Found some historical slides

[TWX]

Long story short, found some historical color slides from the sixties and seventies, including of when one of the local high schools burned down. The unknown photographer managed to get on-scene while the place was ablaze and managed to get access in the aftermath, plus of construction of the new school in the early seventies.

What techniques exist to make electronic versions of these slides? When I was younger I would've tried putting them on a flatbed scanner but thinking about it now, that would result in some rather low-res images, even with modern consumer-grade scanners. I suppose I could set up a backlit white panel and attempt to photograph the slides, perhaps if any of my lenses have a macro setting. I'd rather not send them out, not quite interested enough to spend a lot of money on the process if I can avoid it.

 

[smoke665]

Slide duplicators for use with a DSLR are fairly inexpensive, or if you only have a few here's a quick DIY. Home Made (DIY) Slide Duplicator and Negative Scanner

 

[TWX]

That looks less complicated than I was picturing, will have to take a look at minimum focus distances of my various lenses to see what might work best. I hadn't considered temporarily affixing something to the camera/lens itself.

 

[TWX]

So this is what I came up with:

the tube was originally a container for powdered mozzarella cheese. I cut the bottom off and wrapped the whole thing in black electrical tape. The tube fits over the front/moving portion of the 18-55mm IS II kit lens, affixing to the zoom ring. Downside, can't turn the focusing ring. But, I can autofocus on the side, then switch to manual and it worked well enough.

Now, at 55mm the images do not fill the frame. I get around 3200x2100 resolution when cropping down to the slide. Obviously not preservation-grade, but it worked for quick and dirty to see if I could mock something up in short-order.

the white paper acted as a sort of backlight using sunlight from an open window. It was not perfect, I had to keep it far enough from the slide to avoid showing mottled shading.

I may build a better rig at some point, this only took around a half-hour to construct. I may need a lens more suitable to macro photography.

 

[Derrel]

McGuyver would be proud!

 

[TWX]

Here's a selection of the results...

Before the fire.

Life before the fire.

On fire.

Fire Department Response.

Reflecting on the destruction.

Inside.

More inside.

Resolve.

 

[TWX]

As to the quality of the focus, I honestly don't know how much of that is the slides, versus how much is my process to digitize them. Some are surprisingly sharp and I didn't re-focus very often, so I have my doubts about my process being at-fault, but that said, this was my first attempt and I was trying to work quickly.

I will probably work to refine the process, I have some photos of them building the replacement school along with other schools, so I have more to digitize anyway. I intend to get a piece of white plastic to back up the slide with, along with wanting to use stronger light. If improving the process results in better images then I may redo these at a later date.

 

[Derrel]

Decent really. Where was this at? Florida? California? I see palm trees. I as well have a lot of older slides that I would like to digitize in a similar manner. Scanning slides is far too slow and from the research I have done a high-quality small pixel DSLR or mirrorless camera actually produces a better final result than most home scanners.

 

[TWX]

Mesa, Arizona, southeast of Phoenix in the same metro-area.

There are a ridiculous number of palm trees here despite how much water they require, probably from people trying to recreate the 'oasis in the desert' sort of motif.