Copying slides to digital media

[blakjak8]

I have hundreds of Kodachrome slides of our family from 1950's into the 1990's. What options do I have available to transfer them to a digital media. Any and all ideas are welcome as they are very important. Do you have a preferred service that does it? What equipment might I need to do this myself? I have a 1.5ghz Dell laptop/ Sony a200 / 18 -450 mm lenses / a sturdy tripod and a little bit better than beginner abilities. What would you do? Thanks in advance for any assistance...

 

[ann]

find your self a film scanner, or if you have only a few hundred it will be cheaper to find a company that do this all the time. They will put it on a cd which you can then open in any editing program for additional work, etc.

 

[bonobo_slr]

Canoscan 9950F is the real deal.

 

[farmerj]

dad and I use an HP scanner with a slide adapter. It does 24 at a time.

It's a rather manual labor intensive process. But you can do it over time. I was doing about 2-3 groups of 24 a week when I had nothing to do.

You will want a really good monitor to do this with though too. Helps with eye fatigue.

 

[benhasajeep]

If you can find one a Nikon Super Coolscan 5000 :thumbup:

I suggest you buy a scanner if you have 500-750 or more. Kodachrome is sometimes tricky to scan. Do a search on it and you will find out what I mean. A lab that batch scans my not give you the best effort! Then you have paid about $2 a scan of a mediocre scan! Here is what I have.

I have 2 scanners. An Epson 4990 pro and the Nikon 5000. I tried the Epson and it was pretty good. Decided to go with the Nikon 5000 and have not looked back since. If your family took the time to shoot on Kodachrome might as well get the best out of it. Nikon recently discontinued production of the Coolscan 5000. When it was sold new it went for about $1,200. The still make the Super Coolscan 9000 but not as easy to use as a 5000 when doing 35mm and its twice as much (will do 5 at a time using the mounted slide plate). If you have alot of mounted slides. You will want a SF-210 slide feeder (Needs to be used with the Super Coolscan 5000ED). Load it, up will do 40-50 deppending on thickness of mount. Start it and it will do the scans for you. Other than that you have to hand feed them 1 at a time with the included adapter.

I don't think anyone has them new anymore. So would have to find a used unit. Not sure if anyone rents them or not.

As for quality. At max resolution (4000 dpi) and 48bit scanning the file size is upwards of 100mb! At 24 bit scanning its about half that. At max resolutions that would good for about 11x17 print from a 35mm slide. Of course there are lower scan levels. Max and 48bit (16bit per channel) takes a while, espceially if your using the ICE software. At max dpi and bit depth and all scanning options on it takes about 3 min a slide (manual says 2 min 42 sec I believe)! Obviously quicker for lower settings.

From what I have seen the break even is about 750 slides scanned at moderate settings (for just the scanner, and not including your value of time). Adding the SF-210 will put your break even around 1000 slides. And obviously will be less on your time as you can set it and just observe it (let it go if running good).

The flat beds like my Epson 4990 allow you do do 8 mounted at once and also has ICE but the Dmax is not as high as the Nikon. The 4990 was replaced by the V700 and V750 which are a bit better dmax is the same but higher resolution if you choose it up to 6400 dpi (hardware).

Most of my scanning is regular E-6 slide film. I only did about 20 rolls worth of Kodachrome. Obviously the scanners will do color and b&w negatives as well. So you could scan all your pictures / negatives.

If you have alot I suggest picking up a Nikon Coolscan 5000 and dont let go of it!

 

[compur]

If the images are important I recommend that you not throw the slides away
once they're copied.

 

[benhasajeep]

If the images are important I recommend that you not throw the slides away
once they're copied.

Especially if they are Kodachromes!!!!

 

[c.cloudwalker]

If the images are important I recommend that you not throw the slides away
once they're copied.

Especially if they are Kodachromes!!!!

No matter what they are, do not throw them away!

And if you are going to anyway, send them to me. Yes, I save everything photo. I'll even pay for shipping

 

[epatsellis]

I do alot of this work, using a Beseler dual mode duplicator and a Kodak SLR/N dslr tethered. Not as fast as an auto feeding scanner, but great quality and ease of use. You can occaisionally find a slide duplicator for <$200, but try to find one locally if you can (I paid $45 for mine, paid for itself the first time I used it)

 

[Mike_Freeze]

You can't do it yourself as cheaply as these folks do, nor for as good a quality. You have to send your slides to India, but that's how you get the best deal. ScanCafe - Photo Restoration, Photo Scanning, Negative Scanning, Slide Scanning Best of luck

 

[epatsellis]

You can get better quality, I know I can and do. Then again you have to invest in the time and commitment to profile your equipment, use the best quality equipment you can get your hands on, and have the willingness to invest the time to fine tune your workflow.


ScanCafe is great for a hands off approach, though turnaround times are pretty long. I know lots of working pros using them to scan older work, but to make a blanket statement that you can't get the same level of quality (or exceed it) is wrong.

 

[blakjak8]

Wow! Lots of information. Thanks to everyone! Soooo...I just got the slides and most of them are Kodachrome...I think that's a good thing? The big surprise is that a quick calculation puts the tally at 4,760 slides! Dates go back to 1950. I am concerned about even viewing them for fear of ruining them. I have no set timetable to getting them done and I am hoping this is a "one time" thing. I will be looking into your suggestions and am eager for any additional ideas!

 

[benhasajeep]

Wow! Lots of information. Thanks to everyone! Soooo...I just got the slides and most of them are Kodachrome...I think that's a good thing? The big surprise is that a quick calculation puts the tally at 4,760 slides! Dates go back to 1950. I am concerned about even viewing them for fear of ruining them. I have no set timetable to getting them done and I am hoping this is a "one time" thing. I will be looking into your suggestions and am eager for any additional ideas!

Kodachromes have the best longevity of any film! Should not be worried about viewing. Just have to be carefull not to scratch and leave finger prints on them.

Going by that many slides and even using that very cheap service in India you are still at the point where your saving money by doing them yourself (if you have the time to do it). With your own scanner you can do them over a year or two or more. And shipping 4,000 slides to another continent is not very cheap either.

And the fact is you could probably buy the scanner and when done, get most of your money back reselling it. Just your time would be invested. But then again you will know you got the best results from your own quality review!