How to digitize my slides?

I have several thousand 35mm slides (Kodachrome & Ektachrome) and a couple thousand 35mm color and B&W negatives, and I want to digitize the best 10% or so. I want to get all the information I can from the film so I can put it away and not have to do this twice. I'm willing to use the solution that provides the best results, even if it's much more expensive. I have several questions about this process.

My main question is whether it's possible to get similar quality results with a film scanner or a camera to digitize my 35mm film images, or whether one is clearly better than the other.

I could buy a very good film scanner (like a Nikon Coolscan 9000) for this process. I'd like to scan my film with different exposures to get all the available dynamic range, and I might like to do multiple scans for noise reduction. This takes a lot of time - talking to a friend with a Coolscan 5000, I could be looking at 6 - 10 minutes per frame for the scanning process. Even with automated feeders, this will take a ton of time. Which I am willing to do if the results are enough better to warrant spending the time.

Or, I could purchase an adapter to photograph my slides and negs with my camera, which is a Panasonic DMC-LX3. The attraction here is speed. I could do exposure bracketing and take less than 10 seconds per frame, which would be around 50 times faster than using the film scanner. I would shoot in RAW for this. The potential time savings are really attractive. If the LX3 isn't a good enough camera for this, I'd be willing to buy a better one.

So, regarding recovery of information from the film: If I understand film resolution correctly, the LX3, at 10Mpixels, will just about get all the spatial detail the 35mm film has to offer. Am I right about this?

For dynamic range, I assume I can shoot three pics of each slide/neg at three exposure levels and assemble in post to get the brightness information that a 48-bit film scanner might get in one go. Is this correct?

I can see that lens distortion in the camera alternative might be an issue that the film scanner wouldn't present. Any thoughts about this? Are there high quality products that could significantly mitigate this problem?

Thanks very much for your opinions and recommendations. I know just enough about this stuff to know when I'm out of my depth.

I think you are ahead of many of the experts here!

mikegem said:

I have several thousand 35mm slides (Kodachrome & Ektachrome) and a couple thousand 35mm color and B&W negatives, and I want to digitize the best 10% or so. I want to get all the information I can from the film so I can put it away and not have to do this twice. I'm willing to use the solution that provides the best results, even if it's much more expensive. I have several questions about this process.

My main question is whether it's possible to get similar quality results with a film scanner or a camera to digitize my 35mm film images, or whether one is clearly better than the other.

Click to expand...

My experience is that you can get pretty good results taking pix of slides with a digicam. Negatives are a bit problematic. But dedicated film scanners do a much better job.

mikegem said:

I could buy a very good film scanner (like a Nikon Coolscan 9000) for this process. I'd like to scan my film with different exposures to get all the available dynamic range, and I might like to do multiple scans for noise reduction. This takes a lot of time - talking to a friend with a Coolscan 5000, I could be looking at 6 - 10 minutes per frame for the scanning process. Even with automated feeders, this will take a ton of time. Which I am willing to do if the results are enough better to warrant spending the time.

Click to expand...

Yes, that is the tradeoff...quality for speed. Your choice.

mikegem said:

Or, I could purchase an adapter to photograph my slides and negs with my camera, which is a Panasonic DMC-LX3. The attraction here is speed. I could do exposure bracketing and take less than 10 seconds per frame, which would be around 50 times faster than using the film scanner. I would shoot in RAW for this. The potential time savings are really attractive. If the LX3 isn't a good enough camera for this, I'd be willing to buy a better one.

So, regarding recovery of information from the film: If I understand film resolution correctly, the LX3, at 10Mpixels, will just about get all the spatial detail the 35mm film has to offer. Am I right about this?

Click to expand...

People differ in this regard. Most people that I respect think it's a bit higher than 10MP. I've had some slides scanned on a big drum scanner ($$$) and the level of detail was stunning.

mikegem said:

For dynamic range, I assume I can shoot three pics of each slide/neg at three exposure levels and assemble in post to get the brightness information that a 48-bit film scanner might get in one go. Is this correct?

Click to expand...

