I used a Nikon dedicated slide scanner on my Mac (10.4) a while ago with very good results. The Nikon software was a bit annoying but it worked okay and it was very nice having an automatic slide feeder. The software was Nikon Scan 4 and the scanner was a Nikon Coolscan.

[ChrisA]

I have been commissioned to scan and digitize around 3000 - 4000 35mm film slides, mostly B&W. I need to purchase a scanner OS X 10.5 compatible that will allow fast scanning at a reasonable resolution. Importantly I don't want to spend too much as it will all come out of my very small commission to do the work. I would consider any suggestions for older scanners that I might find on eBay but they would need to be usable under 10.5 either USB or Firewire?

What did they pay you to scan the slides. If more than 24 cents each, outsource the job and pocket the difference.

This is a big job. I hope they are paying you enough. Expect to have to spend about 5 minues per slide. Stop now and see if you are making even minimum wage. you WILL need to at least look at each file in Photoshop and maybe "adjust" it some what and you WILL have to do some manual "dust and scratch busting". Think again about outsourcing.

That said the "standrd" slide scanner, the one that will give your client the quality he expects is going to tbe the Nikon 5000 Ed and it sells for about $1K. the price works out to about 25 cents per scan. Think again about outsourcing.

[Sly]

The Nikon's look nice, but are only in budget with a SCSI interface (maybe I should dust off the old G3 with OS9?). What are the Canoscan's like, I have seen a 8800F in budget, it looks like a flat bed scanner though, do they work ok?

[ChrisA]

It's for an elderly family member and its all his memories, he's been shooting slides since he was in his 20's. His slide projector is ancient and has packed up, I thought it would be nice if i could burn them to a DVD so he can view them on his TV. My mother and farther have chipped in £200 to help.

I have had a look on ebay, most of the scanners list only Windows as an operating system, would these still work on a Mac with a PS plug in or with image capture?

If the images are only going to be viewed on a TV set then any cheap scanner will work. DVDs only have about 500 lines of resolution. On a 35mm slide this works out to (about) a 600 DPI scan. Use a cheap $100 flat bed scanner. Those Nikon film scanners are much better but are gross over kill if you are only going to DVD.

Heck you could simply re-shoot the slides using a light table and any digital camera.

But if you relly did want to presever ALL the detail and tone and color of the slides you will need the Nikon film scanner and about 5 minutes of your time per slide. Or you could ship the job out and have it done for you $1,500 give or take.

Five minutes per slide times 4,000 slides is about 333 hours. But then if the images are only going to DVD you don't have to work carfully. Dust and scratches will not show. So maybe you can get the job done in month of full time 8 hour days.

[Sly]

Really ohww!! I was hoping to scan them at the same speed as you might view them on a projector? As you say I don't need the quality and I wasn't planning on any sort of post processing. Is it not possible just to scan each one in a few seconds at say 600pdi?

[ChrisA]

Really ohww!! I was hoping to scan them at the same speed as you might view them on a projector? As you say I don't need the quality and I wasn't planning on any sort of post processing. Is it not possible just to scan each one in a few seconds at say 600pdi?

You have to handle each one, put it on a light table to see which side is "up" and brush it with a camel hair artist brush then place it into the holder then click the "scan" button, wait a short while then do at least a cursery check that it worked. I guess you could just not care and do a poor job with 20% of the slide upside down or mirro imaged (wrong side up). But I'd think you would want to do at least some minor quality control. There are eight ways a slide will fit in a scanner and only one is correct. You have to look at each slide. Dust WILL be an issue. In two to Five minutes you can't fully clean and old slide but you can do the importent parts, at least get the dirt speck off someone's face.

I do some of my own scans too. But I only do the ones that need more work or that I want done with a faster turnaround. Tha Kodak "ICE" process is way slow even on a dual core iMac

5 minutes per slide, once you become good at it will get you pretty good quality. One minute each would be reasonable if you didn't care much. Put the is a minute of your time that includes handling the slides and making minor adjustments to the automated exposure and color balance. But them how will you orgaize the files? you need to type in at least some information. The automatic system will just give you a folder with 4,000 files with names like IMG3421, IMG3422,... and so on. You'd never find anything. You are at least going to have to type in something, dates, names locations whatever.

I've been at this for a while. I can do a 48 or so an hour but that is not doing any corestions or meta data entry.

