neagtive and slide scanner

[Johnboy2978]

Hello all. My in-laws are having their 50th anniversary next month. My wife and her siblings would like to include a presentation of a bunch of their old pictures. Many of these are in the form of slides, and they would like to scan them so that they can be included in a slide show presentation. I know nothing about what to look for in a slide scanner so I'm looking for recommendations. If we bought one, I'd like one that I could also scan 35mm negatives as well since I do have a very under-used 35mm camera which I may use more if I had a decent scanner.

So what specs and models should I look at? Also would it be more economical to have a lab do it for us? I'm not sure what quantity exactly we are talking about but my wife brought home one of however many boxes today, so I would guess several hundred?

Thanks

 

[skieur]

I am looking for the same thing and I have 8,000 plus slides to scan. So far through my own efforts, I have found that a lab would charge about $3,000 plus for the above job or about 40 cents per slide plus tax.

The fastest approach would be to rent, buy, or find perhaps at a school board a slide duplicator, which usually has a camera on it and switch the film camera for a digital camera. That would allow you to quickly duplicate the slides onto the digital camera.

In checking out flat bed scanners, Microtek has one that does 8 slides at a time. I have yet to find one that does more at a time,...but I am still looking.

Can anyone else help?

skieur

 

[Don Simon]

The Epson V700 is not cheap and not exactly slim for a flatbed, but it scans up to 12 mounted slides, strips of 35mm up to 24 frames, as well as mounts for 120 film and will take large format too. Some reviews have said the quality is about as close as you can get to dedicated film scanners... I wouldn't know that, but I can say the quality is very good. Of course the major problem with any flatbed is the need to hang around and put in each new batch of slides.

I can see potential problems however, not in the quality of whatever scanner you choose but in the quality of the slides to be scanned. I can get fantastic results scanning new slides of good quality, very fine grain film... but the results when I came to scanning old family slides were another matter. Most were shot on cheap store brand film, and the decades have not been all that kind to them... most needed cleaning. I can get useable images, but probably not ones that I would want to enlarge and project on a big screen (especially when it would be easier to just use an actual slide projector!) Of course your in-laws' slides may be better quality and condition, so I guess it depends.

 

[Johnboy2978]

I had thought of just getting a slide projector but I think my wife thought that was a cheap-o idea, or just thought it was my way of saying I didn't want to be bothered with doing it. She had checked with a local lab and they too quoted her the .40/slide price. Why the heck is that so expensive? That just seems way out of line to me. I would think the average job would involve several hundred to a thousand slides. With that price they could buy a new drum scanner every year.

 

[skieur]

The quality of the original slides is certainly not a problem in my case. Many of them are glass mounted and most are Kodachrome.

skieur

 

[selmerdave]

I had thought of just getting a slide projector but I think my wife thought that was a cheap-o idea, or just thought it was my way of saying I didn't want to be bothered with doing it. She had checked with a local lab and they too quoted her the .40/slide price. Why the heck is that so expensive? That just seems way out of line to me. I would think the average job would involve several hundred to a thousand slides. With that price they could buy a new drum scanner every year.

I don't know where you get your stuff scanned, but around here a good scan is $8/frame. That gives a good scan printable to 8x10". Cheaper scans are likely to be poor resolution, and not likely to look good any larger than, say, 575 x 750 or so on screen or maybe 4x6 printed. So I would be very impressed if for $.40/frame you got scans that were at all useable.

Scanning (well) is labour-intensive. I do most of my 35mm scanning at home now and it can take up to 30 min. a frame by the time I've removed dust specs etc. Of course, sometimes it's not so bad and I get luckier with the dust.

If you ask me, and you're going to show hundreds of slides, without question projection is the way to go. It's not about effort, the slides will look far better projected than they will scanned or printed, there's something special about shining a light through film. And all you have to do is spend $30 or so on someone's old Kodak Ektagraphic III or something, paint a wall white and you're good to go.

Dave