#298723 - 26/05/2007 21:49
Slide scanner
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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I just got an assload of (photograph) slides from my Dad's house and I would like to get them into my computer. I know that people sell slide scanners, but they look like they're thousands of dollars. I've also heard that the slide adapters for flatbed scanners don't work well.
Does anybody have any ideas how I can scan these in? I have the feeling that what I'm really asking is "does anyone have a slide scanner that I can borrow for a month or two?"
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Bitt Faulk
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#298724 - 27/05/2007 03:46
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31596
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Yeah, because flatbed scanners are designed to work at X dpi, and slide scanners, to do their job properly, must work at (X * 10) dpi. And flatbeds are designed to do reflective light, and slide scanners do transmissive light. Hence the reasons for the difference in expense, and the difference in quality. Sorry I don't have one to loan ya. 
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#298725 - 27/05/2007 06:09
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: wfaulk]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 16/04/2002
Posts: 2011
Loc: Yorkshire UK
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Quote:
I've also heard that the slide adapters for flatbed scanners don't work well.
The results on mine were absolutely pathetic (and I see Tony endorses this).
I have the PrimeFilm 1800i: Curiously it sailed through my parents 35mm slides/transparencies absolutely perfectly, but when it got to my 35mm negatives it proved to be a slow process with indifferent results - Fortunately I got it at half the UK Amazon price in a store in Delft, Holland, I'm still convinced it was a pricing error. I've read on a couple of forums, that it's regarded as a bit of a toy, so Caveat Emptor! - it's that, borrow, use a (paid for) professional service or spend a shedload, as far as I can find, it's the only cheap 35mm scanner on the market
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Politics and Ideology: Not my bag
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#298726 - 27/05/2007 09:32
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: tfabris]
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old hand
Registered: 20/07/1999
Posts: 1102
Loc: UK
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I fairly recently bought an Epson V700 flatbed scanner, which is also a film/slide scanner. It's specifically designed for the job, and is actually very good. It will scan at up to 6400 DPI, although I've found for 35mm slides the results are excellent at 1200DPI.
I bought it for scanning medium format film, and it's probably overkill for 35mm. That said, it will do 12 at once fairly quickly, and th epson software is quite competent for all but professional use.
Their previous model, the 4990, has dropped considerably in price since the newer ones came out, and is also very good at slide scanning, it just doesn't go as high in resolution. It might be worth seeking out one of these second'hand on ebay.
Bitt, be warned: it is a slow process regardless of method, and it's a real pain trying to get and keep all the dust off the scanner and film, without damaging the latter. The higher resolution you scan at the worse the problem. Done right, though, the results are impressive.
pca
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Experience is what you get just after it would have helped...
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#298728 - 27/05/2007 12:22
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: pca]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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I actually just ran across the PlusTek OpticFilm 7200 7200dpi slide scanner, which Amazon sells for less than $200 (about $90 more for the one with IR scratch detection) and which seems to be getting good reviews, especially considering its price, even from photography web sites. I've got a few offers to potentially borrow a scanner, but $200/$300 to scan in all those slides seems like not a bad deal, especially considering that I'll have no use for it once I'm done and can eBay it.
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Bitt Faulk
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#298729 - 27/05/2007 12:38
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: boxer]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31596
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Quote:
but when it got to my 35mm negatives it proved to be a slow process with indifferent results
I'm curious if the process involved correctly compensating for the deliberate color tone shift they put into 35mm negative film stock?
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#298730 - 27/05/2007 15:50
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 23/08/2000
Posts: 3826
Loc: SLC, UT, USA
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I'm sure you've thought of it, but you should run the numbers on just sending them off to be scanned. I've thought about this quite a bit because I have about 1500 frames (mostly 35mm but some slides) that need to be scanned in from my film days, and when I ran the numbers for buying a scanner then figured out how much time it takes per frame (time is $), it's not even remotely a difficult decision to go with a service to do it for you. There are a number of reputable places that have good prices and high quality. Depending on how many you have to do. I could get all of my shots done at 2-3000 dpi for around $500. Seems expensive when you look at it flat like that but once you factor in scanner cost and the monotonous time consuming process, it's a steal. The two I've narrowed it down to based on forum searches and the like: http://www.digmypics.com/default.asphttp://www.pixmonix.com/index.php
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#298731 - 27/05/2007 17:14
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: loren]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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I'm not too worried about the time it'll take me to scan them in myself. They've been sitting in storage for a dozen years. I figure that even if I end up buying a scanner, I can make most of it back by reselling it (especially if I get that $200-300 one), as I'll have no further need for it. Also, these are all slides, no negatives, and slides are far easier to scan than negatives, as there's not any worrying about positioning.
And, honestly, if it came to me paying for a service to scan them in, I'd never do it. I can't really explain why, but I'm compelled to either do it myself or not at all.