My advice was to realistically estimate the time required and the cost of the equipment. then look and see what a scanning service would charge. I've beenusig scancafe.com they charge $0.29 per slide and the quality is excelent, 3000DPI with a Nikon 5000Ed and then a pass through photoshop and the files are organized into folders all for the 29 cent price. There are other services an likely local labs near you

[Doylem]

Just a thought...

I use the Nikon 5ED scanner for 35mm slides, and can recommend it highly (having used no other scanner :rolleyes:)...

But... Does your relative really want to show thousands of pictures... to anybody??

How about editing his slides down to, say, the best 100 or 200, and putting them on a DVD?

[mrgreen4242]

I saw a lens/lens attachment for Nikon SLR mounts that let you put a slide in, snap a photo, repeat.

The bonuses here, to me, would be that it should be quick compared to a scanner (1/60th of a second + mounting time vs. mounting time + whatever the scanner takes to make a pass). It's cheaper that a scanner. You get an autocropped image (not sure if a scanner does that, but once you get the first slide aligned you should be set). You can do in camera color enhancement (just set your preferences and shoot that way), if you desire.

I'd think that a remote shutter release, and maybe tripod, would be handy here. This of course assumes you have a dSLR...

http://www.amazon.com/Opteka-Slide-Copier-Nikon-D70s/dp/B000FA76JS/ref=pd_ybh_5?pf_rd_p=280800601&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_t=1501&pf_rd_i=ybh&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0R8XJH4T5X75MGMYNKS2

[ChrisA]

I saw a lens/lens attachment for Nikon SLR mounts that let you put a slide in, snap a photo, repeat.

The bonuses here, to me, would be that it should be quick compared to a scanner (1/60th of a second + mounting time vs. mounting time + whatever the scanner takes to make a pass). It's cheaper that a scanner. You get an autocropped image (not sure if a scanner does that, but once you get the first slide aligned you should be set). You can do in camera color enhancement (just set your preferences and shoot that way), if you desire.

I'd think that a remote shutter release, and maybe tripod, would be handy here. This of course assumes you have a dSLR...

http://www.amazon.com/Opteka-Slide-Copier-Nikon-D70s/dp/B000FA76JS/ref=pd_ybh_5?pf_rd_p=280800601&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_t=1501&pf_rd_i=ybh&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0R8XJH4T5X75MGMYNKS2

Scanners today all have Kodak's "ICE" Epson, Canon and Nikon all license it from kodak. This works by using a second IR light source to make a four channel scan.
Read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_cleaning

Using ICE is the only way you can hope to get this done in reasonable time. It is about 80% effective. Yes the DSLR does not have to scan the slide but that only save seconds. It is al the manual work and handling and cleaning the dust, dirt and scratches that takes time.

One other thing. Slides are never flat. the film is always dished. The camera lens would have to have enough depth of field to focus the entire slide. Slide projectors typically used curved field lenses to compensate for this. Shooting 35mm slides onto a DX format sensor is well into "macro land" and I'd expect razor thin DOF. Will the eges be sharp enough even at f/11? I don't know

[AlaskaMoose]

I have been commissioned to scan and digitize around 3000 - 4000 35mm film slides, mostly B&W. I need to purchase a scanner OS X 10.5 compatible that will allow fast scanning at a reasonable resolution. Importantly I don't want to spend too much as it will all come out of my very small commission to do the work. I would consider any suggestions for older scanners that I might find on eBay but they would need to be usable under 10.5 either USB or Firewire?

A film scanner is best for scanning slides. I purchased an Epson Perfection V700 Photo (flatbed) scanner, and am very happy with it. With Digital Ice, and comes with SilverFast. However, nothing beats VueScan for scanning, regardless of scanner type. VueScan is relatively cheap (low priced), but is king in ease of use and scan control.

[Sly]

Thanks all for the advice. I think I am going to go for the new Epson Perfection V300 as it seems to get good reviews and is in budget. I am also watching a Nikon Coolscan 2 on ebay, which appears to be really cheap (so far), this option means using an old G3 though as it is SCSI interface only.

Getting my uncle to pair down his collection to the best 2-300 slides seems a really good idea, particularly as I have no idea how to name each slide as I do not know anything about the pictures content, therefore he will need to label each physical slide anyway.

Any final advice for or against the V300 or the Coolscan & G3 route appreciated before I buy.

I checked in with our local photographic specialist shop, he wants £0.80 thats around $1.30 a slide to put on to DVD!

