John N Loc: HP14 3QF Stokenchurch, UK

I've acquired (2nd hand) a budget slide digitiser. For a tenner I wasn't going to go wrong.

It's a Neostar and what looks to be an identical product is still for sale under the Kenro brand, albeit with a bigger chip.

I'm using this to convert slides, mainly to keep or to bin, with the intention of getting a better copier once I've sorted the wheat from the chaff - or to send to a professional copier.

Just wondering if anyone has used one of these and a more 'professional' copier such as an Epson or a Plustek and could describe the improvement made in the image.

Tall ask, and early days, but I want to get some idea of where to go.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Scan to the highest pixel resolution possible. You'd have to identify the specific model to provide more detailed 'how to' or 'what to avoid' guidance. I've found automated dust and scratch clean-up is helpful, but sharpening is usually embarrassing, making the image worse. Rather than automated edits, plan to edit the resulting JPEGs in your preferred digital editor, hence the idea to scan to the highest possible pixel resolution.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

I wrote a white paper on copying film a while back. It's the PDF file linked here:

Camera Scanning.pdf opens in your favorite PDF reader.
Attached file:
(Download)

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

By the way, for those who want to copy black-and-white and color negatives, in addition to old slides, Negative Lab Pro 3.02 is out. I bought it this weekend, on sale. It takes the old Negative Lab Pro to new efficiencies and better accuracy. I HIGHLY recommend it. NLP requires Lightroom Classic, as it is a plug-in for that software.

Hip Coyote

I downloaded that...exceptional information.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Thanks! I've digitized thousands with that setup. It works great.

bbq4270 Loc: Blainville, Quebec Canada

Great information, thanks

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Andrew Clifforth, who sells the Essential Film Holder mentioned in my white paper, has it on sale just now:

https://clifforth.co.uk It is updated from the one I bought, and about half the original price I paid in 2019.

therwol Loc: USA

The last Neostar scanner I looked up claims 3200 dpi for 14 MP images. An earlier model produces 5 MP images.

I used an Epson V800 to scan thousands of negatives and slides. Results were quite good. Having said that, here is a reality check on film and slide scanners. They all seem to claim to be capable of scans at very high dpi, up to 9600 in some cases. The limitation on all of them is the optical resolution of the scanner. Scanning higher than that is a waste of time and produces huge files.

Browse some of the new and old scanners tested on this site.

https://www.filmscanner.info/en/FilmscannerTestberichte.html

The enormously popular Epson V600 is only capable of a real-world 1600 dpi equivalent, no matter how high you crank up the dpi. The Epson V7xx and V8xx scanners max out at around 2500 dpi. Some scanners from Plustek and a few others get into the 4000 dpi range.

I scanned all of my black and white 35mm negatives at 2400 dpi. That's right at the practical limit of my Epson V800 scanner. I tried 3200 dpi and noticed a tiny improvement when scanning slides and only when pixel peeping. The only reason I can think of to scan much higher would be an advantage in making very large prints, but there wouldn't be any great improvement in detail.

Having said that, try out your scanner and see if you're satisfied with the results. There is no need to chase after something else if you are.

jcboy3

Scanning slides is slow work. If you have a lot of them, the most efficient way to do that is to take an image with your camera using a macro lens (for the flat focal plane and minimum distortion).

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Good conclusion. I sold my V600 once I figured out how bad it was on 35mm film. I'd been an audiovisual producer in the 1980s, So copying slides to slides was something I'd done for eight years, thousands of times a year. I knew I could buy a macro lens for my digital camera and do a faster, better job than the scanner. Once I figured out the logistics, I was set. It was a huge improvement over the V600.

topcat Loc: Alameda, CA

Thank you