Slide Scanning

[Tony Porter]

I have o huge amount of slides taken with my ME Super some irreplaceble of the kids dedicated slide copiers cost a fortune a lot of flatbed scanners say they can do the job at a lot less cost any one out there that can help with this decision as i would like to digitize these memories

 

[steephill]

scanners fit the painful model "cheap-fast-good, pick any two". I have a Nikon film scanner which is good but not fast. Look for a slide duplicator attachment for your camera - much quicker and decent quality.

--
Steve

http://www.pbase.com/steephill

 

[steephill]

http://www.ephotozine.com/equipment/tests/testdetail.cfm?test_id=124

--
Steve

http://www.pbase.com/steephill

 

[joachim Haagen Be]

Hello,

I use an Epson Photo Scanner. Its flatbed, but it has backlighting. Works OK for me...
--
All The Best,
Joachim

 

[wirrah]

Tony,

I have hundreds of slides (Kodachrome/Ektachrome mainly). I have successfully scanned the lot on an Epson 4990 which gives exceptional results for a flatbed.

I have also used an Microtek Artiscan 4000 which is a 4000dpi 35mm film scanner. The Epson does not fall short of the Microtek in any way that I can determine.

As an aside I have had no problems using ICE with Kodachrome.

cheers

Greg

 

[joachim Haagen Be]

I should have mentioned.. I have scanned about 3000 slides with this scanner. Its not that fast. takes about 40 minutes to scan a 36exp film at 3200 dpi. All the pictures Ive posted here have been scanned with it...

I think its called Perfection 3490 photo... im not at home now, but i could look it up if you like

--
All The Best,
Joachim

 

[Chris Brace]

I have it and would reccommend it. Very contrasty slides are a pain but you can do multiple shots and combine as a HDR image. All of the coastal pics on my site (below) have been digitised using this duplicator (but not as HDR images).

I think it may be possible to get just as good, maybe better, results with a copy stand, light box and macro setup, but it would be more fiddly to setup.

Regards
Chris

--
http://www.bath.ac.uk/~enscjb/pics/index.php?list=1&page=1

 

[el baroda 2]

Hi, Tony. I have digitized some of my slides using a slide duplicator (see steephill's response). The results are quite satisfactory for my needs, despite the 1.5 crop factor. Good luck and best regards.

 

[phx]

Unless you want to make really large prints out of them, you could also consider just digitizing them with a good Macro lens and your DSLR. It is very fast compared to a scanner, inexpensive (assuming you already own a macro lens) and a lot more fun. I did a lot of those and must say I am very happy with the result - screen size for the PC, on line Album etc.

--
Your search using petnax returned 0 results...



http://wheelgunner.zoto.com/galleries

 

[psmith]

I can second that.

I have just finished 'scanning' more than 2000 slides. What I did was make a slide holder that bolted onto the end of my macro bellows. Then, using a good quality macro lens (Pentax 50 mm) I photographed the slides at 1 to 1 against an evenly illuminated white source.

The results were very gratifying. The sharpness, clarity and colour were every bit the equal of my HP Photosmart film scanner (or maybe even better) which I stopped using because of the unendurable tedium caused by its slow scanning speeds (1 min 20 sec per slide)

Also important is good software to convert the raw images in batch mode. I solved the problem by writing my own scripts since the available solutions for Linux didn't really meet my needs.

Now I am part way through 'scanning' some 4000 negatives using the same method. Converting raw images of negatives into good positives proved something of a challenge but that problem is solved.
Peter.

 

[Jim King]

I have several thousand old slides of my family which I want to convert to digital. I tried a dedicated slide scanner, the PrimeFilm 3800U, but I've lost my patience with it because of the long scanning times and have decided to try direct copying with my D. I just "won" a used Bowens Illumitran 3 slide duplicator on the 'Bay and will give it a try.

Does anyone out there know if I can use a T-mount to K-mount adapter on the Illumitran bellows to attach my D, or will I have to buy a dedicated Bowens K-mount adapter? I've found the dedicated adapter for sale but it is 2x the price of a generic T- to K-mount adapter.
--
Jim King - Retired Colormonger - Suburban Detroit, Michigan, USA; GMT -6h (EDT)



* * * * *
A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

• Sir Winston Churchill

* * * * *
The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.

• Albert Einstein

 

[Godfrey]

... What I did
was make a slide holder that bolted onto the end of my macro
bellows. Then, using a good quality macro lens (Pentax 50 mm) I
photographed the slides at 1 to 1 against an evenly illuminated
white source.

If you photographed 35mm slides at 1:1 magnification with a Pentax DSLR, you cropped about 40% of the slide away. I presume you meant that you filled the Pentax DSLR frame with the 35mm transparency, roughly a 1:1.5 magnification. ;-) For more casual captures, the digital camera plus macro lens works a lot faster than the film scanner, but at best you're getting 60% of the resolution.

I use a Minolta Scan Dual II for scanning 35mm film at 2820 ppi. This nets 10.2 Mpixel images, suitable for printing to 13x19 inch if desired. Yes, it's slow but the quality is worth it when I want it. The scanning application (Vuescan by Ed Hamrick, http://www.hamrick.com/ ) also does the color neg to positive conversion efficiently.

I use the Pentax DS, an A50/2.8 Macro lens, a set of extension tubes and a 2x-S teleconverter to net a 1.8:1 magnification for scanning Minox 8x11mm negatives. This nets a 5Mpixel full frame Minox image to work with, far better than I can do with the film scanner .. the equivalent of a 6000ppi scanner.

