JBA

I have several thousand Kodachrome slides some of which I would like to convert to digital format. I tried using a Wolverine Titan slide scanner but the photos came out too grainy and the colors oversaturated.

I am soliciting recommendations for a quality slide to digital scanner.

Thanks

louparker Loc: Scottsdale, AZ

This question has been previously discussed ad nauseum. Please search the archives and you will see many recommendations from scanners you can buy or scanners you can easily put together yourself -- slide copiers are a good way to go and is what I use.

MDI Mainer

The consensus of past threads is that the best quality/value is the Epson Perfection V600. $230 at Amazon. Back in stock April 30.

cameraf4 Loc: Delaware

Good luck. No, seriously, Good Luck. Digitizing "several thousand" slides is a daunting task (believe me. I'm doing it). As Lou said, many folks here have voiced their opinion and those opinions vary widely. I have had some very good results from using my Nikon camera with Nikon's ES-2 copier and my Micro/macro lens.
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-534400-1.html
If you have a camera a 24MP or higher sensor (even if it isn't a Nikon) and a macro lens that will get you to "Life Size" at the "film plane", then I think this would work for you, too.

charlienow Loc: Hershey, PA

I digitized thousands of slides and film with my v600 with excellent results. However it was slow. I did a few at a time. I was in no hurry. Retired and the project was fun. Saw many old memories.

Good luck

Chuck

sodapop Loc: Bel Air, MD

I have many old slides. Use an Epson 4490 and it does a great job, although rather slow. What I do is pick the best, copy them and make a video with them. So many of my slides are so similar to each other and no one, including me, will ever look at that many. With thousands of slides it is possible to come up with several slide shows, none too long. I also convert old VHS tapes of the family

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

You can copy them by either rephotographing each slide with a digital camera. This can be done with a slide copier attachment of a few sorts. Or you can scan them. I just bought a Epson V850 Pro Scanner and it does way more mounted slides at a time than my old V500 Photo Scanner or a current V600 Photo. But the V850 is pricey, $1,200.00!

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

I have an Epson V600. Works great.

JimRPhoto Loc: Raleigh NC

I am a doing the same as “cameraf4” who replied earlier. I’m using the Nikon ES-2 slide copier, with an Olympus camera and a LUMIX macro lens. I have several posts on the subject. Like you, I have thousands of slides. I find the flexibility of using built in HDR, exposure compensation, etc. to produce much much better quality slides than the prior slide copy scanner I was using. If you have the time, suggest you look at my posts on the subject. Good luck - it’s a big job. JimR

bw79st Loc: New York City

I have found that a slide scanner is the best way to go, for me. I have a Canoscan FS4000US that still works great. I also bought a used one on eBay for $100 and it does just as well as my original unit. I have that mated to another computer and can do double the amount of slides in the same amount of time.
This scanner loads four slides and takes a long time to do all four so you don't want to sit there and watch this happen! I can scan slides while I clear my email or kill time on Facebook. Any other computer ops that I have to do can take place while the scanner is working. I can load up slides before dinner, during the TV news, and before going to bed. In the morning I can start another load or keep it running while I take a shower.
I can, alternatively, enter metadata on each scan as they finish, touch them up in ACR, and have the whole job done a little after the last slide is scanned.
Since I use Viewscan I can save them as DNG files which have all the advantages of RAW files from my cameras.
I also have an Epson V700 and find that the scans it does of 35mm slides or film strips are not as sharp as those done on the Canoscan FS4000.

Dwiggy Loc: Dunedin, FL

I had several thousand and decided my time was more valuable then spending time scanning them. I highly recommend Scandigital. Great company and great customer service. https://scandigital.com/ It is not cheap having them scanned but it is worth it. Also, what are you going to do with the scanner once you are done with it??

fosis Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

The Epson V600 is wonderful and so is the 4490, but I'll make a suggestion to set the resolution at 2400 per inch because my own results haven't gotten any sharper/better at higher resolutions. That would save file size and time to scan. I've been told that the higher resolutions are done via interpolation, so that would make sense for my results. That 1:1 slide copying approach also sounds pretty good and likely faster, but the scanning sharpness, though slower, has worked very well for me.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Kodachrome is a difficult slide emulsion to scan. I don't know why that is, but it is.

