Scanning 35mm slides

[RooFlyer]

I've long wanted to scan my 35mm (mounted) slides to digital but haven't seen a decent solution.

I have bought a couple of incarnations of DIY where you don't have to without remove the film from the frames, but they are just taking pics of the slide image on a light back ground, with not great results.

Commercial services I have seen have been too expensive (maybe $1/slide). I have hundreds to do.

Can anyone recommend either a device for purchase or a commercial service where can get digital images of my 35mm slides; for DIY I don't want to take the film out of the slide frame.

 

[coriander]

Dedicated slide scanners like the brilliant Nikon slide scanners are no longer made, but used to retail for $800, now can see them on Ebay for $3500+. There are some slide scanners around, the cheapies ($99 etc) are not particularly good.

Epson make an excellent scanner - the V550 which will scan prints, negatives (35mm and 120) and slides and is about $300. The V550 comes with Digital-ICE (Image Correction and Enhancement), a hardware/software enhancement that does an amazing job of removing dust and scratch marks (IMHO, you shouldn't buy a scanner that doesn't come with Digital-ICE). Epson also make a higher-end unit, the V800 but may be overkill for what you want.

The software that comes with the scanner is usually good enough but the best scanner software around is Vuescan by Ed Hamrick (VueScan Scanner Software for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux). He's been around for about 20 years and his software just gets better and better.

For tips on scanning from negatives or slides, Wayne Fulton's "A few Scanning Tips" (Digital Image Basics 101 - All about images from scanning and cameras) has probably the best tutorials on scanning.

HTH.

C.
(about halfway through scanning about 100,000 slides and negatives)

 

[dasheighty]

You may wish to investigate the HP range of scanners. Some of the "higher end" models come with slide scanning frames.
The unit I have ( a few years old now, cost around $250.00) takes 5 slides at a time and will produce as five separate jpeg (or chosen format) images.
The quality is quite good given some of the slides I transferred were over 40 years old. Simple to use, wizard set up for capturing and runs through a photo package (supplied with scanner).

 

[serfty]

I have a 5 year old Canon multifunction that has an internal rack device that holds up to four slides at a time (it can also do 35mm negatives).

Output is suprisingly good - would be similar to the HP multi function mentioned in the prior post.


But nothing like full on cartridges.

 

[jb747]

I used a flatbed Epson which did an excellent job of the 10,000 or so slides and negatives that I fed it.

 

[TheRealTMA]

I've long wanted to scan my 35mm (mounted) slides to digital but haven't seen a decent solution.

I have bought a couple of incarnations of DIY where you don't have to without remove the film from the frames, but they are just taking pics of the slide image on a light back ground, with not great results.

Commercial services I have seen have been too expensive (maybe $1/slide). I have hundreds to do.

Can anyone recommend either a device for purchase or a commercial service where can get digital images of my 35mm slides; for DIY I don't want to take the film out of the slide frame.

We use an Epson Photo scanner. Works a treat. Scans a dozen at a time into individual images and one can crop or do fade correction and so on.

 

[opusman]

I used a flatbed Epson which did an excellent job of the 10,000 or so slides and negatives that I fed it.

That must be a bloody big flatbed.

 

[Deleted member]

On a similar subject, what about 8mm conversion to digital?
Any suggestions?

 

[RooFlyer]

Great responses, thanks!

Dedicated slide scanners like the brilliant Nikon slide scanners are no longer made, but used to retail for $800, now can see them on Ebay for $3500+. There are some slide scanners around, the cheapies ($99 etc) are not particularly good.

<snip>

Thanks for all of that ... given me lots of ideas . Did you look at the Epson Perfection V800? I have a mate who might split the cost with me, so we could go to this higher model if worthwhile.

You may wish to investigate the HP range of scanners. Some of the "higher end" models come with slide scanning frames.
The unit I have ( a few years old now, cost around $250.00) takes 5 slides at a time and will produce as five separate jpeg (or chosen format) images.
The quality is quite good given some of the slides I transferred were over 40 years old. Simple to use, wizard set up for capturing and runs through a photo package (supplied with scanner).

Thanks ... will look at them too.

I have a 5 year old Canon multifunction that has an internal rack device that holds up to four slides at a time (it can also do 35mm negatives).