But thanks for pointing it out. I had already considered it and dismissed it, for no exceptionally rational reason.
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Bitt Faulk
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#298732 - 27/05/2007 21:44
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/04/2000
Posts: 3810
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My father recently sent old family slides off to be professionally scanned, and the results were pretty good. Most of the professional services use Nikon scanners with their "Cool ICE" technology, which basically uses a fourth wavelength of light which tends to highlight scratches and dust, which can then be automatically removed.
Frankly, life is too short to spend it feeding a scanner, and life is *way* to short to remove dust and scratches in Photoshop. Shelling out the bucks to have somebody else do it is very, very attractive.
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#298733 - 27/05/2007 22:29
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: DWallach]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Yeah, the $300 one has IR scratch detection.
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Bitt Faulk
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#298734 - 28/05/2007 06:00
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: tfabris]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 16/04/2002
Posts: 2011
Loc: Yorkshire UK
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Quote:
I'm curious if the process involved correctly compensating for the deliberate color tone shift they put into 35mm negative film stock?
Not being, as you well know, of a tehnical bent, especially in photography: I can only say that it has a different setting for kodak, fuji, agfa, konica etc. The colour wasn't the problem, but lining up the negs. and the failure rate, where I just got a black screen, was.
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Politics and Ideology: Not my bag
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#298735 - 28/05/2007 10:06
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: DWallach]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
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Quote:
Shelling out the bucks to have somebody else do it is very, very attractive.
Yeah, we seem to have more and more people with the wealth to afford that kind of thing these days. I guess that's what keeps most of us going in various "services" industries.
But me, I'm with Bitt on this one (neither of us are particularly wealthy, I suspect), and doing something like that myself would be the way to go if the cost was more than, say, 50 cents per slide scanned.
Especially if it means a great excuse/opportunity to get a new toy!  Even if only temporarily.
Cheers!
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#298736 - 28/05/2007 12:27
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: loren]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
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Both paces Loren mentioned are 44 cents per frame (for 35mm negs) at 2000 ppi. The first also offers 3000 ppi for 84 cents and the second place 4000 ppi for 74 cents.
I would never consider doing more than a very small amount of images on a flat bed scanner, let alone trying to use slide adapters.
The prices above are very tempting if one is considering buying a Nikon or similar scanner for a single job. I have a lot of negatives, but once they've been scanned, the equipment will go unused. For anyone lucky enough to be able to borrow a scanner the choice becomes a little more difficult.
I'd hate to spend the time on it myself, but I'd also hate to blow US$1000 and possibly end up with something I'm not 110% satisfied with.
Please update this thread with any personal experiences with the scanning services as well as DIY.
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#298737 - 28/05/2007 14:14
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Quote:
But me, I'm with Bitt on this one (neither of us are particularly wealthy, I suspect), and doing something like that myself would be the way to go if the cost was more than, say, 50 cents per slide scanned.
Yeah, that's what I was trying to say. Both services are just under US$0.50 a piece, but that's for 2000 DPI. The scanner I'm looking at is 7200 DPI. Do I really need that high resolution? Of course not, but it's neat.
Quote:
I'd hate to spend the time on it myself, but I'd also hate to blow US$1000 and possibly end up with something I'm not 110% satisfied with.
Also, if I do it myself and something gets screwed up, I'd rather be able to redo it than rely on someone else. Certainly if I had thousands and thousands of slides, I'd probably send them off, but I'm probably talking about somewhere around one thousand. That would end up costing me about $500 for the service. Or I could buy a new scanner myself for less and be able to control the results myself and get a higher resolution.
Quote:
Especially if it means a great excuse/opportunity to get a new toy! Even if only temporarily.
There also is the new toy factor, but I'm sure after doing 50 slides, the shine will be off that apple really quickly. Still, it's not something that I have to focus on at the time. I can just hook it up to my laptop and scan them in while I'm watching TV or whatever. Postprocessing can be done post-scanning.
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Bitt Faulk
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#298738 - 28/05/2007 17:39
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 23/08/2000
Posts: 3826
Loc: SLC, UT, USA
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Quote:
But me, I'm with Bitt on this one (neither of us are particularly wealthy, I suspect), and doing something like that myself would be the way to go if the cost was more than, say, 50 cents per slide scanned.
Yeah, that's what I was trying to say. Both services are just under US$0.50 a piece, but that's for 2000 DPI. The scanner I'm looking at is 7200 DPI. Do I really need that high resolution? Of course not, but it's neat.
Look up how long it will take per frame to scan at that resolution. You might be surprised, or maybe you already know, but it's a LONG time PER FRAME. Add up the time per frame and it gets ridiculous really fast. I don't remember the exact numbers as I did the math in my head for my frames, but even though I could borrow a scanner, it STILL wasn't worth my time by any stretch to scan at 2000 dpi much less 7200. And as you mentioned, you'll most likely never need that kind of res. And if you do, it will probably be for one or two slides that you can scan at a high res when needed.
