scanning slides, 35mm negatives and prints

[BertBeagle]

What equipment would be needed to scan slides, etc. at home? What quality can you expect vs sending them out to a pro?

Don't know much about the process other than I have used a few scanners over the years.

Thanks

[Joeaksa]

I scan them using a HP flatbed scanner and the adapter included. Its not pro quality but descent enough. For good stuff I have a Primefilm scanner that does excellent work.

[beepbeep]

I recomend a dedicated 35mm scanner for slides. They are quite cheap nowadays and can be bought used.

Flatbed just isn't up to it. They have the theoretical resolution but results are bad.

[BertBeagle]

Originally posted by beepbeep
I recomend a dedicated 35mm scanner for slides. They are quite cheap nowadays and can be bought used.

Flatbed just isn't up to it. They have the theoretical resolution but results are bad.

Thanks. What brand and model do you like?

[Joeaksa]

As noted above, am using a Primefilm dedicated film/negative scanner for the good stuff.

Joe

[beepbeep]

Originally posted by BertBeagle
Thanks. What brand and model do you like?

I did lot's of reversal/slide work before I got all digital. I borrowed a Fuji film scanner with SCSI interface, full 3600dpi resolution etc and spent several days on digitizing all my slides.

I was reasoning this way: slides are analogue and are easily scratched/destroyed. I scanned everything using highest resolution available and saved them with lossless compression. That way, I would have maximum resolution should I ever need to go back.

For continuous small-volume work, there are nice USB 2.0 film scanners as Nicon Coolscan LS-50 etc.

If you have a big bunch of negatives/slidesthat you plan to save for future generations by digitizing them, I suggest turning the wads of slides to a photo shop and letting them digitize everything in their automated photo scanner (ask for highest resolution). They probably won't achieve proper hues/saturation/balance for each frame but they'll digitize hundreds of frames cheap and easy. Otherwise you'll grow tired of doing it manually. It usually takes and hour (if you are fast!) for one 36-frame film roll to do it by hand.

On the other hand, If you plan to do play with it and explore your "artistic" side then by all means, get a film scanner and fool around with it...scan, check the results and do it againt etc. You will be able to get very good results, albeit at a cost of time.

If you have a very very good middle-format shot thatt you plan to digitize, it's time for a pro. I sent my best 'blad 6x6's (few chosen shots) to a shop with a drum scanner, and asked for wet-mounting. That's the best you can get. For everything else (35mm Leica stuff), 400 bucks worh of film scanner is good enough.

IMHO, flatbed-scanner is only usable when digitizing making a whole bunch of negative contact-copies, in order to weed out the bad ones. It's CCD has the raw resolution but optic artifacts and noise make it a bad solution for anything else but web work.

For more info, check the net:

http://www.photozone.de/2Equipment/scanner.htm#entry


If possible, digitize with maximum bit-depth and full resolution. Storage is just getting cheaper. Copying files to bigger drive is easy. Restoring burned/scratched slides is impossible.

Good luck!

[island911]

Originally posted by BertBeagle
What equipment would be needed to scan slides, etc. at home? ....

At home, and in a pinch one day, I skipped the scanner and 'simply' used my digicam to take a picture of the slide image. --it worked out well.

With a bright white background, far behind the slide, and a relatively dark space between the camera and the front of the slide, I found some excellent results. The camera needs to have a macro setting at full zoom (to minimize any 'fun house' effects and for full frame. .. to utilize the most pixels.)

Or, for some digicams, you can buy a slide adaptor, which fits on the camera lens. --those work like an old Viewmaster . ..but for your camera. Of course, like those old Viewmaster's the light source you point it at needs to be clean/white, else color distortions may occur on your image.

--otherwise, beeper covered this topic well.