Output is suprisingly good - would be similar to the HP multi function mentioned in the prior post.

But nothing like full on cartridges.

Thanks be to you too, serfty.

I used a flatbed Epson which did an excellent job of the 10,000 or so slides and negatives that I fed it.

Thanks; did you take the slide film out of the slide frames? Or I assume there was some sort of rack you loaded the slides into? That is, not just putting the mounted slides on the flatbed?

We use an Epson Photo scanner. Works a treat. Scans a dozen at a time into individual images and one can crop or do fade correction and so on.

Thanks also, but ditto - how are the mounted slides held for scanning? Can you quote a model number?

Cossie - what happened to your post? I was going to PM you this morning!

 

[FlyboyAl]

as someone who owns a photo lab business which among other work, scans thousands of slides a month (I will not mention the name!!!), you have a couple of choices to get good quality scans.
Get it done commercially and let someone else do the work, and do it right (like we do) and use the time saved to do other things!
Or do it yourself, and spend hours and hours doing it, and hopefully get it right!
An Epson V700 or older 4990 will do a great job, if you know how to use it correctly. They are not automatic and to get the best scans you will need to adjust the scans after they are done using some sort of software.
We see what customers have done when they scan slides because we get the orders to print and enlarge them. Some get it right, but some waste hours of time to get woeful results.
Our lab and scanner cost me over $250K so we can do the work for you far easier than you doing it yourself. If you PM me, there might even be an AFF "deal"! It will be less than $1 per slide! Am I allowed to say that??????
Old kodachromes continue to scan really well with good color, but the older Agfa and other brands are fading fast and are generally very blue/magenta. We will tweak them as much as we can, but sometimes they have faded to the point where they can't be tweaked!
Hope this helps you.

 

[coriander]

Did you look at the Epson Perfection V800? I have a mate who might split the cost with me, so we could go to this higher model if worthwhile.

Absolutely, I would go for V800 if I was replacing my scanner (disclaimer - I do have a Nikon Coolscan 5000ED and my sentiment is "I'll give you my scanner when you pry it from my cold, dead hands" :shock:). I do (sometimes/rarely) wistfully look at scanners like the V800 doing 12 slides at a time as I slowly feed my slides one at a time.

did you take the slide film out of the slide frames?

The Epson scanners use a rack like this, so no, you don't need to take slides out of frames - actually that would be a big task to remove slides from Kodachrome and Ektachrome cardboard slides. I don't think any scanner requires removal of slide from frame. The Epsons also have a negative rack as well.

 

[Buzzard]

100,000 is a lot of slides coriander :shock: :shock:

 

[coriander]

100,000 is a lot of slides coriander :shock: :shock:

I've been taking photographs for over 50 years (my mother was also an avid photographer and used to have her own darkroom when I was very little and before colour slide film became affordable for her: unfortunately, being German she loyally purchased Agfa film which are fading terribly; Kodachromes are holding up MUCH better).

At Uni as a student, I mucked out stables to be able to afford my first Nikon; my enthusiasm led me to lobby for and set up a darkroom in the hall of residence I was in. Developed B&W film and printed slides to Cibachrome prints in those days (how to keep a uni student destitute ). I copped a lot of abuse and adverse comments for always carrying my camera with me as a student.......... that is, until our cohort's 40th anniversary when I was able to run a 350+ "slide show" during the evening dinner, upon which everyone was so grateful someone had recorded our antics.

Most slides are in yellow or green plastic boxes, some faded ones in orange boxes as well. I'm scanning them and then creating a proof sheet of each roll (Vuescan does that really well) which I annotate with date, location, people in the shot etc. I do this as looking through my parents' photos and slides, so many are unlabelled so that I have no idea of when, where, who - many of my ancestors in photos in Germany that date to pre WW2. My father on the other hand had no photos of his early life as he had to flee the Ukraine just in the clothes he wore ahead of the advancing Russians during WW2.

 

[coriander]

as someone who owns a photo lab business which among other work, scans thousands of slides a month (I will not mention the name!!!), you have a couple of choices to get good quality scans.
Get it done commercially and let someone else do the work, and do it right (like we do) and use the time saved to do other things!
Or do it yourself, and spend hours and hours doing it, and hopefully get it right!