Quote:
There also is the new toy factor, but I'm sure after doing 50 slides, the shine will be off that apple really quickly. Still, it's not something that I have to focus on at the time. I can just hook it up to my laptop and scan them in while I'm watching TV or whatever. Postprocessing can be done post-scanning.
Don't forget to add the post time to the per slide scanning time mentioned above. It all adds up. Believe me, I'm in the same vein as you guys on this, I rarely pay for something I can do myself, but this is one of those things that after running the numbers and after having actually tried to do it before and realizing how time intensive it is... If I ever get around to it, I'm paying for it., and I'm the opposite of wealthy.
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#298739 - 28/05/2007 17:55
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: loren]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2489
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I volunteered to scan my dad's slides under the 'it'll be good to learn this new skill etc etc'
The novelty wore off after about 4 slides.
The tiniest bit of dirt/hair on the slide becomes painfully obvious when scanned at a reasonable resolution. To avoid this I had to check and double check each slide, the scanner glass and the slide adapter lamp/surface before each scan.
I scanned at 2000dpi. It took an age for each slide and there's not much you can do while your waiting.
Some of the slides needed careful attention as they were dirty - hard to clean without damaging them.
99% of the slides required a lot of post-scan fixing in photoshop to crop the 'shadowy' dark edges and to fix the colours/contrast.
Its a lot of work and I know right now you want to do it yourself, just be aware that to do it *right* you need to spend serious time on it.
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#298740 - 28/05/2007 18:15
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: CrackersMcCheese]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/04/2000
Posts: 3810
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The Nikon ICE stuff is pretty much mandatory for bulk slide scanning, since it helps you avoid the pain of hand-spotting each picture in Photoshop. Instead, you can just do bulk color corrections in something like Picasa -- pretty fast and efficient. We ended up doing everything at 3000dpi (3755x2466 pixels), which is plenty enough to see the film grain, even of good film (and more than plenty enough to figure out that my parents, on their honeymoon, had very little idea how to focus a 50mm prime lens). My understanding is that the Nikon bulk feeder is finicky and requires regular attention. When you pay somebody else to do it, they've got a trained monkey watching some large number of these feeders to keep the throughput up. You get back DVD-Rs of the images, which you can then process yourself. If you're really feeling the need to get your hands dirty, then I'd recommend saving it for the handful of pictures (from the first pass) that are real keepers. Then you can try to rent yourself some time on a much more expensive scanner (e.g., Rayko, in San Francisco, rents time on a high-end Imacon scanner for $45/hour).
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#298741 - 28/05/2007 18:38
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: loren]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
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For some perspective, 35mm photo stock (135 film) features frames of 36mm wide x 24mm tall in landscape orientation. Yes, photo types will give the measurement in portrait, HxW as 24x36mm. To compare scanning to digital stills you might get from your current digicam...
The absolute highest resolutions you can expect:
3000 ppi ~ 4252 x 2834 = 12 MP
2000 ppi ~ 2834 x 1889 = 5.3 MP
These numbers are usuing the full frame and don't discount any pixels for crop to eliminate edge shadows and other peripheral artifacts or slide borders.
The amount of grain and other "deficiencies" you pick up will greatly depend on the film stock, focus and exposure settings used when the images were taken. Not to mention possible degradation and abuse of the negatives and/or slides over the years.
I think I still have negatives for everything I've ever shot on film, but I know for a fact my parents have very few negatives for their oldest prints. This might be something worth pooling up content within the family and then getting it all done at once for a bit of a discount.
Edited by hybrid8 (28/05/2007 19:00)
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#298742 - 28/05/2007 21:07
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: hybrid8]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/04/2000
Posts: 3810
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Quote:
I think I still have negatives for everything I've ever shot on film, but I know for a fact my parents have very few negatives for their oldest prints. This might be something worth pooling up content within the family and then getting it all done at once for a bit of a discount.
I have a related dilemma. From my parents marriage through my early childhood, my dad shot everything on 35mm slides (momma don't take my Kodachrome away) which he had scanned and which I now have digitally. Starting around when I turned 21, I had everything I shot converted to PhotoCD, and I've loaded all those in, cleaned them up with some Photoshop actions, and those are now part of my digital collection as well. By the time I turned 30, I had a digital camera, and of course all of those pictures are also online.
What's left? Pretty much high school and college. In high school, I was Mr. Yearbook and Newspaper Photographer, and I've got four binders full of black & white negatives and a handful of color negatives. In college, I hardly touched my camera, so there isn't much more beyond that. So what am I supposed to do with all these damn negatives? The black & white stuff should happily outlast me (assuming I didn't screw up the processing), and most of it is stuff that I don't really care about any more (e.g., high school football games). It's hard to justify the expense of scanning it, but it's weird to have this photographic "hole" in my life.
