35mm slide to digital converter

[MSHappyCampers]

I have a ton of old 35mm slides from the fifties and sixties that I want to convert to digital. I have researched these things until I am blue in the face! Have any of you ever bought one and if so, what has been your experience with them? Your comments are appreciated !

[Lee C]

A year or so ago, we bought an el-cheapo from a tv infomercial and was not impressed. Most of photos looked out of focus. Then bought one from Best Buy which did a "pretty good" job. Sorry, don't remember the name and it's loaned out right now.
It's a little time consuming but I now have digital photos of our parents and a couple of friends who have passed away.

[southland]

i have an Epson V600 that comes with carriers for the mounted slides and strips. Great unit that I have coupled with a ViewScan program. Scanner comes with a good software package but ViewScan improves on it.

[jfran304]

I use an Epson Perfection 4180 Photo scanner. Does a good job. It does slides and negatives.

Jon

[texnet]

I use a Minolta AF-2840. It is several years old but works like a champ. Has a carrier for 4 slides and a carrier for negative strips up to 6. Put in 4 slides or 6 negs and click scan...

[SCVJeff]

I have a Nikon 4000dpi with a program that came with it called Digital Ice, and the results are simply amazing. It not only did color correction (although a pass through Photoshop doesn't hurt), but the dye on some of the Ektachrome had pooled up and left clear spots. Digital Ice repaired a number of them.

[njs42]

MY brother had it done at a local Costco----not all that expensive and he did not have to spend the time so unless you are going to do this in the future maybe a one shot deal would do.

[MSHappyCampers]

Thanks guys! I'll do some research on the units you mentioned. I thought of just getting the conversion done by a shop, but the only one in this area who does it wants .80 per slide. With the number of slides I have that would cost a fortune! I can buy the converter for a LOT less than that!

[The Beaver]

I agree with the Epson suggestion. I have an Epson V500 with the carrier and as mentioned earlier it will also do negatives. The only down side is you can only do like 4 slides at a time (if memory serves.)

[alvinc]

I have the Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED and have been very happy with it. It supports both slides and negatives with the right adapter. I only have two regrets, neither of which have anything to do with scanning quality.

Regrets:

1. Did not invest in a batch scanner or attachment. With the 5000 ED it takes about 60-90 seconds per slide, and waiting around to change to the next slide is excruciating. Just found out that there is an attachment that can be purchased for the 4000 and 5000 (Nikon SF-210, approx $500) that is a slide feeder.

2. Did not get a scanner that will handle the medium format negatives and slides.

At the time these two features would have doubled the price of the scanner, oh well.

Whatever scanner you get make sure that it has some sort of digital ICE capability. NOTE: this is more than just software.

Quote:

Digital Image Correction and Enhancement is a set of technologies related to producing an altered image in a variety of frequency spectra. The objective of these technologies is to render an image more usable by Fourier or other filtering techniques.

Keep in mind that you could purchase one, new or used, scan your media, then sell it.

[Blue74]

I have been using a Epson Perfection 4490 I bought off their site at refurbished a couple of years ago still have a lot of slides to go.

[Wayne M]

I have an Epson Photo Stylus R300 that is as old as dirt. I'm thinking I have had it 10 years or more. It also has all the attachments that will scan in slides, negatives, and print to printable DVD's. If any of you are old enough to remember, Epson has been around since Radio Shack (Tandy Corpoartion) TRS-80 days, as they made the printers for RS.

Solid piece of equipment, to say the least.

[ronharp]

Amazon.com: wolverine snap100

I bought this last winter. I did 1800 "negatives" in one day. Once you place the negs/slides in the holder and insert it takes less than 2 seconds after pressing the go button.
Just one warning, be sure to wipe the negs/slides off before scanning because any debris will show up on the picture.
Ron

[alvinc]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ronharp Amazon.com: wolverine snap100 I bought this last winter. I did 1800 "negatives" in one day. Once you place the negs/slides in the holder and insert it takes less than 2 seconds after pressing the go button. Just one warning, be sure to wipe the negs/slides off before scanning because any debris will show up on the picture. Ron

This is where the scanner support of digital ICE comes in really handy. It is capable of removing the dust and scratches (I still clean the film before scanning).

Quote:

From Wikipedia: The ICE technology works from within the scanner, so unlike the software-only solutions it does not alter any underlying details of the image. Subsequent to the original "Digital Ice" technology which used infrared cleaning, additional image enhancement technologies were marketed by Applied Science Fiction and Kodak under similar and related names, often as part of a suite of compatible technologies. The ICE technology uses a scanner with a pair of light sources, a normal RGB lamp and an IR lamp, and scans twice, once with each lamp. The IR lamp detects the dust locations with its unique detection method and then inpainting is applied based on this data afterwards. The general concept is to subtract the position of scratches and dust from the RGB image.