Film and slide scanner

[M. Worthington]

I have many boxes of old pictures and slides. It's high time I got them digitized. Any recommendations for how to go about doing this? Which scanner to look at?

[aam1234]

Heard good things about Nikon and Minolta scanners (if the latter still exist as a co.). But have absolutely no experience with either. Heck, I only had $30 scanner.

[cyclohexane]

Drum scanning is the way to go, but that's not nearly as convenient as the Nikon or Konica Minolta scanners. The Nikons (not sure about the KM's) run Digital ICE to clean up your color slides and negatives, which appears to work wonders based on marketing, but I don't know how it works in real life. Most of the comments I've heard are positive.

Stay away from something like an HP all-in-one type which also scans slides and negatives. The results can be hideous, and usually need a good deal more PP to get something usable. They can work, but it takes too long for it to be effective. The awful software doesn't help matters at all.



HP Photosmart 3200 scan of a Fuji Superia X-Tra 400 negative (Leitz 90mm f/2.8 Elmarit), significant PP applied to remove aberrations from glass and wonky colors from the scan.

[6by6cm]

The CanoScan 8400F is also a good choice for you. Here's a sample scan.

Film : Kodak Ektacolor 160(120 color negative)
Scan details: 3200 dpi(resampled to 300dpi for web viewing)

[Sidebyte]

Nikon Coolscan V, 400 dpi. The best $500. you can spend. I shoot a couple rolls of Kodak 35mm per week.

[blumesan]

Originally Posted by M. Worthington

I have many boxes of old pictures and slides. It's high time I got them digitized. Any recommendations for how to go about doing this? Which scanner to look at?

You mention both pictures and slides (by pictures I assume you mean prints).* That poses a problem.* To scan pictures you will need a flat bed scanner.* While a flat bed scanner can be used to scan slides, the results are significantly inferior to what one can achieve with a negative (transmissive) scanner.* How much this matters depends on what you intend to do with the scans.* If you are not contemplating any substantial* editing and are only going to produce some 4"x6" prints, you can probably get by with a reasonable flat bed scanner.

I have been using a Nikon Coolscan 4000ED to scan 35mm slides and negs for several years, and have been very pleased with the results.* If you need to scan larger film formats there are other Nikon scanners of the same design which can accomodate them.

Cheers/Mike.

[Jules]

This is a very interesting thread to me. I mentioned the other night, when I introduced myself, that I also have thousands of 35mm slides and want to get them digitized. I also mentioned the following:

When I was vacationing in FL last March I met an older gentleman (as am I) at a photo store who told me he had taken all his old 35mm slides, about 10,000 of them, and ran them through a Nikon Coolscan 5000(?). He said it took him about 6-8 months. Every night before he went to bed he loaded the scanner with the maximum number of slides (50 as I recall) and let it run all night. Now that is diligence!

Anyway, sooner, not later, I must invest in a slide scanner of some sort. My slides go all the way back to the 60s.

I will follow this thread with much interest.

[blumesan]

Jules, self confessed older gentleman that you are, I would say that you need to do more than just follow this thread. What the gentleman from Floriday forgot to mention is that after 6-8 months of scanning the real work is still ahead. Sorting thru the scans and postprocessing those images you wish to enhance. Unless, of course, you are only scanning these slides to leave an archive for your decendants. Here's a shortcut: Load all the slides into a projector and review them (over time). If your photos are anything like mine and most of the rest of the world, you will be able to discard 9 out of 10 before even going on to the scanner. Second, if whoever inherits this body of work has any interest in what you have preserved, make certain that each image is well documented with the "who, what, where and when" information. It's amazing how quickly this data disappears in the generational cracks.

Cheers/Mike

[Jules]

Mike,

Your suggestions are well taken. I did ask the gentleman in FL why he did not get rid of the slides that were marginal. He said that he simply didn't want to take the time to review them via a projector or light table--he wanted to do that _after_ he had scanned them.

I think my approach will be as mentioned by you--discard the marginal slides and scan the good ones. But, my problem, one that has persisted from my very first yellow box of processed slides, is that I have trouble throwing away even a single slide that is hardly intelligible due to over- or under-exposure.

Thanks,

[blumesan]

Originally Posted by Jules

Mike,
I think my approach will be as mentioned by you--discard the marginal slides and scan the good ones. But, my problem, one that has persisted from my very first yellow box of processed slides, is that I have trouble throwing away even a single slide that is hardly intelligible due to over- or under-exposure.

Thanks,

Well you can pitch them now, or wait and suffer the frustration of trying to produce a decent scan from such film; and then pitch them.

Cheers/Mike.