[OreoCookie]

Forget about using a flatbed scanner. I have used mine (Epson 1660 or 1670 Photo) and the quality is disappointing. Plus, it takes a long time.

Scanning 3-4k pictures will take you a long time, even if you use a batch scanner (which are obviously more expensive). I'd preselect pictures first if I were you.

[pdxflint]

Just a thought...

I use the Nikon 5ED scanner for 35mm slides, and can recommend it highly (having used no other scanner :rolleyes:)...

But... Does your relative really want to show thousands of pictures... to anybody??

How about editing his slides down to, say, the best 100 or 200, and putting them on a DVD?

Whew! Thanks, Doylem, for bringing this up. I was thinking about the tedious job of scanning 3000-4000 old slides, mostly b/w. No digital ICE, probably various quality and exposures, hard to set up any batch process that will really work well. It's a labor intensive process, and 3000-4000 slides is a huge job.

Edit down the slides to the top 150-200, maybe you could even get 300+ and just outsource those. You should get DVD back for display on TV and high quality files for printing later, or just archiving. Shouldn't run over $300, so it will be reasonable in cost and save you a lot of headaches, believe me. Unless you really want to learn the fine nuances of scanning film, (which is becoming an 'old school' artform,) it won't be worth your time spent. Of course, if you want to shoot more film while it's still around.... that's another story..:)

I'm saying this as one who has a Nikon Coolscan V ED sitting right here on my desk and a Nikon Coolscan III (SCSI) on my bookshelf, and I've scanned a lot of slides and negatives. It can really be fun, but the idea of staring at a pile of thousands of old, dusty, questionable quality slides, especially b/w, would make me run really, really fast in some other direction...;) Especially for the £ you have to work with.

Also, I'd rather scan prints if I was doing black and white, since the dust and other issues are harder to control scanning b/w film (due to no digital ICE as a general rule) and it's easier to get good results with a good print and a decent flatbed scanner for B/W. Old dirty B/W negatives can be rewashed, Photo-flo'd and dried for printing or scanning, and usually they'll look like new, but mounted slides are much harder to clean well.

Anyway, it's an interesting project, and you'll learn a lot tackling it. Have fun with it, and enjoy the family history. ;)

[cube]

You can get a FireWire/UltraSCSI converter for around $100.

I haven't tried mine with a scanner, only with an LTO tape drive.

[Sarhir]

It has been almost a year now since the posts on using a slide scanner for a Mac. I wonder if anything has changed? I too would like to scan a bunch of old color slides (from the 50's, 60's and 70's) and get them to a digital format. Good ole' Costco has a PrimeFilm PF7250u scanner on sale and while the price is tempting, wondered if this is a good option.

Any feedback from you pros???:)

[sjshaw]

It has been almost a year now since the posts on using a slide scanner for a Mac. I wonder if anything has changed? I too would like to scan a bunch of old color slides (from the 50's, 60's and 70's) and get them to a digital format. Good ole' Costco has a PrimeFilm PF7250u scanner on sale and while the price is tempting, wondered if this is a good option.

Any feedback from you pros???:)

I'm interested in any feedback as well.

[ChrisA]

I have been commissioned to scan and digitize around 3000 - 4000 35mm film slides, mostly B&W. I need to purchase a scanner OS X 10.5 compatible that will allow fast scanning at a reasonable resolution. Importantly I don't want to spend too much as it will all come out of my very small commission to do the work. I would consider any suggestions for older scanners that I might find on eBay but they would need to be usable under 10.5 either USB or Firewire?

For all those thinking they can use a $100 flatbed scanner -- Yes you can but your time is not worth it. The major cost here by far is labor. Paying $2,500 in labor plus $100 for a scanner is a waste of your $2,500. Spend $500 or $600 for a good used professional scanner.

How much are you being paid? You can outsource the job for about 25 cents per scan. If you are being paid less refuse the work. (Selling burgers at McDonald's pays better then scanning slides for 25 cents each.) and if you are being paid more send the work out and pocket the difference.

The only reason to do the work yourself is either
1) you are retired and need a time consumming hobby
2) The images are something you can't let anyone else see
3) You need a few images scanned quickly and can't wait for a professional service or lab's turn around time.