Godfrey

 

[jadlh]

I also have a ME super, I have a Epson flatbed. I have scanned some of my slides into files. It does take a bit but the results make them fun to play with and organize.

 

[Tony Porter]

Thanks for all the advice it makes joining this group well worth while
Tony

 

[RPulley]

I have o huge amount of slides taken with my ME Super some
irreplaceble of the kids dedicated slide copiers cost a fortune a
lot of flatbed scanners say they can do the job at a lot less cost
any one out there that can help with this decision as i would like
to digitize these memories

I have the Canon FS4000U, and it makes great scans, but man is it slow. The Canon FARE scratch and dust removal is superior to any form of ICE that I have seen. It makes a fine balance between dust and scratch removal and detail loss and softening of the image. This scanner is no longer in production (BTW, ICE and FARE do not work on slides).

I recently bought the Canon 9950F and it scans a batch of slides much quicker than any dedicated scanner, but at less quality.

Even with a fast scanner, you can spend months scanning thousands of slides in your spare time. Instead, consider the following plan:

Get a fast flatbed like the Canon or Epson that scans many slides at once.

Organize all of your slides in boxes or in slide pages.

Number each slide to match the page/box. It does not really matter what order they are in as far as the subject goes. You can tag them later with an image management program.

Load the scanner in order of the pages/boxes and in slide number order.

Scan at a real low resolution so the scan completes quickly.

Save the low res files using the page/box/slide number as the file name.

You now have low res preview scans of all of your slides that you can look at, index if you like, and then when you want to print one, you can pull just that one and scan it at high resolution.

This also saves disk space. You can also burn the low res files off to CD or DVD and with a good image management program, tag and call up any that you want to look at. The software remembers what CD/DVD you saved the file to for later review and allows you to tag the image with any number of categories that describe the subject.

Using the 9950F I can batch 12 slide previews in around 3 minutes or a bit less.

BTW, the top line Epson and Canon flatbed scanners in their high res scan mode will do a pretty good job, good enough that most people would not trade the extra time that a dedicated scanner takes to get the extra resolution. YMMV, of course.

Ray

 

[RobGeraghty]

This scanner is no longer in production (BTW, ICE and FARE do not
work on slides).

ICE works on Ektachrome slides and colour neg film. It doesn't work on Kodachrome or silver based B&W because it uses infra red and the film is opaque to IR.

The responses to this thread have been interesting. I have a Nikon LS30 film scanner which does a very good job on most 35mm film. Whether you need a dedicated film scanner depends on what you want to use the images for. If it's for web use or cataloguing I'd say the slie duplicator with a DSLR sounds great. But if you want to make high resolution prints or archive the film images to digital, I'd say a film scanner would give better results.

Rob
--

 

[wirrah]

ICE works on Ektachrome slides and colour neg film. It doesn't
work on Kodachrome or silver based B&W because it uses infra red
and the film is opaque to IR.

Hi Rob,

I have been using ICE with Kodachrome without problems. I think it depends on the age of the Kodachrome although I'm unsure. Certainly all the Kodachrome I have taken over the previous 20 years scans fine with ICE (25asa and 64asa). I carefully examined a 4800dpi scan with/without ICE and could not see any problems in the ICE version. That said I believe there are specific problems with some Kodachrome.

Certainly does not work with normal B & W though.

cheeers

Greg

 

[psmith]

If you photographed 35mm slides at 1:1 magnification with a Pentax
DSLR, you cropped about 40% of the slide away. I presume you meant
that you filled the Pentax DSLR frame with the 35mm transparency,

Yes, that is what I did

roughly a 1:1.5 magnification. ;-) For more casual captures, the
digital camera plus macro lens works a lot faster than the film
scanner, but at best you're getting 60% of the resolution.

Probably you are right. What I am finding though is that the resolution only had to be as good as the original lens, which in my case was not that good. Through a high power loupe it would seem that I have lost nothing in resolution. I was also little surprised by the grain size though. It has made me stop obsessing about noise in 800 and 1600 ISO images.

it. The scanning application (Vuescan by Ed Hamrick,
http://www.hamrick.com/ ) also does the color neg to positive
conversion efficiently.

Yes, Vuescan is good

 

[Joe Barnhart]

Your approach certainly has some merits. But the one flaw in your system is that you precious slides are left in the ephemeral "film" format instead of being transferred to nice, stable, unchanging digital images.

I have Kodachrome and Ektachrome slides taken over the last 50 or 60 years, taken by my father and I. At this point, the Kodachrome slides are remarkably good while the Ektachrome slides are faded to mush. But I certainly don't want to leave the slides unscanned any longer because they will continue to degrade, while my scans will freeze the images in time.

I have a Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED with the slide feeder attachment. The feeder is a nice feature, but it misfeeds too frequently to use it unattended. I'm using Vuescan to batch scan the slides to RAW format, then using Vuescan again to generate optimized jpegs for each image. If space were no object I'd keep the RAWs around, but at 44M per slide even I draw the line at that!

-- Joe B.

 

[Joe Barnhart]

Residents of Germany (well, older ones) might recognize this landmark. "Never say never" is a testament to the power of freedom and the capacity of people to achieve a common goal. (Of course, this is the Wall which separated East from West Germany for so many years.)

This is about a 50% crop of a Kodachrome slide scanned on the Nikon 5000ED using Hamrick Software VueScan software. I scanned it at 2000 dpi which gave me a finished size of about 2700x1800. For this shot the camera used wasn't a Pentax -- it was a little Olympus XA. I used both the Olympus and a Pentax ME on that trip.



-- Joe B.