Scanning 35 mm slides on the cheap!

I've got hundreds of old slides, some of which I would like to play about with if only I could get them onto the pc. I dont fancy paying loadsamoney for a light box thingy - how easy would it be to make my own, maybe incorporating my new LED torch (birthday present), which has a blinding light?

Reply to
Paper2002AD
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I saw a design a few years ago which used just two mirrors fastened by tape at right angles and placed over the slide on the bed of an ordinary scanner. I'm sure if you google around, the plans will still be out there.

Reply to
Lawrence Milbourn

incorporating my

A cheap solution would be to buy a normal scanner that has a slide/negative accessory with it - Epson for example have them on several models. The downside is the slide scanning resolution would only be as good as the scanner resolution - which would not give very high quality due to the small size of slide. That is the reason why dedicated slide scanners are so expensive - you get what you pay for. It is not worth trying to make a light box with your LED torch because the colour temperature would be wrong (not pure white) and you also need to ensure the light is evenly spread over the whole slide - needs a more diffused light source.

Dave

Reply to
logized

You don't need to pay loadsamoney - but you do need a scanner with a fairly high resolution, and you do need to illuminate the slides evenly with light of the correct colour temperature. I don't think I'd fancy your chances with an LED torch!

I have the photo version of an Epsom Perfection 1670 scanner - with a light source built into the lid, and with a template for locating slides in the high resolution part of the deck. I paid 50 quid for this (new, boxed) on Ebay. Haven't looked lately but there are probably still some on there. Otherwise, you can get the same thing in the High Street for about 75 quid.

Reply to
Set Square

Whilst not having the resolution of a dedicated film scanner, a flatbed such as the Epson 1670 has an optical resolution of 1600 x 3200 dpi. Not *quite* sure what that means - but even at 1600 dpi, it would give an image of about

2250 x 1500 pixels from a 36mm x 24mm slide - putting it in the same ballpark as a 3 - 4 MegaPixel digital camera.
Reply to
Set Square

I bought a decent one from Jessops. It is small and seems to give decent results. If I were inclined I could blitz my collection and sell it.

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Reply to
John

Don't bother - built one - useless except as an interesting experiment.

Reply to
Peter Parry

Problem with scanners is that they are designed for sheets of paper and the slide scanning is almost without exception mediocre. I've tried the 1670 and would suggest it's performance on slides is very significantly inferior to the results obtained by a 1M pixel camera with a good lens.

If you want decent results you really need a slide scanner and, if the slides are old one, with integral Digital ICE

Reply to
Peter Parry

On 17 Sep 2004, Peter Parry wrote

Agreed. I have an little HP scanner accessory which does the same thing -- a sort of prism which reflects the light from the flat-bed scanner upwards and then back down through the slide. As you might imagine, the results are pretty poor since the slide is being both top- and bottom-lit at the same time.

If a true slide scanner isn't affordable, though, you can get standard scanners with a light in the lid to "downlight" one or two slides at a time; the software turns off the bottom-scanning light. I've tried one of these -- a Canon 3200F -- and it works pretty well.

It's not as good as a dedicated slide scanner, of course, but the results are really quite acceptable.

Reply to
Harvey Van Sickle

Depends on what you use. Some of the top end film scanners used for comecial repro are actually flatbed, although we are talking >10,000 quid here ;-)

For the ones that have transparency scanning added as an afterthought I would however agree, the results ara a bit disapointing.

The 1690 Pro does actually give quite acceptable results, but does lack ICE.

A friend recently bought a Epson Perfection 4870 Photo Scanner, which has an optical resolution of 4800 X 9600 Dpi. More importantly it has a DMax of 3.8 which matches and in some cases exceeeds that of the top end Nikon film scanners. It also has ICE. This makes a decent job of 35mm originals.

Reply to
John Rumm

Cheap way (for a "one off"), take em to Boots (or any photo processing place) and have them stick them on Photo CD for you. Only works if the slides are 35mm though.

Reply to
John Rumm

Or project the slide onto a flat white surface and take a photo of it? I've never tried this, I hasten to add

Anna ~~ Anna Kettle, Suffolk, England |""""| ~ Lime plaster repairs / ^^ \ // Freehand modelling in lime: overmantels, pargeting etc |____|

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Reply to
Anna Kettle

Would my 4.2 million pixel Fuji accomplish this?

