Scanning 35mm slides

Mr_Toad

My father passed away last week, not unexpected as he was in the final stages of dementia. I had said goodbye to him a long time ago.

He was a fantastic father and I had a very happy and privileged childhood with many happy memories.

My Dad was a keen photographer all of his life and I have thousands, and I mean thousands, of 35mm slides that he took during his lifetime along with thousands of prints. All stored and cataloged, I suppose you might go as far as to call it the family pictorial archive as he always had a camera with him.

I have decided to scan them in to my computer, a huge undertaking but one I want to do. It will give me a chance to review my family life and the many holidays we took all over the world.

I'm just about to start looking at what slide scanners are available but would appreciate any insight that people may have in this area.

A single slide, manual feed, scanner would be OK but would take a seriously long time. A scanner with a hopper or some sort of feed would be better but I have no idea yet what something like that would cost.

Thanks.

droopsnoot

I bought a Maplin slide scanner when they opened a shop nearby, on a special offer at £19.95, down from (I think) £39.95.

It's reasonably good, comes with a holder that will take six slides (or a strip of six 35mm negatives) at a time, yo move one into position, scan it, move the next one, and so on. Time-consuming, but not bad for the money. It's basically a close-focused webcam in a holder with a lightbox underneath.

The biggest problem is the software. I've tried it on my main PC (XP SP3) and it displays a preview then locks solid. The only way I've had it working is on an XP SP1 PC, where it might scan 20 or 30 before it locks up. The lock is solved by unplugging the device and plugging it back in again, but on SP3 it will never complete a scan. I haven't tried on Vista or Win7 as I don't have anything to hand running the newer OSs. Looking at the comments on their web site, I think Maplins solution is to offer a refund.

I had this conversation on a photography forum about the differences between scanners compared to price, some of the more upmarket ones will do multiple-pass scans for improved quality, some have feeders for semi-automation, and so on. I did see some comparative scans from a cheap scanner and the same slide on a dearer scanner, and there was a noticeable difference.

I guess you need to compare the value (and quality) of the originals to decide whether just being able to keep them digitally is enough, or whether you also want tip-top quality. It might work out more cost-effective to have them done commercially if premium quality is required, as they're likely to not be scanning on the £20 Maplin scanner.

For me, the one I have is enough as I have a limited number of slides and on some the quality is nothing special to start with. There is also the option of the "scan directly to SD card", which I guess would be most useful if you don't have a PC - the cheaper ones of these seem to be the same as mine, but with a card writer. Probably wouldn't lock up so much though.

PS - If you've got any that are street scenes showing plenty of cars and other vehicles from maybe the 50s-70s or 80s, can I point you to a long-running thread on another site where people post such scenes so we can look at the vehicles?

Shimrod

I was going to suggest a second hand Nikon Coolscan 9000, an accesory for which includes an autofeeder for the slides. Having looked on ebay however, Nikon Coolscans of any flavour are selling for more secondhand than they ever cost new.
How many slides do you have - you may want to get some quotes from a company first before buying a scanner.

Nilrem

I'm sorry to hear about your dad.

If you've got loads of slides, as Shimrod says you may find it cheaper to get them transferred professionally rather than buy a scanner yourself, as from what I remember when I looked at slide scanners, a good one with an autofeed is expensive, and still requires a fair bit of time to do.

On the other hand, depending on your schedule/time I ended up using a Cannon 8800f which is a manual scan (4 slides at a time), but I got into the habit of doing a set every time there was an ad break on TV (basically I'd try and load it up at the end of the ad break, then press start on the scan before going to make a cuppa/let the dog out etc).
But I only had a few hundred slides to do.

However a professionally done scan, using pro level equipment will almost certainly give you a better result than anything home user equipment will (without spending a fortune on the scanner).

wongataa

If you wan to scan your father's photos you will want to first go through them all very thoroughly and choose which ones you want to scan. You will want to cut down the numbers as scanning is very tedious and it will take a very long time to scan them all.

You will want a good scanner as presumably you will want the best possible digital copy of these photos. I would. The best film scanners are no longer in production and are expensive on the auction sites. There are some resonably good scanners available new.

It will take time to learn how to use the scanner to get the best output. You will need image editing software to tweak the scanned images (cropping, removing dust/scratches, correcting colour). You will have to learn how to use this software if you don't already know. A lightbox and magnifier for viewing slides would be a good idea too.