IF you find that you must scan 4000 slides yourself do NOT go cheap on the scanner. The goal here is to conserve your TIME. Expect to spend about 4 minutes per slide as a minimum. And this does NOT include the time you spend waiting for the scanner, you will be busy quality controlling the last batch and setting up the next and moving the slides in and out of whatever storage system is used. Assume 4 minutes of your hands-on time. So, 16,000 minutes is 266 hours or 33 days if you work 8 hours per day. I hope you did not bid this job for $100. Seriously I would not want to do this for 50 cents per slide.

For EVERY slide you will need to
1) remove it from storage container,
2) Dust it with anti-static brush
3) Look at it to verify which side is emulsion and which is base and which side is up. You may need a light table and a loupe.
4) place it on the holder on the scanner
5) Scan the image
6) look at the scan in photoshop and make minor corrections to color exposure and remove as much dust as you can in one or two minutes. This means just getting the worst of it off the main subject. This is an absolute must. You DO have to quality control every frame and I've never seen a frame that did not require some work. Black and White always requires hand work.
7) Add some kind of text to describe the image, even if just the roll and frame number
8) move the slide from scanner to storage.

When you buy the scanner a required feature is Kodak's ICE. This can eliminate dust and scratches at about the 80% level and save much time with step #6 but this only works for color images. The process does NOT work with silver based film. So maybe my 4 minutes per slide estimate is wrong. I based it on color and using ICE.

Budget your time. Step #6 can be a real time sink. Look at a clock and just quit after 2 minutes. If it needs more work, write down the frame number and move on. It's easy for a perfectionist to spend an hour on one frame. Resist that temptation.

Given the size of the job you want the BEST scanner you can get. If you buy a used scanner you can sell it for about what you paid so don't cut corners. Using a cheap scanner could add hours to the job. Better scanners require less post scan hand correction.

The "standard" scanner that is used for this kind of work is the Nikon 5000ED. Buy a used one and don't mess around with cheap scanners. Not for a 4,000 slide job. If this job can't pay for a scanner, decline the job.

Do not attempt to use the automatic feeder. If it jams even once and destroys even one slide you have failed and will likey owe the owner of the slides more than the job is worth.

And do buy some white cotton film gloves and maybe a mask, Keep the film clean.

[Nordichund]

I just bought myself an Epson V500 to scan in my old negatives and I have read this thread with interest. There is a lot of good advice. Thank you for that.

I am scanning in all my pictures, but will will go back to the few pictures I really like and work with them later.

Can I also say after so far scanning in more than a 1000 pictures how much I hate film and how I celebrate its demise.

For the normal photographer film was expensive and inconvenient. Working with vulnerable negatives in a dust free environment is and was a pain in the butt. The new digital world of photography has opened up so many possiblities to so many people.

I wonder what the next format will be :)

[OreoCookie]

I just bought myself an Epson V500 to scan in my old negatives and I have read this thread with interest. There is a lot of good advice. Thank you for that.
That's a flatbed scanner -- which are inadequate for scanning negatives and slides at high quality. With my flatbed scanner (also an Epson), I get no more than 3 megapixels in terms of quality from my scans.

[Nordichund]

That's a flatbed scanner -- which are inadequate for scanning negatives and slides at high quality. With my flatbed scanner (also an Epson), I get no more than 3 megapixels in terms of quality from my scans.

I completely agree. But for most of the photos I have I really don't need higher quality. The perhaps 100 or so photos I would like to have high quality scans for, I will have done professionaly.

I have a lot of discoloured photos in albums and in my draws. Digitilising them in this way is giving them a new lease of life. I'm finding it fun.

Of course at the end of the day it's up to the individual to decide exactly what they want and need.

But really I'm just happy that I never have to take another film photograph ever again. All the scratched negatives from people who developed them who didn't care.

[rjphoto]

ChrisA has given some very good advice.

My advice if you want to put together a DVD show is first to edit the slides down to a manageable lot.

Archiving family photos is the most tedious task I have ever done in my 30+ years as a professional photographer.

My process now for quality images is to use an old 35mm film duplicator with a digital camera in place of the old Nikon F3.

I still have to handle every slide. I use a can of dust off first and then the brush if it still needs cleaning.

Every image is still run through Photoshop for tweaking of color, contrast and sometimes a little straightening.

I recently did a job for a man that said he had thousands of images to archive. His goal was to learn the digital editing side of it and make prints on an Epson printer. His thousands of images became 150. The digital images were so good that he thought I had already cleaned them up in Photoshop. In actuality his images were very clean, well exposed and needed very little work.

