35 mm Slide Conversion

1 Jan 2009 19:51:16

David Teale

I have boxes of 35 mm slides which I must convert to digital, one time exercise, can any one advise me on which slide scanner to use and any general advice.

The one I am looking at is a Plustek 2500I, £293.00. Would like a Nikon but do not want to lay out £1200 for a new one. Have tried Ebay and lost

I just do not know enough about slide conversion and would welcome any advice.

Re: 35 mm Slide Conversion

2 Jan 2009 12:04:26

Roy Rainford

I have a CanoScan FS 4000US which produces good quality scans. However I only use it occasionally for one or two scans. When I have larger numbers to scan I use R&K Photographic who do a good job. See: http://www.randkphotographic.co.uk/scanning1.htm

Re: 35 mm Slide Conversion

2 Jan 2009 16:10:46

Lionel Ogden

I have seen somewhere a Panasonic slide holder that can be used with a digital camera to copy slides to a digital format. The cost was about £20 so obviously not something high tech. Some photographic shops offer a slide copying service in the same way that you can get 8mm films converted to DVD. This may be better for a one off process than investing in expensive equipment you will never use again.

Re: 35 mm Slide Conversion

2 Jan 2009 19:30:19

Eric Jervis

I was about to suggest the same thing. Some years ago I copied my grandfather's family album by a similar method. I used to be a lithographic camera operator so the method was natural to me; the only difference really being that instead of wanting a negative two feet by three feet I needed one on 35mm film. The lighting is important, daylight being best, so I placed the originals on my desk in front of the window. A copying stand on which to mount the camera would have been nice, but I managed to use a tripod with a universal joint so the camera could be turned horizontal, using a spirit level to get the film plane perfectly parallel to the original to avoid any distortion. I needed to focus each picture separately as it was a thick book, but using an SLR it was easy. I sent the rolls of film off to Truprint and the results were excellent. Copying slides with a slide holder should be much simpler; just use a tripod to stop your arms getting tired.

Re: 35 mm Slide Conversion

2 Jan 2009 20:32:36

Roy Rainford

The solution really depends on the quality required in the scans. I need reproduction quality from a 50Mb file size scan, completely free of dust & scratches when checked at 100%.

Re: 35 mm Slide Conversion

3 Jan 2009 12:29:07

Terry Willis

I've undertaken slide, negative and print scanning at what you might call semi-pro level, as well as for my own use. The two major problems with scanning slides or negatives is dust and speed. Being very small (obviously) any imperfections like dust, scratches etc, are multiplied up and are very visible on the initial scan. The second problem is that every scan takes an age if scanning at a reasonable resolution. Only expensive scanners come near a usable speed when scanning many negatives or slides. The one tip here is, only scan at the resolution you require, don't go overboard.

Due to the above the whole process is very drawn out, especially when you then add the 'retouching' element that every scan will need. For home use, where you are transferring memories rather than pure images, I take the view that the memory is more important and undertake little or no retouching. Plus many images have little or no bearing when you look back on them, so a good manual sort out is the first requirement.

You have to balance all this against the very dubious quality of old images, unless they were taken on good quality cameras, where the images are more often than not very poor to start with!

Re: 35 mm Slide Conversion

3 Jan 2009 16:11:44

Derek Wright

Potentially useful thread here using a camera instead of a scanner

http://e-group.uk.net/forum/showthread.php?t=4179

Re: 35 mm Slide Conversion

15 Jan 2009 17:04:48

David Teale

Thank you all, I suspect you get what you pay for, Terry what equipment did you use or was it work related

Re: 35 mm Slide Conversion

20 Jan 2009 18:40:17

Terry Willis

Latest was on a HP Scanjet 7650 with Slide attachment. Reasonable scans but still slow.

Re: 35 mm Slide Conversion

23 Mar 2009 10:24:06

Lionel Ogden

I saw last night on the QVC shopping channel a Veho FilmScan 35 which is an updated version of a film scanner previously available. This version will scan negatives and slides to an SD card or directly to a PC or Mac. It was being offered at 74 pounds for the day but the normal price is 93.