I'm not trying to put you off. You will need to know these possible issues before starting on such a task. It took me two months (most of the weekends and evenings after work) to go through the slides of 15 rolls of 36 shot film, decide on which ones to scan (not all of them by any means), scan them, and edit them to make sure they were the best copy I could get. I already knew how to use my scanner (a Minolta Dimage 5400 film scanner) and Photoshop.

Nenen

Sorry to hear about the loss of your father. I think making a digital archive of his photos would be a fascinating thing to do and it will create a lasting tribute to him that will help you recall all the good times and be a way for your family to share in his memory.

I've been looking into creating a digital archive of my photos recently too. However, I have several thousand photos I would like to scan myself but lack the time (and patience if I am honest) to do it without some sort of automatic feeder.

If you are prepared to scan sets of 12 negatives at a time then I can recommend the scanner my father is using. My dad (now in his 80s) was a professional photographer at the Science Museum in London until he retired about 25 years ago and he is still a keen photographer, with an eye for detail and high expectations of equipment and demand for quality. He is in the process of creating a digital archive of all his many thousands of photos, most of which he is scanning from negatives or slides. He has also scanned some very early photos passed down to him by his father from the early 1900s. He bought a
Canon Canoscan 9000f Film / Photo And Document Scanner (9600x9600dpi, 48 Bit Colour Depth)

which is currently selling on Amazon for £231.00 and he is very pleased with the results (it also gets very good reviews on Amazon).


However, there is now an updated version available, namely the

Canon Canoscan 9000F MK II All-in-One Scanner

which is on special offer on Amazon at the moment, reduced from over £229 to £161.49. This says it does high speed scanning and can take 12x35mm film strip, 4x35mm mounted slides and 120 format film max. 6x22cm.


I guess that even doing 12 photos on a film strip at a time will be a long labour of love and I was wondering whether you can buy a second loading device so that you can be loading another set of negatives while the first one is scanning to try and speed the process up a little.



I don't know whether it is possible to get a machine with an automatic feeder without paying silly money, so hopefully some other, more knowledgeable MSEer will be along to let us know.


I am also trying to see if I can find a wireless all-in-one A3 printer, scanner, copier that will scan negatives as my printer is on its last legs and if I could replace it with one machine to do everything that would be my preferred route. According to the reviews on Amazon a dedicated photo scanner will take up quite a lot of space.


Good luck with your search and, if you do find anything, I'd be grateful if you could post it back on here.

neilwoods

How much are you looking to spend. Can get epson perfection flatbed scanner which will scan in negs and slides, for about £90. Or as someone mentioned, all in one. but looking around £400 or so, as the the slide scanner feature only appears on the top end of them.

as for imaging software, plenty of easy and cheap if not free software out there, don't need to spend hours or days learning how to use it, if your just looking to simply scan them in.

Yes professional service would take the hassle out of it, but very expensive. Probably looking at £1 or so per slide.

forgotmyname

My Epson RX620 printer/scanner includes an attachment for 35mm negatives.

scans the entire strip in one go.

googler

Buy the best you can afford, ideally one made by a recognised and renowned camera/optics manufacturer.

Look at professional camera retailers rather than domestic.

Don't even think about sending them away to someone else. You only have one of each, and if that gets lost before it's scanned, it's lost forever. Especially - never, never, never send them all away in one batch to a third party.....

Mr_Toad

Plenty to think about so thank you all for your comments.

If people are charging £1 a slide then sending them away is out of the question as I estimate there are between 8 and 10 thousand of them.

Also it's something that I really want to do, I took early retirement last year at 55 so I do have some time to invest in this and I'd like the opportunity to revisit my life as seen through the lens of Dad's cameras.

Gloomendoom

Sorry for your loss.

I have been looking at 35mm slide scanners recently, for similar reasons.There are lots of 'toy' slide scanners available for £20 upwards but the cheapest new scanners worth buying are probably made by Plustek. I'm looking at their 8200i. The 'i' denotes that it has an infra red channel which means that it can effectively recognise dirt and dust on the film and automatically correct the scanned image. If you have a lot of slides to copy, this feature could save time. On the negative side (sorry), the Plustek scanners only have a manual feed. If you want an auto feed then, even second hand, you are looking at big money.