Thoughts?
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#298743 - 28/05/2007 21:29
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: DWallach]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Well, look through them and find the ones that do mean something to you and scan those in. In my case, most of the slides I'm scanning are photos my dad took when overseas in the Army in Japan in the 50s and some European vacations from the 60s through the early 80s. I'm mostly interested in making these available to the public via flickr or whatever. They don't hold any particular importance to me personally, but they're nice photographs of times gone by. (I went through them earlier today and it looks like about 1250 slides, but, interestingly, I found some slides that were sold commercially. I imagine there's still copyright on them, and they're faded far more than the ones my dad took, but I found it interesting that they were selling photographs as slides.) But if that wasn't the case, I doubt I'd have much interest at all in them. There are bound to be some of me and my family, but I don't care much about those. However, if I'm going to get the rest of them scanned, I might as well for those, too.
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Bitt Faulk
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#298744 - 29/05/2007 11:31
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: wfaulk]
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old hand
Registered: 17/07/2001
Posts: 721
Loc: Boston, MA USA
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I've never had a good experience with a slide scanner, other than the Nikon CoolScan series ones. Unfortunately, those are the $Texas ones that you are wanting to avoid. If you just want to preserve the shots and don't really care all that much about them, or plan on blowing them up to poster size, I'm sure a $200-$500 one will do you just fine. Just know that it's going to take a minimum of 1 minute per slide, just to scan. I'd pick up a bottle of compressed air to blow them off as well. Dust is a slide's worst nightmare.
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//matt
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#346907 - 14/08/2011 21:52
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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BLAST FROM THE PAST!
So it's been like 4 years since I originally posted this, but I finally bought a slide scanner. I bought an autofeed one off of eBay for about $300. It seems to work pretty well.
If anyone still needs some slides scanned, I'm willing to do it for you if you send the slides to me. Because that's the kind of masochist I am. I'll post a link to some of the final results when I get a little further into it.
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Bitt Faulk
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#346909 - 14/08/2011 22:20
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12338
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Neat! Do you have a link to the model you bought?
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Matt
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#346910 - 14/08/2011 22:27
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Oh, that might be useful. It's a Braun Multimag SlideScan 4000. Incidentally, it didn't have a power supply, so I had to hack one together from a RadioShack barrel connector and an old ATX power supply I had lying around.
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Bitt Faulk
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#346925 - 15/08/2011 15:18
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12338
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Woah! Very cool. Looks like a pretty monster scanner. Can it be fairly automated for those 100 slides? Are the results decent if it is?
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Matt
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#346931 - 15/08/2011 18:42
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/07/1999
Posts: 5546
Loc: Ajijic, Mexico
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Are the results decent if it is? I suspect so... optical resolution of 3600 x 3600 dpi; 48-bit colour depth.tanstaafl.
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"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"
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#346934 - 15/08/2011 19:50
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
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Wow.. what a monster!
I just may have a job for that scanner -- likely a couple hundred slides. Later this fall, though, not now.
Cheers
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#346953 - 16/08/2011 16:30
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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It's not that big. About 15"×15"×6", I'd guess.
The autoload mechanism is pretty much the same mechanism on the slide projector we had in the early '80s when I was a kid.
I don't have the 100-slide magazine; that's the toroidal one. I just have the rectangular 50-slide magazine, but that's good enough. I have most of the slides in similar toroidal magazines that fit in the slide projector, but, sadly, they don't seem to work in the scanner.
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Bitt Faulk
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#346964 - 16/08/2011 23:55
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: wfaulk]
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veteran
Registered: 21/03/2002
Posts: 1424
Loc: MA but Irish born
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Bitt, I'd be interested in taking you up on your offer. I know my sister in law has been slowly digitization the family archives, I don't know if it includes many slides if any at all, but I'm assuming based on the time span and my father-in-laws liking for tech (still got a betamax and laserdisk player connected), that there are some.
I'll be in touch.
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#346973 - 17/08/2011 11:37
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: ithoughti]
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old hand
Registered: 29/05/2002
Posts: 798
Loc: near Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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I've never had a good experience with a slide scanner, other than the Nikon CoolScan series ones. ... are the $Texas ones that you are wanting to avoid. ... Avoid? May I ask why?
Edited by K447 (17/08/2011 11:38)
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#346977 - 17/08/2011 15:01
Re: Slide scanner
[Re: K447]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/02/2002
Posts: 3212
Loc: Portland, OR
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I've never had a good experience with a slide scanner, other than the Nikon CoolScan series ones. ... are the $Texas ones that you are wanting to avoid. ... Avoid? May I ask why? $Texas means expensive. Bitt wanted to keep the cost down, and not spend thousands on a slide scanner.
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