I am assuming yours are all mounted, 35mm film transparencies (and hopefully not in glass mounts).

If the quality of the scans is important I would HIGHLY recommend a dedicated film scanner with a high-end scanning software, such as the Plustek 8200i AI (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/883631-REG/Plustek_783064365338_OpticFilm_8200i_Ai_Film.html). This is a 7200 dpi, 48 bit scanner with IR dust/scratch removal that comes with Silverfast AI Studio software, which is the very best s'ware in the scanner business. The only "problems" are that at most it scans 4 slides at a time... and that it costs $499.

There is also a $100 cheaper Plustek 8100i SE version with a "light" version of Silverfast software. {https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/980019-REG/plustek_783064365345_optic_film_8200ise_scanner.html) There's even a third that uses proprietary software instead of Silverfast, but that only offers $50 savings so I'd recommend at least the 8100i SE instead. Even better, though more, is the 8200i AI (you're essentially getting $250 worth of software for $150).

Since you state you have thousands of slides to scan, you might be interested in a scanner that can handle batch scanning of up to 50 slides at a time. Each individual slide scan will take some minutes when using the highest quality settings, so to do a batch I will set it up and let it run overnight, to come back to a folder full of scanned images in the morning (I use a different scanner, though, which is older and slower).

One of very few dedicated film scanners that can do batch scans is the Pacific Image PowerSlide X. It can handle up to 50 slides at a time. This is a 10,000 dpi, 48 bit scanner. The negatives are that it uses a proprietary software (I don't know how it compares to Silverfast, but I doubt it's as good)... And that it costs $899. But the only other widely available film scanner capable of batch scanning mounted 35mm slides that I know of is a Braun selling for around $3000!

None of the above dedicated film scanners can handle any larger than 35mm film (there may be means of scanning smaller formats such as 126 or 110, though I wouldn't expect to be able to make very large prints from those). There are film scanners for larger formats, but they're significantly higher priced and I'm guessing not what you need.

It's possible to scan multiple slides with a flatbed scanner, too, although nowhere near as many as the 50 slides the Pacific Image PowerSlide can accommodate.

The Epson flatbeds are the best of the flatbed type, but be prepared that they simply can't do as good scans as the above dedicated film scanners. They may be fine for your purposes, though. See notes below.

The Epson V600 is their more affordable model at $229, but also is the least capable (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/647187-REG/Epson_B11B198011_Perfection_V600_Photo_Scanner.html. It's 6400 dpi, 48 bit and has a rather low 3.4 D-max (dynamic range.... around 4 is much better). It can accommodate up to 4 mounted slides at a time.

The Epson V850 is better competition for a dedicated film scanner and batching, also 6400 dpi and 48 bit, but with a 4.0 D-max and the ability to scan up to 12 mounted slides at a time. (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1083201-REG/epson_b11b224201_perfection_v850_pro_scanner.html) A problem with the V850 is that it's also the most expensive of all these scanners at $1149.

When you scan multiple slides with a flatbed, I may be wrong, but pretty sure it will want to create one very large file that you'll need to "cut apart" later in an image editing software. At high resolution and quality settings this would make for a truly massive file, so make sure your computer can handle it. The dedicated film scanners, on the other hand, will create an individual file for each image. They will still be large... just nowhere near as large as the flatbed generates.

In addition to 35mm film the Epson V600 can handle up to medium format film, while the V850 can handle medium format and large format 4x5", 5x7" and 8x10" film. Of course, flatbeds also can be used to scan prints and documents up to 8.5x11".

If you ever want to make larger than 5x7" or 8x10" prints or make some other high-end use of the images, I'd recommend a dedicated scanner instead of a flatbed. Another tactic would be to do your scans now at moderate resolution, but be sure to safely archive the original slides so if you ever want to make bigger enlargements of one or a few select images you can send them out for professional scanning.