I began using this process mainly to convert text slides to digital for use in medical lectures. I tried it on a few of my own scenic slides and was pleased.

I had 2 old Microtech 35mm scanners years ago that I paid over $1000 each for and they took up to 5 minutes depending on the resolution per image. This process is much faster and I think gives a better result.

[OreoCookie]

I completely agree. But for most of the photos I have I really don't need higher quality. The perhaps 100 or so photos I would like to have high quality scans for, I will have done professionaly.
That's how I do it as well.
If it weren't for the time it takes to digitize negatives and slides, I'd be very tempted picking up another Nikon film body/rangefinder and start taking pictures with it.

[ChrisA]

ChrisA has given some very good advice.

My advice if you want to put together a DVD show is first to edit the slides down to a manageable lot.

Archiving family photos is the most tedious task I have ever done in my 30+ years as a professional photographer.

My process now for quality images is to use an old 35mm film duplicator with a digital camera in place of the old Nikon F3.

Unless you have a very good DSLR, your digital camera will not capture the full tonal range and resolution of the slide and has zero hope of capturing the tonal range of a negative. Film is still better then digital. But if the goal is only making a DVD or viewing the image on a computer screen the DSLR is OK. But a normal DSLR just can't fully capture all the information in a 35mm negative

My flatbed scanner makes better scans then my DSLR and the scanner does 20 at a time in one batch.

The bulk of my work is outsourced you can not beat the current prices. When they can do the work for 21 cents per frame, it's not worth my time.

[rjphoto]

Unless you have a very good DSLR, your digital camera will not capture the full tonal range and resolution of the slide and has zero hope of capturing the tonal range of a negative. Film is still better then digital. But if the goal is only making a DVD or viewing the image on a computer screen the DSLR is OK. But a normal DSLR just can't fully capture all the information in a 35mm negative

True. I agree 1000%.

So, I have been experimenting with HDR by doing a simple exposure bracket and then compositing the images.

So far so good.

[rjphoto]

My flatbed scanner makes better scans then my DSLR and the scanner does 20 at a time in one batch.

The bulk of my work is outsourced you can not beat the current prices. When they can do the work for 21 cents per frame, it's not worth my time.

Ahhh, you edited while I was typing a reply...

Any way, refresh my memory. What type of flat bed do you have?

How long does it take to run those 20 images through it?

I would out source if the images weren't irreplaceable, but alas they are usually very precious.

[OreoCookie]

Unless you have a very good DSLR, your digital camera will not capture the full tonal range and resolution of the slide and has zero hope of capturing the tonal range of a negative. Film is still better then digital.
Negative films typically have a dynamic range of 10~13 stops, slide films have less (I think 8~10 EV). And then you need a very good scanner. Modern dslrs are capable of that (the highest I've seen was ~12 EV). A Nikon D90 tops out at about a little less than 10 EV (RAW), for instance. I do see advantages of film (mostly how you work with film vs. the inexhaustable amount of memory you have these days), but image quality isn't really one of them anymore.

[dguerr]

I looked over these valuable, knowledgible forums and decided, for me, at least, it is better to spend my money on having a professional do the job. I can buy a slide scanner for $100 to $1000 and spend hours doing the old slides I took over the years, or spend $500 per 1000 slides to have someone else do a complete and professional job and put the results on a DVD. Then, if I want to work on them, even more, with iPhoto, I can do that at my leisure.

The many forum posts on this topic convinced me that the time spent at home, doing the work, would be excessive, as is the cost of a scanner capable of doing the job.

This is just my comment and only based on my particular time and financial constraints. I find it hard enough to organize my digital photos on my Mac and PC, and then to use Photoshop with them. No desire here to add to my many "projects."

I do feel anyone thinking of buying a slide scanner and planning to do good work, should carefully consider outsourcing.

Additionally, I discovered that the company that does slides, also can transfer all my mini DV cassettes to my external hard drive. Not knowing this before, I had the video camera repaired for $450 thinking that the only way to transfer the cassettes to my mac was to use that camera.

Oh, I wish someone had told me in one of the many other forum groups I went to, looking for help.

Good luck to all.:)

[sapple]

I have this old scanner that is probably very good. If I get this adapter cord someone mentioned, and use the old driver CD that came with the scanner, will I have trouble using this outdated software on my ibook (intell 10.5.8) or with my photoshop CS4? I realize I will not be able to connect with any online help or instruction manual...since the product is defunct and Polaroid does not have support for it on their site.

