RichardE Loc: California

I’ve just spent 30+ days scanning photos, slides, and negatives using a borrowed Epson v700 Photo scanned. This has worked great except for the occasional 120’s and Kodak disk wheels. These objects came from multiple family sources.

My question is: just what is a person to do that has 3000 scans to do and will never probably use the scanned for photos again. Purchasing a good photo scanner gets expensive for just a one month use.

I thought of sending them out, but I had photos w/o negs, negs w/o photos, and both negs and photos. the 110/120s with photos I just scanned the photos as the negs did not produce good results. I did not use ICE as I would still be sitting here 4 months from now!

Would any all-in-one color scanner/printer be a solution? And which one for a semblance of quality?

Thanks for any responses. Should I be in a different forum?

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

My slide scanner is up in my closet...

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

No, the best option is a dedicated film scanner, but they are a tad spendy as you stated. One of the cheapest on the market right now is the Plustek 120, but it still cost you $2000, if you opt for the utmost in scanning quality you can easily tenfold that price for a drum scanner, but they are usually only used commercially!

Pkfish Loc: Wilson Wy

I bought a v700 scanner for my nephew to go through my dads pictures of my mom and of him for my mothers memorial. He used only photos( no negs or slides). He resized and cleaned up all of it. This was a 2 hour presentation all set to music. Very powerful. Some of the photos were only 1.5 inch. I'm going to to buy 1 for myself as I have 40 years of pics myself. It might have been a v6oo. It was only 200-300 bucks. Well worth it.

WayneT Loc: Paris, TN

I have the Epson V-600 and it has been and exceptional piece of equipment for my slides and photographs but it won't break the bank they are $209.00 at Amazon right now.

https://www.amazon.com/Epson-Perfection-Negative-Document-Scanner/dp/B002OEBMRU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485261093&sr=8-1&keywords=epson+v-600

nicksr1125 Loc: Mesa, AZ

Check out the Plustek 8200ai. B&H has it for $479.00 with free shipping. Comes with Silverfast scanning software which works very well. I'm just getting started on scanning about 4000 aircraft slides & somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 rolls of 35mm film.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I would neither lend nor borrow a scanner for a 3,000-scan job. They are relatively inexpensive, around $150, and owning is better than borrowing. I like my Epson V600, and I use it several times a week. Rather than keeping and storing paper, I use the scanner and store files.

fourlocks Loc: Londonderry, NH

I'll second WayneT's advice on an Epsom V600. It's inexpensive and offers a professional level set of pre-scanning capabilities to remove dust, restore color, adjust color, etc. I probably have a thousand slides from my '70's Nikkormat days and I've scanned about a hundred, so far. You're right, once we've scanned all our slides we'll likely never use the scanner again but in this case, it's not a big outlay in money and I can chip away at my slides at my leisure, as a winter project.

My bit question is: What do I do with all the slides, once they're scanned. One reason for scanning, is to free up a little basement space by getting rid of several big boxes of slides but is that's a case of throwing away the originals. I may pose this as a UHH question.

catchlight.. Loc: Wisconsin USA- Halden Norway

Canon 9000F II is $168 and rated at 5 stars.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=905050&gclid=Cj0KEQiAk5zEBRD9lfno2dek0tsBEiQAWVKyuB6Dsu3EOAvO-2rL3zDZgDPQf10WRf4ZxwW7RX4yoG4aAiXi8P8HAQ&is=REG&ap=y&m=Y&c3api=1876%2C92051678762%2C&Q=&A=details

JimBart Loc: Western Michigan

What is your possibility of renting one Staples or a computer outlet may be a good start

Smudgey Loc: Ohio, Calif, Now Arizona

I have Canon 9000F II, not expensive and does a great job. Get ready to be bored out of your mind. Scanning slides is a worth while process, and one I recommend, but boring, good luck.

catchlight.. Loc: Wisconsin USA- Halden Norway

But...

This is interesting: https://petapixel.com/2012/12/23/why-you-should-digitize-your-film-using-a-camera-instead-of-a-scanner/

74images Loc: Los Angeles, California

Check out Scanners At B&H Camera Website or Catalog in N.Y.C., They Have a Couple of Lower End Scanners Specializing to Scan 110-126 Negatives, But Nothing For Disc, Check with D'Waynes Photo in Kansas, they Still Develop 35mm, 110-126, APS, The Old Super 8, Etc, Etc, I Don't Know if they do Scanning for the 110-126, & APS, but you Can Inquire

74images

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

More than interesting. I've been doing this for years! I use the same methods I used in the early 1980s to copy slides for multi-image shows, although I'm using a digital camera to copy film.

I don't make multiple exposures and stitch them, however, because I generally don't need a huge print. Most of my images get printed to 8x10 or used in video productions.

Scanners are slow and cameras are fast and sharp. Even if you have only a 16MP sensor, and make one 1:1 exposure of a slide or negative in raw, results are fabulous.

If you can find an old slide copier with a standardized diffused light source, and a macro or enlarging lens, bellows, and camera adapter, go for it.

Whether scanning or copying, be sure you buy a StaticMaster brush and use it to clean your film before copying. It's also a good idea to have some PEC-12 film cleaner and an Ilford Antistaticum cloth around...

The biggest challenges are with color negatives. Every emulsion batch, brand, speed, and type of color negative film has different characteristics. In the lab business, we used to have separate "film terms" in our scanning software to handle each brand and speed of film. Then we had special "slope" curves to compensate for under- and over-exposure, up to two stops in each direction. Kodak supplied the film terms, but we had to make our own slope curves for each scanner. It was a tedious and time consuming process.

Slides and negatives scan quite well, however. As the articles linked suggest, use ONLY manual ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. Use a CUSTOM white balance. Expose to the right. ONE exposure setting will work for all but the most underexposed slides or overexposed negatives. Use raw capture. The white balance should transfer to your post-processing software, and the image should be very, very close to neutral. You can desaturate B&W negative copies for dead-neutral grayscale images. That's necessary, because most B&W films have a purplish hue to their bases.

It helps to have a test slide and a test negative that are exposed under controlled conditions and include a 21-step grayscale and ColorChecker chart. You can use them to set exposure through testing. If you also have a one-stop-over and one-stop-under set of test slides and negatives, you can get an idea of whether you need any exposure compensation, and what it will do to the raw image.

Doyle Thomas Loc: Vancouver Washington ~ USA

your scanner can also be used to scan objects. the close proximity of both the lens and the light source result in an intimacy not otherwise possible.