Reply to
Paper2002AD

The problem I find is the time it takes to do the scanning and the resuts compared to a pro lab. - I have a good quality dedicated scanner which retails in the £400 - £500 price bracket but the time it takes to set up the balance for each film and then the time of the actual scanning is very inconvenient - it is OK for one neg but a pain for multiples. The scan quality is no where near as good as the results from the lab I use.

I get them done by a pro lab I use when the films are developed now

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and it is a lot less hassle and far far superior quality (I would guess their scanner costs in the 10's of thousands). It costs and extra £6 quid or so on top of the processing price for a 36 Exp film but is, in my opinion, worth it. Depending on the number and film sizes it could prove quite an expensive way of doing a large archive though.

Reply to
no

You'd introduce extra geometric distortion, but it might not be too noticeable. Also, with a projector, the light levels are likely to be rather lower than what your digital camera likes, so it might not take such good pictures. I have a feeling you can get hold of an adaptor to connect to a camera that allows slides ot be lit for taking a photo of. A specialist adaptor like that may work better.

Reply to
Matthew J.E. Durkin

Hi,

Flatbed scanners that can scan film have a backlight and a deeper carriage, in those respects they are no different from dedicated film scanners.

I've had reasonable results scanning negatives with a Canoscan 5000F, here's a sample of the Eiffel Tower:

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(1.8Mb)

I would say that viewing on a 1280x1024 screen captures all the available detail, putting it about 1.3Mp.

Here's another one of the Champs Elysee:

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(1.6Mb)

This time if you zoom in on the lights at the end of the street, then look at the image at 1280x1024, the screen doesn't represent all the detail fully.

This detail is better represented at 1900x1200, so I'd put it at 2Mp, and expect it can give pretty good enlargements up to 12" x 8".

If you just want to print off some reasonable enlargements I would say that a film capable flatbed scanner will do.

If you want to digitally archive or create very good enlargments from slides then a good dedicated film scanner is required.

One thing I've found is that the 5000F doesn't cope too well with flash pictures where areas are over exposed, I'm going to get some tinted film to reduce the light output to see if that helps.

If you just want reasonable enlargements with the occasional top quality one, one way to go is to do the former with a flatbed scanner and send the slides away for the latter.

cheers, Pete.

Reply to
Pete C

Hi,

Flatbed scanners that can scan film have a backlight and a deeper carriage, in those respects they are no different from dedicated film scanners.

I've had reasonable results scanning negatives with a Canoscan 5000F, here's a sample of the Eiffel Tower:

formatting link
(1.8Mb)

I would say that viewing on a 1280x1024 screen captures all the available detail, putting it about 1.3Mp.

Here's another one of the Champs Elysee:

formatting link
(1.6Mb)

This time if you zoom in on the lights at the end of the street, then look at the image at 1280x1024, the screen doesn't represent all the detail fully.

This detail is better represented at 1900x1200, so I'd put it at 2Mp, and expect it can give pretty good enlargements up to 12" x 8".

If you just want to print off some reasonable enlargements I would say that a film capable flatbed scanner will do.

If you want to digitally archive or create very good enlargments from slides then a good dedicated film scanner is required.

One thing I've found is that the 5000F doesn't cope too well with flash pictures where areas are over exposed, I'm going to get some tinted film to reduce the light output to see if that helps.

If you just want reasonable enlargements with the occasional top quality one, one way to go is to do the former with a flatbed scanner and send the slides away for the latter.

cheers, Pete.

Reply to
Pete C

The problem won't be the actual scanning, but the amount of time you'll waste doing it. I had this notion some years back - bought a slide scanner, but in reality, even with good work-flow software it was still taking up to 10 miuntes per slide, once I'd touched them up to remove scratches, dust, etc.

One option might be a digital camera with a 35mm slide adapter. Thats probably the easiest way to do it.

If you are serious, get a scanner that can be bulk loaded and one that has an IR channel to remove dust.

Alternatively, as another poster has suggested, take them to boots and get them to transfer them to CD.

I ended up giving up and bought a digital camera.

Gordon

Reply to
Gordon Henderson

Peter Parry wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Useless as an experiment or as a scanner?

My attempt was useless as both!

mike

Reply to
mike ring

What kind of results would one achieve by projecting the slides on to the best quality screen possible, then photographing the pictures with a digital camera? The quality might not be as high as the original slides, but for quick persual in a web-based album, they might be better than nothing. I, too, took hundreds of slides years ago, and the last time I enquired at Jessops, a slide scanner was around £150.

MM

Reply to
Mike Mitchell

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