In theory, yes. But this will slow your "fast" digicam process down...it will be slower than the dedicated Coolscan!

mikegem said:

I can see that lens distortion in the camera alternative might be an issue that the film scanner wouldn't present. Any thoughts about this? Are there high quality products that could significantly mitigate this problem?

Click to expand...

Yes, get a dSLR and a good macro lens. The advantage of this approach is that you have a nice camera for other uses...it's kinda hard to use a Coolscan to take a portrait or action sports! ;-)

--
Charlie Davis
Nikon 5700, Sony R1, Nikon D50, Nikon D300
HomePage: http://www.1derful.info
“We have always known that heedless self-interest was
bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Like you, I have thousands of slides my father took back in the 1950's and 1960's, and even though they were stored in a cool dry area, they have been degraded by time. I guess 50 or 60 years is an awfully long time for slide emulsions. Most were Kodachrome or Agfachrome.

Almost all had some sort of fungus or mold on them, that no amount of cleaning could remove. And I was using a specially made slide cleaner I got from B&H. If you used enough cleaner and pressure to remove the fungus, you also removed some of the emulsion.

And the slides themselves had color shifted towards purple. So it became an exercise in futility. I had much better results scanning prints.

But your slides may not be as bad. They probably aren't as old as mine are. It would be interesting to hear how you make out.
--
Marty
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marty4650/sets/72157606210120132/show/
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Olympus E-30
Zuiko 9-18mm
Zuiko 14-54mm II
Zuiko 40-150mm I
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Last fall I took a course ( http://wildernesswithin.ca/ ) in using a scanner to digitalise/restore prints & slides. The unit that was recommended was the Epson V500. The results that were demonstrated to us were amazing. The unit is price/feature leader, one of the few to have digital ice. I have not made the investment as my collection of slides is not that extensive/worthy. Another point is that it would take more time & patience than I seem to have.

chuxter said:

Yes, that is the tradeoff...quality for speed. Your choice.

Click to expand...

chuxter said:

People differ in this regard. Most people that I respect think it's a bit higher than 10MP. I've had some slides scanned on a big drum scanner ($$$) and the level of detail was stunning.

Click to expand...

Yeah, you've confirmed my suspicion, which is that there really isn't a shortcut to getting the high quality results I'd like. I've decided to go get the film scanner and automated feeders, and let my computer chew on my pix overnight. At 50 frames/day, the 2000 or so frames I want to digitize will take 40 days. Not so bad, given that it will take me 6 months or so to pick out the keepers.

Thanks again!

Marty4650 said:

Like you, I have thousands of slides my father took back in the 1950's and 1960's, and even though they were stored in a cool dry area, they have been degraded by time. I guess 50 or 60 years is an awfully long time for slide emulsions. Most were Kodachrome or Agfachrome.

Almost all had some sort of fungus or mold on them, that no amount of cleaning could remove. And I was using a specially made slide cleaner I got from B&H. If you used enough cleaner and pressure to remove the fungus, you also removed some of the emulsion.

And the slides themselves had color shifted towards purple. So it became an exercise in futility. I had much better results scanning prints.

But your slides may not be as bad. They probably aren't as old as mine are. It would be interesting to hear how you make out.
--

Click to expand...

Hi, Marty - I have seen the same phenomenon with my family's old slides. Oddly, it's been worse on Kodachrome than on Ektachrome, for slides with exactly the same storage conditions. Guess the K emulsion has something yummy in it that the E didn't. I have had fair to good results removing the fungus, or whatever it is, using slide cleaner. Might depend on the particular organism, time/temperature, etc.

Thanks!

I want to add my vote for the Epson Perfection V500 scanner. It can handle only four 35mm slides at a time, and the software is not very pretty, but the results are worth it, IMO.

I use Adobe Lightroom 2.6 to restore and repair the scans. We have boxes of slide trays we review one at a time (with an old projector found on eBay), noting the slides worth digitizing. It's a lot of work, but it's fun and my family appreciates it. I've gotten some wonderful prints that have made excellent gifts.

The example below was taken around 1969 with a Nikon SLR I cannot identify more fully.