melody_rose Posted October 8, 2009 Share Posted October 8, 2009 <p>I have a large collection of family 35mm slides. Now these are just regular snapshots with Dad's old Canon that he never learned how to use very well, but we have ended up with our family history on these slides. None of them are composed well, or valuable to anyone but family. I can't see spending a ton of money to purchase a scanner when I can put it toward my next camera. I want something that is capable of at least documenting what we have in an accurate manner, but there is no depth of field, harsh shadows and many slightly out of focus. These are 1960's slides with a late '50's camera. I've seen scanners for under $100, but do not want to waste my money on useless junk...I also do not need to spend $1000 either. Will the cheap scanner record these less than stellar photographs well enough to warrant the purchase? Any suggestions on brand and model that may serve my purpose?</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDMvW Posted October 8, 2009 Share Posted October 8, 2009 <p>There is a contradiction here (see Mao "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Contradiction_%28Mao_Zedong%29">On Contradiction</a> "). You can have cheap, or you can have fast. You can't have it all (see K. Hepburn).</p> <p>I bought a relatively cheap, but high-resolution scanner (a Canon FS4000, no longer available new). I figured as a newly retired person I had more time than money. Well, honey (as the waitress said to me today), nobody's got that <em>much</em> time. If you want low-res scans, a cheap scanner can do the job in reasonable time, especially if you're not scanning everything. But the problem is that if you <em>ever</em> want a higher res scan, then you have to dig everything out and do it all over again. Measure twice, cut once, (ain't I folksy today? must have been the beans with lunch) that is, scan once and do it right the first time or you will be sorry..</p> <p>As for a recommendation, for decent, but not spectacular scans, a Canon 9950F or similar model will do decent scans of both 35mm and of larger format film as well (which is why I got one). The local "film" students at the university tend to go to this family of scanners.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walter_degroot Posted October 8, 2009 Share Posted October 8, 2009 <p>you can also look at the refurb epson scanners<br> especially those with film slots<br> possibly the canon is as good<br> but sometimes for a few hundred dollars you can get a scanner that does 35mm and medium format<br> and can also scan prints. epson v700 / v750<br> i think the canon will do all or most of that and canon has an e-store.<br> but look on the epson site for refurbs in their e-store.</p> <p>sadly the $500 nikon seems to be gone. It was a good scanner.<br> and the $400.00 minolta dimage is discontinued and possibly unrepairable now.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stwrtertbsratbs5 Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 <p>You could use a slide copier and a DSLR.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pcnilssen Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 <p>melody, reading your post was just like reading about myself. In addition to my new digital photography, I have "inherited" lots of pictures from my dad (analog ones) as well as I have a large collection of my own analog slides.</p> <p>I first bought a Minolta DualScan II, and learned a lot, but learned fast that what I needed was actually 36hour days. I sold this Minolta and bought a Nikon Coolscan V, so that I could take advantage of the automatic dust removal, which also saves me some manual scanning time. I'm doing my project, with some 3-4000 slides, on my spare time, and only about half-way, I'm well into my 3rd year of scanning....... :(</p> <p>I think JDM and Walter have good advice regarding the scanners. But most of all, your largest investment will be your own time, if you choose to do this yourself. In saying that, I also would suggest that you check with a local lab what they will charge you if they were to do the whole process for you.</p> <p>Good luck.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charles_stobbs3 Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 I use a Canoscan 8800F. It takes 2X2 slides, 35mm strips and 2 1/4 strips. IMHO scanning is an extremely boring activity and I am not very confident of the archival quality of electronic media. Why not sort out what you really want to keep and get them scanned commercially for backup? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mendel_leisk Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 <p>At the risk of opening a can of worms: are some/any of the slides Kodachrome? Both the Nikon V and 5000 <em>will</em> have problems with these, if ICE is used.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melody_rose Posted October 9, 2009 Author Share Posted October 9, 2009 <p>I'm afraid that they are all Kodachrome.I'd be shocked if any of them are not.<br> He never bought anything else. I'm discarding all of the long-dead zoo animals and the Old Faithful (and similar shots) narrowing it down to the ones that actually are pertinent to our family.There's probably less than 300 that I'd keep, so it isn't like I've got a mountain of these things.<br> I have a DSLR, First generation 300D, which is why I'd want to put money toward a new camera. The old Rebel has served me well, but I want a newer, badder brother for it.<br> Tell me about the slide copier for the DSLR. I have been doing copies of old family photographs,(early 20th Century stuff) so I'm familiar with that process.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