Agreed. I bought the Nikon scanner years ago because I couldn't find a lab that could do really good quality scans.

I actually did find in latter years a good local lab using Fuji Frontier (?) equipment and he turned out some brilliant work for me. Unfortunately, his business withered and died with the onslaught of digital cameras and he retired, just about giving away all his equipment.

It must be "challenging" to operate a photo lab nowadays as it seems many people now carry their photos around on their smartphones rather than in physical format and seem happy with the on-screen quality of phone cameras.

 

[VPS]

I got an Epson V500 sent from the US and that's done a great job of scanning photos but there are probably another 1000 to go - FlyboyAl - do you scan photos as well - I'm in Adelaide and might drop you a PM

Cheers

 

[FlyboyAl]

I got an Epson V500 sent from the US and that's done a great job of scanning photos but there are probably another 1000 to go - FlyboyAl - do you scan photos as well - I'm in Adelaide and might drop you a PM

Cheers

I've sent you a PM .

 

[Deleted member]

as someone who owns a photo lab business which among other work, scans thousands of slides a month (I will not mention the name!!!), you have a couple of choices to get good quality scans.
Get it done commercially and let someone else do the work, and do it right (like we do) and use the time saved to do other things!
Or do it yourself, and spend hours and hours doing it, and hopefully get it right!
An Epson V700 or older 4990 will do a great job, if you know how to use it correctly. They are not automatic and to get the best scans you will need to adjust the scans after they are done using some sort of software.
We see what customers have done when they scan slides because we get the orders to print and enlarge them. Some get it right, but some waste hours of time to get woeful results.
Our lab and scanner cost me over $250K so we can do the work for you far easier than you doing it yourself. If you PM me, there might even be an AFF "deal"! It will be less than $1 per slide! Am I allowed to say that??????
Old kodachromes continue to scan really well with good color, but the older Agfa and other brands are fading fast and are generally very blue/magenta. We will tweak them as much as we can, but sometimes they have faded to the point where they can't be tweaked!
Hope this helps you.

Would the unnamed business also do 8MM movies?

 

[wandering_fred]

I have a Canon 5600 which I have had no troubles with mounted or unmounted 35mm slides.negatives.

HOWEVER, it will not do in any way shape or form the hundreds of 2.5x2.5 and 2.5x3.5 inch negatives I inherited from my parents.

Any suggestions, short of building a light frame to put over the scan bed and scanning as documents?

Thanks for not wandering

Fred

 

[FlyboyAl]

There is a company in the US who custom make neg carriers for the Epsons. I'll try to find the details. We have had carriers made for 127 and 116 negatives, plus some other custom sizes. I'll see what I can find.
The other way is to get a piece of opalescent white plastic and put it over a flouro tube. Then make a cardboard mask to fit the neg, and sit it all on the plastic. Use your digital camera to take a photo of the neg, invert it in photoshop, gimp or similar and bobs your uncle. As you are hopefully only dealing with black and white, any color issues with the tubes will not be a problem. we have done very large quantities of 4x5 black and white negs this way where the client did not want to pay for the full scanning service, but just wanted a "proofing" scan so they knew what was on the negs.

 

[FlyboyAl]

Here they are!
Epson Scanner - Film Adapter / Film Holder / Film Carrier
Their product is great and they will do custom jobs if you want.
But I still go back to what I have said.
Think about what you want to do with the scans and that should give you an idea of what resolution to scan them at. You can be a "resolution junkie" and have HUGE files when all you need is a 4"x6" photo!!! And vice versa!
We had a guy only today who brought in scans of all his dads war photos from the middle east. The original photos were 2"x3" and he had scanned them at 200dpi because it saved time - WRONG! We did a sample 4x6 and he was very disappointed with the quality. The guy at the discount store where he got the scanner told him how to set it up, and it was a total fail.
30 minutes later, we had scanned his 60 photos and made a great set of photos from them - the total was just over $100 for it all (partly because I felt sorry for him).
There are just so many things that can be done wrong when scanning unless you spend time talking to a salesperson who KNOWS what they are selling, and who KNOWS how to use it. And that comes at a price in most cases!
In case you haven't picked up on it, I'm pretty passionate about saving our old photographic memories.