Also, while only two of the above scanners come with the Silverfast software I recommend, and one of those uses the "light" version that's not as capable, it's possible to separately purchase Silverfast for use with all of them. Of course, this is a cost on top of the purchase of the scanner itself. Silverfast AI Studio for the above scanners will cost between $249 and $400 (more if some optional items such as color calibration tools are added). If you go this route, be sure to check Silverfast compatibility with your computer. I know versions of it for some scanners aren't yet compatible with the latest Mac operating system, for example. www.silverfast.com is their website, with lots of good info.

I know all these prices might seem high. But if you are no longer shooting film and only need a scanner for these "several thousand" slides, once the job is done you can resell the scanner quite easily and might recoup much of your cost (though maybe not the cost of a software license, if it's bought separately as suggested above). In fact, because a lot of people do this, there's a thriving market of used film scanners. Another approach might be to purchase one of the above models or another relatively recent model with similar specifications used for some savings (such as Epson V750). I'd just be cautious about not buying too old a scanner. Some excellent ones from the more distant past can be tricky to set up and use with modern computers.... Compatibility issues. There may or may not be workarounds. For example, the Nikon I use had connectivity and software issued, which I was able to resolve satisfactorily... but it took some extra effort to sort out.

Something else I'd recommend.... whatever scanner you choose (other than the Powerslide with it's automated slide feeder), buy one or more extra sets of the slide holders. That way while one set is scanning you can be prepping the next batch. This will save time and gives you something to do while the scanner is working (which takes some time... though exactly how long varies depending upon the model and the quality settings you're using).

I know they're of limited help at the resolutions and sizes on the Internet, but all the following are scanned 35mm slide film (mostly Velvia 50, Ektachrome 100VS, Ektachrome 200) that I've printed as large as 11x14 and even 13x19". With a little more work I might be able to push them to 16x20" or 16x24" (but I don't have a printer that large).








Finally, here's a relatively recent and up-to-date discussion/article/video comparing flatbed versus dedicated versus drum (professional) scanning: https://petapixel.com/2020/01/29/film-scanning-shootout-drum-vs-fluid-mount-vs-dslr/ Note that the scans used for comparison are done from medium format film... not from considerably smaller 35mm like you'll be scanning, which is much more challenging to scan. Personally I wouldn't hesitate to use a flatbed for medium to large format film (or scanning prints)... But I'll stick with a dedicated film scanner for 35mm film.

P.S. If you decide NOT to buy a scanner, but to let someone else do the work for you.... There's a very big difference among "professional" scanning services. Reasonably low cost services will only give you small to moderate size JPEGs that are probably only going to be big enough to make a 5x7" print, at best. Most all the above scanners will produce much bigger and more enlargeable files. With this type service, also be sure to check if the return your film (some don't!) and whether or not they need to un-mount slides (most don't... but if so would need to be remounted... or might even cause damage in the un-mouting process.)

Of course, a low cost service might be able to provide you "proofs" of sufficient quality that you can use to later select from to send out a few for higher quality pro scanning.

At the other extreme, top-of-the line professional drum scanning will be better than any of the do-it-yourself scanners above can produce, not to mention a waaaayyy better than the low cost scanning services. However, each and every image scanned in this manner will be costly, so you will likely want to keep to just a few and only the very best images that you want to work with further.

al lehman Loc: San jose, ca.

Look at Plustek. They have several models to fit your needs. My plustek will remove dust marks and slide scratches with some minor color grading software. Scanning slides to obtain reasonable results takes lots of scan time. Be prepared for a lengthy process. Good luck.

k2edm Loc: FN32AD

I spent $750 for a slide scanner which automatically mangulled the slides (jammed). (these were slides from a carosel which did not damage the slides as some other projectors did ) anyway, after screwing around with it I finally launched it into the trash!!!! ($750!!!) finally ended up with a $250 Kodak slide scanner. fed slides to it one at a time and did about 5 or so a minute.. 45 carosels (80 & 140) later I finally got them all scanned.. (Kodak Scanza) BTW, kinda late to pass this on, but Airquip (?) manufactured a carosel for the Kodak projector which DID jam, the Kodak carosels worked perfectly...