User_276104 Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 <p>I copied a bunch of old slides on a light box by using a macro lens on a DSLR. Still a bit of a chore, but scanning is unbelievably boring.</p> <p> </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mendel_leisk Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 <p>For KC the best (likely only) choice if you're scanning with ICE would be the out-of-production Minolta Scan Elite 5400 (first Gen Model), or one of the earlier Scan Elite models. The 5400's more diffuse light source, coupled with a hardware frosted pane filter that can be swung in front of the light source (Grain Dissolver), allows scanning with ICE and without artifacts.</p> <p>ICE is an acronym that is so deeply ingrained that nobody remembers what it stands for anymore. Anyway, it refers to a proprietory in-scanner infrared dectection and in-scanner removal of defects. It's a combination of hardware detection and software cleaning. It is the most "seamless" cleaning going, as far as I know. There are other softwares that can also do similar using the same infrared data, but not as well or seamlessly.</p> <p>Anyway, KC is a special film, with more layers than a typical slide film. It causes problems with ICE and the Nikon Coolscan V or 5000 (35mm only scanners). The Nikon Coolscan 9000 uses a different, more diffuse light source, and has a different version of ICE. Nikon describes this latter ICE (used solely in the 9000) as KC compatible. Reading between the lines, this makes the V and 5000's ICE non-compatible with KC, at least that's my take.</p> <p>There are examples on the net that bear this out. Sometimes entire details "erode" away, akin to using ICE on traditional B/W film (another no-no). Sometimes there are artifacts at sharp edged transitions of tone, a "crinkly" look. For all of this, I believe the multi-layered construction of KC is the culprit.</p> <p>You would be ok if you don't use ICE, and do any/all cleaning with Photoshop. But, while ICE will not get everything, and will always leave a few remnants/artifacts of it's own (regardless of film type), it is a big help. I would guestimate ICE reduces post-cleanup effort by 75%.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blumesan Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 <p>Melody,</p> <p>Per your last post, it appears you have already started what I would strongly advise: Beg, borrow or rent a slide projector and carefully screen the collection for those shots you really want to keep. If you can reduce the number to the range of 200 - 400 slides then you are really well ahead in both time and dollars if you have the scanning done commercially. There are several firms that provide this service, and the prices range from $0.50 to $1.00 for scans of reasonable quality and resolution.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melody_rose Posted October 9, 2009 Author Share Posted October 9, 2009 <p>Oh, I've got the projector and screen and a couple of those little doohickies that you pop the slide into the top and it lights up, so I'm able to go through them pretty easily.<br> I even tried taking a picture of a reduced image on the screen (yuck!)<br> The lightbox and my macro sounds like something that I may toy with. I'm pretty rural and not much available as far as services goes...I'll check around and see if the local camera shop does this. I really don't want to purchase a piece of equipment that will ultimately be sold on ebay for pennies on the dollar.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blumesan Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 <p>Your best bet is to search for this service on-line. You send them your slides and they return them with a CD or DVD with the images. Prices generally vary with scan resolution, but even at the low end of the price range the results will probably be better than you can obtain with a lightbox or macro.</p> <p>Just found this right on this forum page: <a href="http://www.fotobridge.com/pricing.php">http://www.fotobridge.com/pricing.php</a></p> <p> </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDMvW Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 <p>Just a note on the suggestion</p> <blockquote> <p>You could use a slide copier and a DSLR.