Slide Scanner

galla47 · November 9, 2005

Hey,

My parents have a lot of pictures from back in the day on slide film. Most is Kodachrome or Ectachrome.

My mom really wants to scan all of these so that she can have them digitally. I've been trying to find a place I could rent a slide scanner for a weekend or so to do this project, but haven't had any luck. (A new scanner would be well out of my price range for this project.) They would be used for personal enjoyment, nothing commercial.

We've tried regular flat-bed scanners, and even with the "negative attachment" the quality is not there... plus, each requires manual cropping and such.

I know there are services out there, but it seems to me they are expensive.

Does anyone know if there is a place to rent a scanner? Any other suggestions? I'm located in New York City if anyone knows anything.

-Kevin

dkapp · November 9, 2005

If you have no desire in owning a slide scanner, I would buy one from a store w/ a good return policy (B&H?). Use it for the weekend or week then return it.

I can recommend the Minolta Dual Scan IV. I use mine just about everyday, and the quality really is excellent. They run just over $200 and are dedicated 35mm scanners.

Here are a few links of scanned slides:

Fuji Provia
Fuji Sensia
Velvia 50

More can be found on my archives page. Just use the drop-down box and select a film. This is all film, and all scanned by the Minolta with very little post processing.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Dave

gtc · November 9, 2005

bellows slide copier
old fashioned bellows slide copier and a good digital camera could be another way of doing it very cheaply-you might need a bellows lens,I dont know.you can sometimes pick these up for not much, depending on your camera make

galla47 wrote:

Hey,

My parents have a lot of pictures from back in the day on slide film. Most is Kodachrome or Ectachrome.

My mom really wants to scan all of these so that she can have them digitally. I've been trying to find a place I could rent a slide scanner for a weekend or so to do this project, but haven't had any luck. (A new scanner would be well out of my price range for this project.) They would be used for personal enjoyment, nothing commercial.

We've tried regular flat-bed scanners, and even with the "negative attachment" the quality is not there... plus, each requires manual cropping and such.

I know there are services out there, but it seems to me they are expensive.

Does anyone know if there is a place to rent a scanner? Any other suggestions? I'm located in New York City if anyone knows anything.

-Kevin

galla47 · November 9, 2005

Dave,

Thanks for the recommendation. I had originally looked at J&R, and didn't recall seeing any in that price range. $229 isn't that bad!

-Kevin

Andy · November 9, 2005

dkapp wrote:

Use it for the weekend or week then return it.

What's up with this? If you need, buy it. Don't "use" it, get value out of something, and then say "oops" I don't need this after all. That's just wrong IMO.

Andy · November 9, 2005

galla47 wrote:

Does anyone know if there is a place to rent a scanner? Any other suggestions? I'm located in New York City if anyone knows anything.

-Kevin

Kevin, give these guys a try I used them a while back on a computer rental.

Best of luck to you!

dkapp · November 9, 2005

andy wrote:

What's up with this? If you need, buy it. Don't "use" it, get value out of something, and then say "oops" I don't need this after all. That's just wrong IMO.

Your right, that was pretty poor advice. I wouldn't do it, so I'm not sure why I suggested it.

If you do buy, I would really suggest a place w/ a good return policy anyway. It took me 3 tries before I got a good copy of a flatbed scanner for my medium format stuff. It was a pain in the but, but worked out well in the long run.

If you decide to buy/resell or rent, keep in mind it will take a day or so to get used to the software. I spent a day or two tweaking my workflow before I was really happy with the results.

The Minolta scanner is still a pretty hot item w/ us film guys. If you buy one, I'm sure you can take $50 off the price and sell it pretty quickly. Keep that in mind when your pricing out rental places.

Dave

Andy · November 9, 2005

dkapp wrote:

Your right, that was pretty poor advice. I wouldn't do it, so I'm not sure why I suggested it.

If you do buy, I would really suggest a place w/ a good return policy anyway. It took me 3 tries before I got a good copy of a flatbed scanner for my medium format stuff. It was a pain in the but, but worked out well in the long run.

If you decide to buy/resell or rent, keep in mind it will take a day or so to get used to the software. I spent a day or two tweaking my workflow before I was really happy with the results.

The Minolta scanner is still a pretty hot item w/ us film guys. If you buy one, I'm sure you can take $50 off the price and sell it pretty quickly. Keep that in mind when your pricing out rental places.

