35mm slides - any experts here?

[Helen B]

If those slides are from WWII they are almost certainly Kodachrome, and only reasonably high quality scanning is going to do them justice - not just because of the quality of the film but also because of the historical significance of colour images from WWII.

Unless you go to something like an Imacon or a drum scanner, the Nikon 5000 is likely to be your best choice, with or without a batch scanner. Batch scanning may not give the best results for each slide, but it will save a lot of time if the mounts are in reasonable condition.

Kodachrome has an unusually high maximum density (ie the blacks are blacker than almost all other slide films) and hence many lesser scanners have difficulty getting good shadow detail.

4000 ppi is the minimum that I would conside scanning Kodachrome at, and the Nikon 5000 manages to get a true resolution around that value. Not many consumer scanners achieve their stated optical resolution. Kodachrome does benefit from scanning at a higher resolution than 4000 ppi, but scanners that can actually achieve that are expensive.

Best,
Helen

 

[MissMia]

Helen - Thanks for that info. Most of the ones I have are Kodachrome slides. My grandmother has the rest and I'm not sure if they are Kodachrome or not. I have several B&W prints as well.

 

[bhop]

bhop & happy hour: Here is one of the slides I tried to scan. It's the only one I have on my laptop. This is just after the war, when he was still stationed in the pacific.

Oh man.. that's cool stuff.

 

[MrFSS]

I have scanned probably close to 10,000 old slides for friends over the last 2-3 years. I'm retired and have the time. I don't have fancy equipment but enjoy doing it.

I always wondered if there was a market out there for making a few bucks for doing something you like.

Anyone had any experience along these lines?

Some I have done are here:

http://tbedwell.smugmug.com/Slide Restorations

 

[bobzam]

I also have a large number of slides from 1950s and my family has been bugging me to get them scanned and organized.

Although I am retired this all will take time so that is one consideration.

I just saw the Microtek AtrixScan M1 written up in Outdoor Photographer and that caught my eye. Digital ICE would be very important to me. I do Photoshop well but to work on each slide is a bit much.

Seems that this scanner does not have ICE http://www.microtekusa.com/microtek-artixscan-m1_specs.html

But the more expensive 1000XL does
http://www.microtekusa.com/sm1000xl_fb_nobuy.html

Getting a scanner that would continue as a document scanner is a plus for me as I have an old relic now!

My question is about ICE. I assume this has to be built into the scanner hardware but not sure if I can get software to add on and do the same.

Anyone have some suggestions in sorting this all out.

Bob