Digitising sailing slides shot on my old canon AE1 -advice sought

[2nd_apprentice]

The operative word is nasty cmos scanners, like the Aldi ones ;-)
I rented an Epson or Nikon scanner from Calumet in London, can't find them on their website now but worth asking. Price was £120 for a week IIRC.
Not exactly cheap of course but still an awful lot cheaper than buying one or having it done professionally. Only shoot b/w on Ilford FP4 and Shanghai GP3 myself, YMMV.
Group buy sounds like a good idea though.

 

[VicS]

and another big minus 1 for the cheap Aldi ( or was it Lidl) one.

Tried it out ...... not bothered with it again just gathering dust somewhere now!

 

[Uricanejack]

A good quality dedicated scanner will do the trick.

The tech at the store explained dedicated ones have much higher resolution than the scanner printer combos.

Mine is an Epson V300. bought it a couple of years ago. They are not particularly expensive I think I paid about 150 bucks for a mid range one. it took a bit of figuring out how to get it to do it right but it will scan both slides and negatives though not at the same time.

I'm not any kind of pro, my pictures are just boring snaps. most taken with a 35mm.
Some of the slides I scanned were my parents from the 60's

Quality of image is good but it takes a long time. to go through dozens let alone thousands. Something to do on a long winters night instead of TV.

It does 4 at a time or 1 strip of negatives.

 

[Pleiades]

I have used an Epson 4490 for about 5 years - does 4 slides at a time, image quality is excellent, better than any computer screen could resolve. The ICE dust removal software is not great so just make sure no muck on the slides. If I scan a print and then re- print it at home on an inkjet printer the image is better than a high street photo lab can do. Obsolete now, they go for about £30 to £90 on the bay but have to make sure that the slide scanning bit (which is the lid) connects correctly to the base - the plug terminals are fragile. The new models such as the Epson V550 retail about £199 and are presumably even better.
Robin
Pleiades of Birdham
MXWQ5

 

[dylanwinter]

199 sounds a better price

I have used an Epson 4490 for about 5 years - does 4 slides at a time, image quality is excellent, better than any computer screen could resolve. The ICE dust removal software is not great so just make sure no muck on the slides. If I scan a print and then re- print it at home on an inkjet printer the image is better than a high street photo lab can do. Obsolete now, they go for about £30 to £90 on the bay but have to make sure that the slide scanning bit (which is the lid) connects correctly to the base - the plug terminals are fragile. The new models such as the Epson V550 retail about £199 and are presumably even better.
Robin
Pleiades of Birdham
MXWQ5

so how long would it take to do say 100 slides

does anyone have first hand experience of this one then

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Epson-Perfection-Scanner-ReadyScan-Technology/dp/B00ECBRW5E

 

[Uricanejack]

so how long would it take to do say 100 slides

does anyone have first hand experience of this one then

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Epson-Perfection-Scanner-ReadyScan-Technology/dp/B00ECBRW5E

A couple of hours. give or take. project for a winter evening

 

[Iliade]

Had to do something similar a few years back (20!) and found paying someone professional was the only way to get usable results.

However, I wonder if nowadays any public libraries have the capability? Or local universities/colleges? I'm guessing that somewhere out there there must be a machine costing thousands into which you can just put a big pile of slides and an HDD.

 

[dylanwinter]

examples

I have used an Epson 4490 for about 5 years - does 4 slides at a time, image quality is excellent, better than any computer screen could resolve. The ICE dust removal software is not great so just make sure no muck on the slides. If I scan a print and then re- print it at home on an inkjet printer the image is better than a high street photo lab can do. Obsolete now, they go for about £30 to £90 on the bay but have to make sure that the slide scanning bit (which is the lid) connects correctly to the base - the plug terminals are fragile. The new models such as the Epson V550 retail about £199 and are presumably even better.
Robin
Pleiades of Birdham
MXWQ5

Robin,

I don't suppose you have any digitised scans you could send me

dylan.winter@virgin.net

the inbox will swallow 10mb at a time

D

 

[nigelmercier]

Why not get an attachment for your camera?

 

[dylanwinter]

Why not get an attachment for your camera?

why not indeed!

do they work?

 

[VicS]

and another big minus 1 for the cheap Aldi ( or was it Lidl) one.

Tried it out ...... not bothered with it again just gathering dust somewhere now!

FWIW a slide , not Canon AE1 standard it has to be admitted, copied with a Maginon film/slide scanner from Aldi or Lidl??

well below the standard of useless I think you will agree

 

[Lakesailor]

Why are people suggesting rubbish methods? Dylan tried one and it didn't work.
The answer is to get a mid-range Coolscan with the latest software. The software alone will save hours of work.

Some Epson scanners seem decent enough, but the reviews are mixed.

To achieve the resolution that Dylan wants optically needs a good, dedicated, film scanner. If he is wanting to sell images he is competing with modern digital cameras. It may be that some images have a historical element which makes them saleable, despite not being the best quality, but generally the better the image the more likely the sale.

