Scanning 35mm slides

AshleyPomeroy

Mr_Toad wrote: »

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.

This is one of those things where you get to choose between two of GOOD, CHEAP, and QUICK, but only two.

I still shoot a lot of film (almost entirely negative film) and I use an Epson V500, which is a flatbed scanner with various film mounts. I bought it mostly for medium format but it also scans mounted 35mm slides. Here's a Kodachrome slide from 2009 that I've just scanned with it:


Click here for a 3000px version. I bought some rolls just to try it out before Kodak discontinued it; but sadly it rained in Britain that year. I've made a perfunctory attempt to correct the colour and levels - it's dense - but no attempt to remove the spots or debris from the mount, or correct the clockwise tilt. This is using Photoshop CS4.

Sadly the market for good-quality, relatively affordable film scanners died off a while back, both Nikon and Minolta stopped making the Coolscan and Dimage models. Used units are now ten years old. Some of them have trouble with post-XP versions of Windows, and when bits break they can't be replaced.

The choices now are extremely expensive pro models from Hasselblad, or cheap digital-camera-plus-backlight eBay alternatives, or flatbeds. The V500 doesn't really have the resolution to do 35mm justice, although as before I use it mostly for medium format, which has more surface area.

I would suggest scanning in short bursts, and accepting that it's going to take a long time. Dust, hairs, scratches will be your enemy. At the end of the process you'll understand one of the reasons why professional photographers switched to digital as soon as they could afford it.

Gramps1947

Hi Mr Toad / All,

I took the plunge and had my fathers slides scanned professionally. It was costly but I felt I owed the old man that for all the years he'd spent taking them.

It was 20p per slide from web site found on google, but the clincher for me was that they were just around the corner from me so I didn't have to package and post the slides. I spent the time I saved learning Microsoft Movie maker which was free. I was very impressed with the quality compared to the Maplin scanner I tried let alone the untold hours it would have taken.

Their machine devoured the 4,700 slides in a week.
I briefly saw the machine which had a hopper about a yard long!

Family were blown away with the "old fashioned" slideshow on a 42" tv.

macman

If you are never going to do a project on this scale again, is it possible to lease a professional scanner for a month or two?
OTOH, you could just buy the scanner and resell it once the job is done.

blobbydoodaah

you could see if its worth doing professionally first by doing a price check with someone like these (I used them recently with amazing results) I also have a 10% discount code with no expiry date shown

Revive Studios - http://www.revivestudios.co.uk

10% off - SD596589