[BigDukeSix]

Came across this thread while doing a search. I am looking to do a bunch of slides to digital as well. I have plenty of time to get them done, and am looking for some advice. One of those devices that is designed just to do slides or negatives, or a flatbed scanner. Of course, I would like to say under $100 for the device. Thx.

[Edge100]

Came across this thread while doing a search. I am looking to do a bunch of slides to digital as well. I have plenty of time to get them done, and am looking for some advice. One of those devices that is designed just to do slides or negatives, or a flatbed scanner. Of course, I would like to say under $100 for the device. Thx.

As with most things in life, you get what you pay for. You will get bad results spending <$100 on a film scanner. Take that $100 and rent a Nikon Coolscan for the weekend.

[ChrisA]

Came across this thread while doing a search. I am looking to do a bunch of slides to digital as well. I have plenty of time to get them done, and am looking for some advice. One of those devices that is designed just to do slides or negatives, or a flatbed scanner. Of course, I would like to say under $100 for the device. Thx.

How many slides? Are you talking about 100 or 10,000?

OK I'll guess and assume 1,000. Figure once you get really good it this you might be able to do one slide every 5 minutes. Technicians who do this every day might think that rate a "rush". But I'll use this optimistic number. So we are talking about 5,000 minutes of your time. That is 83 hours. Call it "100"

Here is how to do the job in only 50 hours: Go to McDonald's and get a job selling burgers that pays $7.00 per hour and work 50 hours then quit. Send your paycheck and your 1,000 slides to a scanning service. Not only is this twice as fast but you don't need to buy a scanner.

OK, this the "entertainment" and you have time to kill. But don't waste your time using a cheap scanner. There are two features to look at

d-max (Maximum Density) The industry standard Nikon 5000 ED does d-max = 4.8. Look for a scanner that claims at least 4.0
Must have a forth "IR" lamp to suport automatic dust and scratch busting. THis will do 85% of the work for you, a "must have" feature.

You can use a flat bed type scanner as long as it is the type with a transparency lamp in the lid nad a plastic slide holder for the bed. Some people remove the glass from the bed. But that is a DIY mod.

4,000 DPI is more then enough resolution for most slides. Only a few really need 4000dpi. That would be the ones on slow speed film shot on a tripod with a good

If you were scanning printed photos I'm say just go get any cheap scanner. But slides are very hard to scan. One thing that can help is better scanner software. Lok up "Vu-Scan". Is driver can run the scanner is "multi-pass" mode. Kind of like bracketing the exposure in a camera. Then the software assembles an images from all those passes and can capture shadows without burning out the hilights.

That is the problem with cheap scanners, they have poor dynamic range and you get white skys and black-ed out shadows. To avoid that you need eaither the multi-pass technology in vu-scan or a $3,500 Nikon 5000ED scanner. Either way you will need to go into photoshop and tweek the color and exposure of each scan.

I think best to pay some guy in India $0.31 to do it for you.

[pdxflint]

If you're going to get a 35mm camera and will be shooting primarily color film (negative film has more latitude, but slides will work) then an investment in a decent Nikon LS50 (Coolscan V) used will be worth it for current shooting (but not worth it, if as mentioned above, you're wanting to scan a ton of archival negatives/slides from Grandpa's family history due to the investment in time to do this.) Get a light box or look for a used light table to edit your negatives/slides, and then just scan as you go. It's not that bad, since you'll probably only have a certain number of keepers from each roll to scan, and you won't be shooting nearly as prolifically as with digital. Figure 3 or 4 rolls when you go shooting, give or take. At 36 exposures per roll max, with maybe 1/3rd of them worth scanning high res, that's 30-50 scans... and more than likely you'll scan far fewer and be much more selective about what you post-process. Shooting film does make you think a bit more about what you're taking photos of because of the limited number of exposures you can make, which is actually not a bad thing.

I'd probably recommend shooting a decent 400 speed Fuji negative film which should be reasonably affordable if bought in bulk, and having it processed and sleeved without cutting it. Then just cut the negative strips into 5 exposures each and store them in the negative archival sleeves. It shouldn't be that expensive if you're not having the negs printed. This kind of film has a lot of exposure latitude and is easy to scan well and get good results.

Now that I've talked myself into it, I need to go find myself an old, reliable Nikon film camera and an old Olympus rangefinder like the 35sp...