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Scanning Old Negs and Slides, is it worth it?
Dec 19, 2013 09:26:20 #
Good morning folks,
I have many boxes and binders of slides and negatives from the old days. I have tried scanning some of these with poor results as far as clarity, resolution and sharpness are concerned. Do any of you know of a dedicated scanner for slides and negatives that would give good results or should I just forget about digitizing my old stuff?
Any comments would be helpful.
I have many boxes and binders of slides and negatives from the old days. I have tried scanning some of these with poor results as far as clarity, resolution and sharpness are concerned. Do any of you know of a dedicated scanner for slides and negatives that would give good results or should I just forget about digitizing my old stuff?
Any comments would be helpful.
Dec 19, 2013 09:34:19 #
Zebra5
Loc: Area 51
I face the same dilemma. I have somewhere around 25,000 slides and negative. I'm leaning toward sending them to a pro digitizer company. The cost is a bit more so I will need to be picky what I send. There are companies out there that will send it back completed on disk or HD or allow for cloud storage.
Dec 19, 2013 09:38:58 #
philiprispin wrote:
Good morning folks,
I have many boxes and binders of slides and negatives from the old days. I have tried scanning some of these with poor results as far as clarity, resolution and sharpness are concerned. Do any of you know of a dedicated scanner for slides and negatives that would give good results or should I just forget about digitizing my old stuff?
Any comments would be helpful.
I have many boxes and binders of slides and negatives from the old days. I have tried scanning some of these with poor results as far as clarity, resolution and sharpness are concerned. Do any of you know of a dedicated scanner for slides and negatives that would give good results or should I just forget about digitizing my old stuff?
Any comments would be helpful.
A couple years ago I bought a Wolverine (F2D) negative scanner that did the job nicely. It's not considered in the 'professional' arena, but it did a fine job on about 3,000 of my slides. I've made successful 8x10's from several that are totally acceptable. I don't remember the exact price, but I'm sure it was less than 60-70 dollars. They have improved them even since then, I'm sure.
Good Luck, and Merry Christmas
Dec 19, 2013 09:39:14 #
The Epson photo scanners work extremely well. I use the V500 Photo model myself, but they also have the V550, V600 and V700 models available, all will do slides as well as negatives and prints.
Dec 19, 2013 09:39:48 #
camshot
Loc: Peterborough ontario Canada
A reasonable job can be had without expensive equipment.
Mount your SLR on a copy stand, and with a light box (a quality slide sorter will do),cut the negative size opening in a piece of mat board, to block the extraneous light, and place your neg under it. Fill the frame on the SLR with your neg., and do a trial shot, adjust the lens opening to get the desired exposure. In Photoshop you can flip the neg to a positive and print. I have done slides this way as well, with excellent results.
Mount your SLR on a copy stand, and with a light box (a quality slide sorter will do),cut the negative size opening in a piece of mat board, to block the extraneous light, and place your neg under it. Fill the frame on the SLR with your neg., and do a trial shot, adjust the lens opening to get the desired exposure. In Photoshop you can flip the neg to a positive and print. I have done slides this way as well, with excellent results.
Dec 19, 2013 09:42:08 #
Is it worth it? Depends on how much you value the material and how much time you have to dedicate to the scanning process. I have a Minolta Dimage ll scanner that scans 5 slides at a time. It is not the fastest scanner in the world, only does 35mm, but the results are, at top resolution, very good. Last I saw it was going for about $100. Google: Minolta film scanner. Other option is to send them out to a commercial reproduction firm but, they are spendy.
Dec 19, 2013 09:53:18 #
There are many ways to convert your negatives and slides into digital. I have tried a few of them and I had very good results with the "Digital Film and Slide converter" from Vu Point Solutions.( Check the web ). Other good solution is to use your digital camera and a 'ProMaster Slide Duplicator, good for negatives also. One by one you shot the pictures to your memory card and ...voila!! Finally, if you do not want to expend money, make your own light box with a slide or film holder device, paint it inside white and use the proper daylight bulb. In a steady base place your digital camera and start shooting. With all these methods plus a little patience I convert to digital about 3000 slides and pictures form the '80. Finally in the computer you can correct any defect they make come with as poor light, etc. I hope this will help you a little....
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Dec 19, 2013 09:54:34 #
Dec 19, 2013 10:00:55 #
philiprispin wrote:
... Do any of you know of a dedicated scanner for slides and negatives that would give good results or should I just forget about digitizing my old stuff?
Any comments would be helpful.
Any comments would be helpful.
It's of course a personal decision. Were your photographs as good then as your digital results are now? Are there some that you absolutely want to memorialize?
Scanning 25,000 slides and negatives is going to take a very long time, even if you do not follow up with much post processing. You can save yourself a lot of time by being very selective.
A decent 35mm film scanner will do better than a flat bed like the V500, V600 or V750. But if you don't intend to print the results larger than 8x10, it won't make much difference.
You can always have the ones you want to really enlarge done professionally with a drum scanner.
Dec 19, 2013 10:19:07 #
Since I'm a late-comer to digital, I have to admit that the majority of my best images are in neg or slide format. So of course I scanned them in order to be able to continue to print and sell them. For me it's well worth the time and effort.
I have the Nikon 9000 scanner that does a really good job. I figured it was an investment in my future.
I have the Nikon 9000 scanner that does a really good job. I figured it was an investment in my future.
Dec 19, 2013 10:21:11 #
Msiwc
Loc: Los Angeles
MT Shooter wrote:
The Epson photo scanners work extremely well. I use the V500 Photo model myself, but they also have the V550, V600 and V700 models available, all will do slides as well as negatives and prints.
I have the V600. works great!
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Dec 19, 2013 10:42:26 #
philiprispin wrote:
Good morning folks,
I have many boxes and binders of slides and negatives from the old days. I have tried scanning some of these with poor results as far as clarity, resolution and sharpness are concerned. Do any of you know of a dedicated scanner for slides and negatives that would give good results or should I just forget about digitizing my old stuff?
Any comments would be helpful.
I have many boxes and binders of slides and negatives from the old days. I have tried scanning some of these with poor results as far as clarity, resolution and sharpness are concerned. Do any of you know of a dedicated scanner for slides and negatives that would give good results or should I just forget about digitizing my old stuff?
Any comments would be helpful.
I have 1,000's of negatives also from over the years. I scan them on my Epson v300. Although, I have to scan at a high resolution to be able to get good quality. I still have to go into photoshop to make final adjustments. If your negatives are important to you I would convert them.
Dec 19, 2013 10:48:01 #
The Epson scanners work great for this. I have the V500 and V550. Everybody is so impressed with the results that I have been scanning everybody else's pictures. Hopefully, some day I will finish mine.
It does take some time to get the scanning done but it is very worthwhile. When I get mine done, I am going to put them on disks for each of my children. They are excited to have a piece of their history in pictures.
It does take some time to get the scanning done but it is very worthwhile. When I get mine done, I am going to put them on disks for each of my children. They are excited to have a piece of their history in pictures.
Dec 19, 2013 10:53:09 #
Good Morning, thanks for the idea. I am going to have a look at the NIKON version of this method simply because I use NIKON cameras. It seems to be the simplest, least expensive and quickets way to get results. I appreciate your input.
Phil
Phil
Dec 19, 2013 10:59:33 #
philiprispin wrote:
Good Morning, thanks for the idea. I am going to have a look at the NIKON version of this method simply because I use NIKON cameras. It seems to be the simplest, least expensive and quickets way to get results. I appreciate your input.
Phil
Phil
It is the most expensive option for home scanning, but it does a good job.
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