Hiring a scanner is unlikely to be cost-effective unless he can sit and do them all hour-after-hour. Buying one and re-selling it afterwards will be a cheaper option without time constraints.

 

[dylanwinter]

FWIW a slide , not Canon AE1 standard it has to be admitted, copied with a Maginon film/slide scanner from Aldi or Lidl??

well below the standard of useless I think you will agree


that was about what I got off the maplins one

useless

I will start chasing the Epson just to see if it will work

although.....

I fear lakey is correct

I have one other person in the syndicate at the moment

a four way split would be good for me

D

 

[Austerby]

I have an Epson V700 which is extremely good - but if the v550 had been on the market when I got mine I'd probably have gone for that.

For slides, it comes with a plastic frame into which you insert upto 12 mounted transparencies, place it on the glass, close the lid and press go on the scanning software.

The timing of the scan depends on the resolution set. I scan at 1200dpi which is more than sufficient to capture the detail, though a 720dpi scan would be more than adequate to do a proof scan.

You can then up the scanning level for the better slides, or send them off for the full works professionally if needs be.

The Epson scanning software is perfectly adequate - no need to pay extra for Vuescan or one of the specialist apps.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Why are people suggesting rubbish methods? Dylan tried one and it didn't work.
The answer is to get a mid-range Coolscan with the latest software. The software alone will save hours of work.

Some Epson scanners seem decent enough, but the reviews are mixed.

To achieve the resolution that Dylan wants optically needs a good, dedicated, film scanner. If he is wanting to sell images he is competing with modern digital cameras. It may be that some images have a historical element which makes them saleable, despite not being the best quality, but generally the better the image the more likely the sale.

Hiring a scanner is unlikely to be cost-effective unless he can sit and do them all hour-after-hour. Buying one and re-selling it afterwards will be a cheaper option without time constraints.

Our photographers where I worked used a Nikon Coolscan to digitize their photo library to professional standards. They employed a student for a few weeks to do the job - several thousand slides. ISTR that the main effort was in adjusting the colour balance, which he student could be trained to handle.

Suggestions like photographing a screen might work well enough for amateur use, but are not good enough for a professional result. The distortions introduced by the process are unknown and significant ( for example, geometric distortion and colour distortions).

Despite appearing on here as a bit of a jester, but Dylan is a professional and I am sure he would not be satisfied with techniques that result in significantly degraded results.

 

[Austerby]

Actually, the v550 has a different slide holder than the v700 so you can only do 4 slides at a time with the provided film holder.

For volume, that would be deal breaker for me unless the insert for the v700 will fit the v550 (on the v700 the holders are located by two pins fitting into sockets on the flat bed)

Here's the v700's slide holder:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sparepart-Epson-Holder-Slide-1428169/dp/B001U0AFNQ/ref=pd_sim_computers_2

 

[dansaskip]

Faced with a similar problem myself - but they were mainly climbing and travel shots I used a Nikon Coolscan myself combined with VueScan software. It gives very good results but it is time consuming when you have a lot to do , cleaning the slides beforehand and then processing afterwards. Reccomend that you be very selective about what you choose to scan.
The Coolscan was not cheap (around £450? if I recall correctly) and I did consider using a digital scanning agency but working out the numbers it would have cost more to use one. Anyway it gives me something to do on long wet winter evenings>

 

[dylanwinter]

send me

I have an Epson V700 which is extremely good - but if the v550 had been on the market when I got mine I'd probably have gone for that.

For slides, it comes with a plastic frame into which you insert upto 12 mounted transparencies, place it on the glass, close the lid and press go on the scanning software.

The timing of the scan depends on the resolution set. I scan at 1200dpi which is more than sufficient to capture the detail, though a 720dpi scan would be more than adequate to do a proof scan.

You can then up the scanning level for the better slides, or send them off for the full works professionally if needs be.

The Epson scanning software is perfectly adequate - no need to pay extra for Vuescan or one of the specialist apps.

could you guys send me a good scan from the Epson and the Coolscan if you have any

dylan.winter@virgin.net

for me

Images just have to be croppable and computer screen size

print is dead for selling images

PBO take them for freemans and are not that bothered about the number of dots as long as they are not fuzzy


4,000 x 3,000 is enough for my most of my needs

but they do have to be sharp otherise the whole thing is pointless

Dylan

 

[AntarcticPilot]

could you guys send me a good scan from the Epson and the Coolscan if you have any

dylan.winter@virgin.net

for me

Images just have to be croppable and computer screen size

print is dead for selling images

PBO take them for freemans and are not that bothered about the number of dots as long as they are not fuzzy


4,000 x 3,000 is enough for my most of my needs

but they do have to be sharp otherise the whole thing is pointless

Dylan

All the images here (http://www.photo.antarctica.ac.uk/external/guest) were scanned on a Nikon Coolscan, if acquired in the pre-digital era. The library is a commercial one, so the quality has to be excellent or better!

 

[Highndry]

Dylan, I've sent you an email and a sample scan.