Dave

Being a film-guy, I bet you know ALOT about this

I'm just a hack, and hope that I never have to use my scanner again

dkapp · November 9, 2005

andy wrote:

Being a film-guy, I bet you know ALOT about this I'm just a hack, and hope that I never have to use my scanner again

I have spent more time in front of a scanner than I'd like to admit. That is the only downfall I see to the whole film thing. The good part is the images are pretty much ready to go out of the scanner & I don't have to fuss w/ a raw converter.

P.S. I'm scanning right now

Dave

JimM · November 9, 2005

How long does it take to scan an image? What type of file do you end up with? How good is the quality? You recommend the Minolta? The images you post have all been scanned with it?

I have been thinking for a while that I should convert all of my film (though all could mean spending years doing it).

dkapp · November 9, 2005

JimM wrote:

How long does it take to scan an image? What type of file do you end up with? How good is the quality? You recommend the Minolta? The images you post have all been scanned with it?

I have been thinking for a while that I should convert all of my film (though all could mean spending years doing it).

I just timed a B&W scan at full resolution ~4600x3100 16bit file w/ 4x multisample. Thats basically scanning the image 4 times to make sure the image shows the true grain. This took 1.5 minutes. If you don't do the multisample, its well under a minute, maybe around 30 seconds.

The file sizes can be pretty big. A full size, 16bit, top quality color image can be 75-100mb while a B&W with the same quality is 20-30mb. Plenty of image for big prints and lots of detail.

I like the Minolta for the price/performance. The next step up is a $550 Nikon V ED. There isn't enough of a different in quality for me to justify the price. After using the Minolta for several months, I don't have any desire to buy something more expensive. If this thing broke, I'd replace it with the same thing.

All the images posted in this thread have been scanned by this scanner. There are a few medium format images I've scanned with an Epson 3170. They are easy to spot since they are square

Dave

dkapp · November 9, 2005

I just thought of something else.

If your negatives are old and dusty, you may want to look into a model that includes Digital ICE technology. From what I understand, this can save hours trying to remove dust spots from the scan.

I develop my own B&W and have a good place for color development, and then scan immediately. It's pretty rare for me to have any dust so I almost forgot about it.

Dave

bham · November 9, 2005

I have the Minolta Dual Scan IV also and it is great. But yes it will take you a good bit of time to eventually scan everything. I figure at least 2 - 5 years on my stuff. I have tons and tons of negatives, and to get it correct can take some fine tuning. I try and do some any and every time I am at the computer for something else. The reason that most places charge a good bit, because it is a time issue and doing it well and right takes time,skill and knowledge. But I can't even guess how much it would have cost me to scan everything I have by someone else. I finally saved up and bought the thing. I haven't regreted it.

If you find a place to rent, plan on renting for at least a week. Unless you only have like one or two rolls of film. Each time you put a new set of slides or strip of film in it must do a prescan that takes ~20-30 seconds before you choose which one, make any adjustments and then make the final scan.

I bet if I timed myself it would take about an hour to do a roll of 36, maybe longer. This includes changing the film, cleaning the film, lining up the film in holder, etc and that is all for each cut of 6 of film, if it is cut in 4 then will take even longer. Its not a quick process.

ian408 · November 10, 2005

I needed some stuff scanned a while back and honestly, it was cheaper for
me to just have someone else scan them. I don't scan stuff often enough
that buying a scanner was cost effective.

Figuring the cost (of my time and so on) of finding scanner, buying it,
scanning the slides and then returning it. Not to mention having to learn
the software and how to make it work "just right" wasn't worth the effort.
And not even going down the road of my "tardiness" with things like this.
I figured it'd take a week or two and for what I wanted to do, it was easier
just to pay someone--not to mention they probably did a better job than
I could've.

Ian

JimM · November 11, 2005

I have added the Minolta scanner to my x-mas list. Thanks for the help. I'll keep you posted on how Santa is to me. Maybe I'll get to post some of my old images.

I really like the idea of converting the film to digital, as digital give me a way to electronically archive the images. I mean, what if there was a fire in my house? All of my film would be destroyed. Digital sure makes it easy to share too.

galla47 · November 16, 2005

So I went out to B&H yesterday and picked up the Minolta!

I've tried it with some negatives I have, and so far, so good. I should get the slides from my parents hopefully this weeknd.

Then you can look in the flea market for a 2 month old Minolta scanner after christmas...

JimM · November 17, 2005

Shoot me a PM when you post it in the flea market, as you never know how Santa will do.

Slide Scanner

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