twill65392 Loc: Loveland, Colorado

Recently retired, I have about 50 year's accumulation of family slides. I now have the time to scan them to a computer and need your input regarding which scanner to buy. I want to end up with top quality pictures for converting to prints.

safetyhat

Do you have any budget constraints ? Also, what size prints will you be making?

twill65392 Loc: Loveland, Colorado

At this stage, budget is not the top of the priority list. I just want to have the capability of poster size prints, if needed in the future. In the process of downsizing, we need to reduce the physical size of stored items and will likely dispose of the slides, once scanned.

safetyhat

I have an Epson V500 which I am using for 35mm slides but don't need to print larger than A4. Also, I have a fairly limited number of slides to scan, it take aound 10 minutes per set of 4 at 4800dpi, includes swapover time if I am quick.
Quality is fine for my purposes, I find that I have to PP every image, adjust the colour curve and a bit of sharpening.
If I were to be printing larger then I might have looked at something better (and a lot more expensive).
I have an issue with some slides that have a protective layer each side which is hampering the scanning, I have put them aside for now and deal with them all together, might have to cut the protective layers off.

Radioman Loc: Ontario Canada

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I have over 50 years of slides/35mm negs too. For scanning, I have used the Epson V600 - but for hi-res scans it takes a long time. I found a faster method - I found a Bowens Illumitran transparency duplicator at a Photographers flea market. It holds the slide/neg - has the light source and a bellows to put my own DSLR on. It has it's own lens. The price was right too.

Looking further, I found that there are a number of fairly cheap assemblies to hold slides in front of an DSLR camera. The quality of the copy is whatever the camera provides - but can be much better than any 'scanner'.

Beavis Loc: Tennessee

I recently digitized over 7,000 of my slides. The expense of having an outside source do was prohibitive and the slowness of scanning was terrible. What worked great for me was placing a slide on a slide viewbox (in my case an old dental x ray view box), I used a 100mm macro lens on my camera which was mounted on a tripod, being careful to keep the viewbox and the lens in the same parallel plane. I used a cable release to shoot the slide. I made a mark on the viewbox with a Sharpie so I would know where to place the slide. You can digitize you slides as fast as you can change slides on the viewbox and click the cable release. I usually did about 100 a night taking about an hour and a half.

2 Dog Don Loc: Virginia Beach VA

Look on ebay for the ION scanner it can be had for less then $50. I used one to scan slides from over 50 years ago. I have attached an image scanned from a slide taken in 1964 on a range finder camera.

Bunko.T Loc: Western Australia.

I'm part way thru 3000 of my parents slides. I feel that the small dedicated to slides units don't give the best results.
I have a multi canon Pr,Sc,Copy unit which does slides & it does up to 9600dpi res. Usefull for speccy pic's if you come across them.
I recently bought an Epson V500 scanner which does slides & old B&W negs from yesteryear. It is giving me grief. Not sure if it's a dud or I am.
If the slides have been hanging around for ever, be sure there'll be lots of dirt, age spots etc, which do show up. A good scanner will eliminate that to a degree. This Epson does that when it works properly.
Man it's a slow job but satisfying.My ffolks travelled Australia back in the 60s to the 90s. I'm gobsmacked at the places & sights they saw & photographed. Not the best reproduction on some but great scenes. PP does a lot to improve them. All the best in your [ad]venture.

safetyhat

I am thinking of buying a slide copier for slides I want the max detail from. Is this the way to go? The AICO T2 mount seem quite cheap. Anybody used them ?

cocobolo Loc: East Coast, Canada

For what it is worth here is my advice based upon how I solved the problem you are facing. Last winter I decided to scan several hundred slides from many thousands that I had accumulated over the years.

I looked at the option of buying my own scanner but being retired and not having deep pockets, I was very aware of the cost of a decent unit.

I checked out the price of scanning commercially and it was just prohibitive for me.

Having realized that I could either buy a cheap scanner and settle for less than satisfactory results or pay a lot to buy a high quality scanner which I would only use once, I found a solution.

I was able to find a commercial printer who offered scanning services and discovered that I could rent their scanner - a top of the line Nikon - on a weekly basis for a reasonable price - $75 .

Having sorted through my slides, I rented the scanner and then dedicated a full week to doing nothing but scanning, a rather boring process, but at the end of the week I had achieved my goal.

I hope this helps you in your venture.

twill65392 Loc: Loveland, Colorado

Thank you all for your input. Everyone made good points. I will consider all before making the decision. Good day to all.

photoman022 Loc: Manchester CT USA

I heartily recommend my Epson V500. It is inexpensive, quickly does its work and you won't be disappointed with the results you get from your slides. I bought it for the price but keep it because it is just that great. Plus, the included a free edition of Photoshop Elements 9 with mine and I'm finally learning to use PSE9.

twill65392 Loc: Loveland, Colorado

Thank you.