scanning slides

[paulnorwich]

I purchased the Canon CanoScan 9000F Film Scanner to scan my old slides and negatives. It seemed to be one of the best reviewed scanners (for this purpose) at the time I purchased.

I haven't used it as much as I'd intended, primarily because it takes sooooo long when scanning images at a high-ish resolution. The driver / software that comes with it is adequate, but not that great.

[Peirceman]

You might also want to try the service Scan Cafe They will scan all your slides and negatives and you can choose which ones you want to buy. The downside is that if you buy a lot, it is pricey and you have to send them your originals. You do get the originals back.

Scott

[Nikon_Mario]

The review for the Canon scanner seem pretty positive for the price point. Might have to look into this one. It's too bad that the retailers don't have these setup so you can 'test drive' one to see if the results are worthwhile or not - but then that might cut too much into their sales

I've also been checking the labs around here for scanning services. Reasonable if you want a small number done. But if you're interested in doing a large number then the cost gets up there real quickly!

[Frank B]

I think one way to approach this is to think about how you want to use the finished product (the scans). In may case I wanted to put them up on my blog or SmugMug site, and was not too worried about printing big, since I still have the slides for that. Here is a link to a forum post where I described my simple way of "scanning" by shooting the slides on a lightbox with DSLR and a macro lens.

http://www.photographycorner.com/for...ad.php?t=98586

Here's an example of a scan. This was originally shot on Kodachrome 64 with a Pentax 200/4 lens in 1980. "Scanned" with a Pentax K20D and a Pentax DA35 Macro lens, f/6.3, ISO 200, shot as jpg.



Here is a link to a gallery of shots done the same way. The only processing on these was occasional cropping in iPhoto when I didn't get the slide lined up just right. Otherwise these are all jpgs straight out of the camera, sized down in iPhoto to a max of 1,500px on the long axis. I'll also admit I was not very fastidious about cleaning the slides or brushing off dust.

http://frankbaiamonte.smugmug.com/Tr...0-Slide-Scans/

While the process of bending over the tripod is bit hard on the back, I have to say that the overall speed of the "scan" does help a lot.

[Chris Fulton]

Just checked out ScanCafe. Most of the places I had, on a whim, looked at were 4 cents per slide cheaper for basically the same service. And they offered a discount based on how many slides you had. Unfortunately, I don't remember where I had looked. Was just bored one day, and had a moment where I was thinking about if I were to start charging for something like that what would I charge. At least, that's based on their 29 cent per 35 mil slide.

[Nikon_Mario]

Frank, it sure looks like you got some wonderful results from your setup. And your smugmug gallery has some neat photos in it too. This might suit my purposes and I can easily set up to shoot with my macro lens. I just need to get my hands on a lightbox.... or make one

Thanks for sharing your method.

[suci]

It is true that the fastest and easiest way to duplicate a slide, is to use a slide duplicator attachment. I don't know about the quality, but there is no reason to think it to be inferior to a scanner.
I have been using an Epson flat bed scanner and am quite happy with that. While it is a fact that few if any flat bed scanner allows one to focus manually, I don't think that that is a disadvantage.
With a focusable scanner one focuses on a very narrow plane and since most slides will have a curved surface, everything else is out of focus. Flat bed scanners use a wide angle lens that provides ample depth of field to get the whole slide into acceptable sharpness. Sure it's a compromise, but most things in photography and in life are a compromise.

[moltogordo]

I've scanned slides, but I've had better results with a 35mm f2.8 Macro lens, a copy stand, and a frosted light box with a daylight rated curly bulb inside.

A much simpler proceedure which captures pretty much everything the slide has.