Keldon Loc: Yukon, B.C.

Thanks. Another person mentioned the v550 and I looked it up. It does seem to be good unit. I'm considering it if I don't us a service.

MT Shooter Loc: Montana

Its a good unit. The V600 is virtually the same but does scan faster. All masks and templates are interchangeable between the two units. The V800 is totally different and I only use it for large format scans (4x5 or larger).

Bob.J Loc: On The Move

I use the Epson V500, scanned at least 5000 slides and negatives. It does a great job especially if you use the "Digital ICE" feature in the software

This is a slide from 1952, no retouching just used the Digital ICE feature

(Download)

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

A friend recently scanned many hundreds of sheets of music so she could use them on her very large iPad, rather than have to carry the music books. I was surprised that she did all the scanning with the iPad itself. It was much faster than using a flatbed scanner. She basically took a picture of the page - very fast, with excellent results.

I've scanner thousands of pages with an Epson V600, and it produces excellent results, although it might take ten seconds to scan a page. The higher the resolution, the longer it takes. Once you buy the scanner, the scanning is free.

It's good you have time on your hands.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkgTv8M_yj0

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Epson. That's the only suggestion I'd make. Along with Silverfast scanning software. Pick the scanner that is suitable for your requirements and that's all you need. I've been using an Expson Perfection 3200 for the last 17 years. I'll be using it later this evening to scan some film I shot this last weekend.
--Bob

markie1425 Loc: Bryn Mawr, PA

You answered your own question.

Unless you want to devote much of the rest of your life to this project, then pay someone to professionally do it.

Country Boy Loc: Beckley, WV

I know there is quality lost in the process but it is possible to use the projector and put the camera on a tripod and go through them and re-photo them. I did this with technical drawings once so I could have a digital copy to carry and it worked well.

MikeMcC Loc: Glasgow, Scotland

I used an A4 LED panel (about £10) to backlight the slide using a piece of mounting board with a hole cut in it to locate the slide. Then photographed in RAW with my 24Mp camera using a macro lens with an extension tube to frame up the slide. My results, after a little bit of RAW processing in Photoshop are as good, if not better, than previous work I did with a Minolta Dimage scanner or Epson flatbed. I did over 800 copies in a day that would have taken me monthe the 'old'way.

Dr Photo

Before my father passed away in 2010, my family asked me to put together a slide show for their 60th wedding anniversary. While he was stationed in Germany from late 1946 until 1949, he bought a Leica IIIc with several lenses, a framing device, bellows and other close-up attachments and subsequently took several thousand Kodachromes. When I started photography seriously in 1968, I used Kodachrome and Ektachrome (and some Fuji & Agfa), and also accumulated several thousands of transparencies. In my professional photography life, I used Vericolor for weddings, followed by Portra, and Tri-X, pulled to ASA 200 - so my negative collection is larger than my combined father-son Kodachrome/Ektachrome collection. About 8 years ago, I had the chance to buy a "used one time" Nikon LS-4000ED, and the slide feeder, enabling me to scan up to 50 slides in a batch. After investigating the several software products on the market, I settled on Ed Hamrick's absolutely wonderful and comprehensive VueScan and have never looked back - that, plus the excellent service he provides for even oddball questions!
I use Epson scanners for my 2 1/4" negatives and prints, with a custom metal/glass holder for the negatives and transparencies of larger sizes, and again, VueScan is great for the pre-sets for most known negative and slide types.
I was recently asked whether-or-not I still had the negatives from a 1983 wedding I shot on Long Island and if I could re-make a few prints/digital images for an upcoming anniversary. I was so touched that I actually scanned in nearly every negative (the Nikon negative feeder will do strips of 6, or more for uncut rolls), loaded them up to a DropBox folder and the couple was blown away - probably better than the "originals", and from both 35mm Vericolor and 2 1/4" Vericolor negatives.
I'd suggest, whatever scanning device you might use, try VueScan as a trial, and if you like it, get the "professional" version, which gives you upgrades anytime they come out. Good luck & happy scanning! ....and BTW, the 60th Anniversary "slide show" (digitized with 36 pieces of period music overlaid) was a rousing success! The three attachments are "un-postprocessed" scans directly out of the Nikon scanner, using the negative feeding attachment and VueScan set for Vericolor III professional film.

Paladin48 Loc: Orlando

I bought a V600 a couple of years ago but never tried to scan slides as the extra pieces that enable that feature were missing. This could change everything. Thanks Jerryc41

Harald

I also use the Epson V600 and generally speaking I am very happy with the results. I usually scan 35mm slides at 2400. The V600 came with a slide holder with room for 4 slides, and scanning 4 takes 2-3 minutes. Once you do a preview scan, you can look at the results as thumbnails or as a large area where you can select the part of the area you want to do a final scan of - one picture at a time. Quite often, when I scan using the thumbnail mode, the software will insert black panels at one or more sides of the slides, and sometimes over the actual picture. If you do a final scan, the panels will stay as part of the finished product. If you scan by selecting the scan area, so such bars show up, so I see it as a software issue. When I asked Epson, they could not explain why it happened and - I think wrongly - said I was outside the limits of what the machine could do. Scanning by selecting the area takes longer than scanning using the thumbnails, but the resolution in the final product is great either way.

John Howard Loc: SW Florida and Blue Ridge Mountains of NC.

Perfect timing on this thread as I was just on B&H looking at all the alternatives. You can see the scan specs ie, dpi, but it is difficult to see in the photos the slide implementation. Some do batch some don't. Some require the slide to be unmounted, some read the full slide in the mount.

Suggestions on which is best in terms of output quality and ease of use would be appreciated.

JeffDavidson Loc: Originally Detroit Now Los Angeles

I have the Nikon DS2 slide duplicator to be used with a 60mm Micro and it will work as fast as you at the resolution set on the D850.

ORpilot Loc: Prineville, Or

Faster tan a flatbed scanner. I use a macro lens on my camera and made a setup out of foam core. The foam core holds the slide in front of a light source. I can full frame the slide or crop as needed. I have full control over white balance in the camera. For the light source you can use anything from your old light table to an enlarger head, or the sun reflecting off of white foam core, to any bulb including a flash unit. If you already have a macro lens or close up filters then your cost is about $1.00 for the foam core from the dollar store. Once set up, you can shoot 3-4 slides a minute. Save those images

philphotog Loc: Perth, Scotland

Hi.
Just had a look on Amazon UK and there are several transparency scanners available as long as it will be 35mm trannies yu are using. Check your Amazon site out. Cheers. Philphotog, Perth, Scotland