</p> </blockquote> <p>This sounds like a really good idea. Actually, when Spiratone was still in business I always wondered how those slide duplicator thingies would work out. Noticing that there were always a lot of them for sale on eBay and since I was slowly sliding into the slippery slope of collecting Spiratone oddities, I finally got one. Here are my personal experiences:<br> 1. The reason they are almost always in "as new" condition in the original boxes is that few people ever found them to be more than a make-shift solution to the problem. In short, probably not one person in ten who ever got one found it to be actually useful. The setups with a dichroic light head and a copy stand are another matter, they are really just home-made Repronars (which Google), and they could, I think, be useful. I had a Repronar for years, and if you can find one it's still one of the best solutions to using a camera and bellows for slide copying.<br> 2. It is virtually impossible to use one on an APS-C body because none that I have ever seen allowed you to reduce the size of the image. You could crop but there's no practical way of getting the all-in-one slide copiers to get the whole slide on the reduced size sensor.<br> 3. When you do get an image (and this is much easier with digital where you can see the results immediately), the built in lenses and such were frankly pretty crappy. Image quality is not good and you need to find some way to pump lots of light through the thing to make it halfway usable. The jury-rigged solution at the time was to sell a flash and a ruler for lighting up the slide in the copier.<br> 4. I have not tried the very much more expensive slide copy rigs made by Nikon and Minolta and the like. I do not know how well, or not, they work, but at best they would be a sort of home-built Repronar again.<br> I think you'd get far better results from a Canon 8800f, for example, than from a slide copier on a camera body.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
User_276104 Posted October 9, 2009 Share Posted October 9, 2009 <p>Here's a crude example of a quick slide copy on a light box with a 105mm macro lens. As a landscape shot, it could certainly be sharper, etc. If copying old family photos, they're likely not perfect anyway.</p> <p>I got a couple of slide boxes of my first-ever Kodachrome in the mail today, and this is from one of the rolls.</p><div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stwrtertbsratbs5 Posted October 10, 2009 Share Posted October 10, 2009 <p>"It is virtually impossible to use one on an APS-C body because none that I have ever seen allowed you to reduce the size of the image."</p> <p>There are duplicators that are designed to work with APS-C DSLRs.</p> <p>http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/464076-REG/General_Brand_SDD_Digital_Slide_Duplicator.html</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melody_rose Posted October 10, 2009 Author Share Posted October 10, 2009 <p>Wow! The link sure looks promising. Thanks Mike. The service is reasonable (actually pretty cheap) as I'd spend more than that on the equipment and still have the hours I'd have to put in, to actually work on them. I may play with a lighbox set up just to see the process. (I like knowing how things work) Eric's copied slide is probably the quality of the best ones in the collection.<br> I'm no pro by any means, but know enough to take better than average images. Thanks ya'll for the help. I'm new here, but I've found photo.net a helpful and easy site to use. You'll probably see me around from time to time.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frank_b._baiamonte Posted October 12, 2009 Share Posted October 12, 2009 <p>I just started a similar project, using a dSLR and a macro lens (35mm macro on APS-C sized sensor). Here is a link to the thread I started to describe how it's going.</p> <p>http://www.photo.net/pentax-camera-forum/00Uin3</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rachel_steinberg Posted December 4, 2009 Share Posted December 4, 2009 <p>I too had a large number (over 5 thousand) slides to convert. I purchased the Epson with the tray - ok, but you need a heck of a lot of ram to power it and the resolution is subpar. I then purchased the brand with the tray for for slides and you push it through. The resolution is up to 7200 dpi and that was great but I had over 5 thousand slides. I then bit the bullet and purchased a Nikon 5000 in 2006 and the adapter. I could scan over 50 in 30 minutes - 4000 dpi. Once I got used to working with the adapter, I could leave the unit unattended. I originally used ICE but quickly learned to clean the slides thoroughly and scan as is and do all restoration with Photoshop. This was the BEST investment ($1300.00 including the scanner in 2006) that I have EVER made. This machine has scanned all my images and I have scanned many more for friends and relatives. I am not a PR shill. Normally I lurk and never contribute in writing to blogs. However, so many people ask me how I restore slides that I must say Nikon 5000 (they have a 9000 edition now which is superior) was the best purchase I have ever made hands down. The machine is pricey and you must get the adapter if you need to save time so check out Ebay for a used one. I don't regret getting a new unit since this machine had to do a lot of work to many slides. </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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