Please help me, I am trying to scan a couple hundred slides in high quality...

[jrodefeld]

Hello everyone,

I am working on a project to scan maybe 200 or 300 slides and save them on a computer. They belong to my grandparents. Actually this is part of a larger project, I have already captured a ton of home movies and put them on DVDs. Now I want to capture all these slides. I will archive them at the highest quality on an external hard drive. I also want to make some movies with the scans, making slide shows on DVD with some music accompanying the images.

The problem is I am having a hard time finding a scanner that will work for my project. I want to do this at the highest quality I can. However, the slides I have are an assortment of all different sizes. I have a bunch of standard 35mm slides, I have a few 126 "instamatic" slides, I have a lot of 110 slides AND I also have a few of the 127 "super slides"!

So, I have all four of the common types of slides in this one project. The problem is that most slide scanners I have seen only have a tray that holds 35mm slides. A much smaller number have an accessory that holds 110 slides. I cannot find a slide scanner that can scan all these different sizes of slides.

That is the first problem I am having. Second, I want to scan at the highest quality I can because these images are very important to me. From what I have gathered I can get a cheaper film and slide scanner such as this:

Amazon.com: Wolverine F2D14 14 MP 35mm Slides and Negatives to Digital Image Converter: Electronics

Or I can get a flatbed scanner with a Transparency Adapter for slides and film. Or I can get a more expensive Prosumer Film Scanner that would do a great job but be more expensive.

Now, I have heard that flatbed scanners typically do a poor job as far as quality goes. The standalone scanners that are cheap such as the one I linked to on Amazon can do a little better but I cannot find one that will fit all the sizes of slides I have. And the quality varies considerably with those as well.


One option I have been looking into is it appears that I can get a used Nikon Coolscan III on Ebay for under $200, which would seem to be a bargain for the price. From what I have gathered, although this model is quite old, the quality would be head and shoulders above the other options at this price. What do you think of this option?

But the problem again is I am not sure if the Coolscan III would be able to accommodate the various size slides I have. If there are separate slide trays that I can purchase that would fit 110, 126 and 127 slides I could purchase them separately depending on how much money they cost.

Could you please advise me on what you think I should do to scans these slides at the best quality I can? I really want to go with the used Coolscan III, but I don't know if I can scan the slides I have with it.

Thanks so much.

 

[jrodefeld]

As a quick followup, here is the Nikon CoolScan I was considering buying on Ebay:

eBay - New & used electronics, cars, apparel, collectibles, sporting goods & more at low priceshat do you think?

 

[Cruzingoose]

I've got the Nikon Coolscan LS1000 with the SF-100 automatic feeder for bulk scanning. It holds about 100 2x2 mounted slides for bulk scanning. It does'nt seem to care about the film format as long as it is in a 2x2 holder. It is slow at maximum resolution and does not have Digital ICE built in, so dust removal and touch-ups are required but it is a great SCSI scanner.