Digitising 35mm transparencies

Has anyone experience of doing this? I know that processing houses will
do it for about 60p. per shot, or develop and put on CD close up shots
for about 14p. each, but I have several thousands I want to do and am
unwilling to spend that much. What sort of results can be obtained by
scanning the films in a film scanner.- what degree of detail? I would
welcome any helpful comments, please.

 

I used an Epson Perfection 1650 to scan in about 4500 35mm colour slides and
the results were very acceptable, I can send you an example if you wish.
The drawback was the length of time involved, it is a slow process with such
a scanner and I would not like to do it again.

 

This is a topic about once a month in this group and over in the
digital one. Please seach back threads and you will get tons of info.
If can't go it though your newgroup company, use Google groups.

In a nutshell, here's what you will find. There are a lot of high
opinionated views on this. Personally, I think that no one is right
and no one is wrong. It is just a matter of taste.

You major options are:
1. Flat bed scanner: Pros: quick, cheap and you have one. Cons: can
bet better quality other ways.

2. Dedicated slide/negative scanner: Pros: great results and some
scanners are reasonable. Drum scanners are superb, but very expensive.
Cons: Slow.

3. Adaptor for dSLR: Pros: Cheap and quick. Cons: Resolution
limited to your camera's resolution, lighting can be tricky, some
lenses are the best.

In all cases, probably 90% of the results depends on how good the
operator is and your willingness to make corrections after the scan.

Good luck with it and check back threads. If you have any questions
after you've read that, be sure to post them. There are some pretty
knowledgeable people you there.

Pat.

 

Thank you Stewart and Pat for your valued comments. These are the type
of remarks I had hoped for.
Gordon.

 

If someone has lots & lots of slides to scan, a Nikon LS-500 (or LS-4000
if you can find one on Ebay) plus the SF-200 or SF-210 batch slide
feeder is the way to go. Plus, of course, lots and lots of hard disk
real estate. A 35mm slide scanned at 4,000 dpi and 16-bi colour
produces a pretty large file if you save TIFs.... I scan at 2,000 dpi
and can rescan any I want to work up once I've seen the initial results.

Lots more in comp.periphs.scanners, including some resident trolls...