alexol

Finally getting around to cleaning stuff out and I'd like to have about 2000 slides scanned.

Questions:

1. It seems that Scancafe do a very reasonable job. Anyone used both Scancafe and another place or places - any preferences?

2. I'll be doing one of their bulk deals, and apparently they send you a box etc. How do you pack your slides - are they all in one box or several little boxes within their bigger box?

3. When the slides come back, are they in the same order (and packaging) that they shipped in? If the scans are good enough, I expect to toss 95% of them, keeping only those that are very special to me but would like to avoid if possible having to re-sort and categorize them.

4. Do people still use 35mm slide carousels and trays? If yes, then the used ones can be sold, but if not, what can be done with them other than just tossing them out? I understand that technology often causes redundancies of both people and equipment, but just putting all those (expensive) trays in the trash seems very wasteful.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

I would toss first and then only send in the remaining for scanning, that order sure makes a lot more sense! Yes, I still use 35mm slides and trays, but I've never used any carousels, I also use slides and trays for MF!

alexol

I've done that and have right at 1650 (I said 2000 for simplicity) that I consider worth scanning.

I was referring to afterwards when scanned, I plan to toss out all but a couple of dozen slides. I see no point whatever in keeping the bulk of the scanned slides, assuming the quality is reasonable.

OLDVIRGINIA

And be very, very patient...

Scancafe takes its time.

ButchS Loc: Spokane, WA

I have used Scancafe, but it was a few years ago. I sent them a couple orders using the bulk pack. Yes-they send you a box to ship your order.

My experience is that the scan quality was good. They send your order to a facility in India where they are scanned. Then they are boxed back up and returned to you along with DVDs of the images.

My only disappointment was that quite a number of the slides were scanned with the image reversed. To be fair, the slides I sent were not necessarily oriented so they all faced the same way. However, I would think that anyone used to handling slides would be able to tell the emulsion side from the backing. Also, nowhere in their text did they say that it was the customer’s responsibility to make sure that all the slides face the same way. The result was that I had to be on the watch for slides that were backwards, and flip them in Photoshop. The hard part is that some slides were not obviously reversed.

Later they introduced a service for customers who didn’t want their slides sent overseas to have them scanned in the USA for an additional surcharge. I never tried this service because I was never ready to send another order.

I eventually bought a scanner that could do multiple slides at the same time, and started scanning my own.

alexol

That takes care of some of the questions, thank you.

The remaining one is:

When the slides come back, are they in the same order (and packaging) that they shipped in? If they are in the same order then presumably the scanned images will match/correlate, meaning less time to re-sort & categorize.

ButchS Loc: Spokane, WA

My recollection is that they were.

BebuLamar

I still use the carousel slide tray. I have 2 Ektagraphic and 1 Carousel projector and they all use the same types of trays. However, I do not use the trays for storage so I only need a few of them. I bought a number of them brand new from estate sales. I also bought a number of used trays but only to get the slides not the trays. I do not toss them out though unless they are damaged.

alexol

Mine will be of no further use to me, so if you or anyone else would like some, it will cost you postage plus whatever you think they are worth once you received.

They are 24 trays of (I think) 50 slides each, housed two trays to a plastic drawer.

alexol

I should have been more clear - I am referring to empty slide trays being available should anyone want them, not the slides themselves.

srt101fan

I gave my carousel trays to a guy at a camera store. He was going to try to sell them on EBay.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

ScanCafe is very good, but I don't recall how they sorted my slides for the return trip home. At that point, I didn't care about them. They were all digital.

Old slide trays -
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-273520-1.html
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/179862578845307135/?autologin=true
https://www.morenascorner.com/2014/04/three-ways-to-repurpose-a-slide-carousel-from-goodwill.html

Unfortunately, I bet they cannot be recycled because there are so many restrictions on recycling plastic. They want only seven different kinds, and many places do not accept all seven.

jhkfly

All my slides are stored in Bell & Howell cubes that fit the B&H projector... fifty slides per cube. Ive been using a Minolta Dimage Scan Pro to digitize; it handles four at a time or five 35mm film frames. Also scans mid-size and larger films. Lots of exposure & color controls and save formats. Only problem is it connects only with SCSI cable to my older Windows XP computer. No suitable adapter for USB available. Also Minolta no longer sells or supports it.

alexol

I have no round carousels, but the straight trays of 50 slides each, and if no-one wants them, then they will end up at Goodwill along with some other boxes stuff currently taking up garage space. I've added the shutter release that no-one wanted,and the Hoyarex filters too!

I like selling excees things on forums or eBay as I can always use the money for something else but until earlier this year I hadn't realized how wonderfully cathartic it is to simply throw stuff away!

The only reason I care about the order in which the slides are returned is simply that it would mean I don't have to go through sorting and categorizing every image. As it is now I know that Tray 1 was a trip to XYZ in 19-whenever, and Tray 2 is portraits of what's-her-face, while Tray 3 is a motorcycle race, etc.

Other than that, if the scans are well done, the slides will be "permanently retired".

stonecherub Loc: Tucson, AZ

My last scan was 3 or 4 years ago, slides were sent in plastic pages and were put back in order (some were stereo pairs).

My biggest complaint was that scancafe did nothing to clean dust off the slides.