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Digitizing slides....help!!
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Jun 21, 2022 06:47:02   #
Gatorcoach Loc: New Jersey
 
I finally got started on my long awaited project of digitizing a dozen or so trays of slides dating back over 50 years. I was stimulated because my 50 year anniversary is coming up and one of the reels is my wedding and honeymoon.

I decided to use good equipment: Nikon D750, micro Nikkor 60mm 1.2, Nikon ES-2 adapter, and process them in Lightroom Classic.

Took the pictures outside in fairly bright sunlight, shot RAW, manual focus, AP at f8 so the shutter speed ranged from 1/40-1/320.

The slides were in good condition considering their age and the color shift on most seemed manageable. Side note – they were mostly almost all Kodachrome, Ecktachrome, Agfachrome, and a number of purchased slides. The most color shift occurred in the commercial slides followed by Kodachrome & Ektachrome, and the least (by far) with the Agfachrome...nothing significant but interesting.

In camera they looked good, in focus, and sharp but after importing them into LR I was devastated. I knew it would be a bit of work getting the color, balance, and light correct but the focus was awful; soft and fuzzy! Sharpening was impossible.

Not only was I not able to get them sharp they weren’t even passable.

I took the adapter off and took some shots with just the lens and they were fine.

What I did not do was shoot them as jpgs. Should I have?

I have attached two originals.

Any thoughts and suggestions, other than use an X-brand scanner or different equipment would be appreciated.


(Download)


(Download)

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Jun 21, 2022 07:24:41   #
Grey Ghost
 
I have a plustek 35mm slide scanner in near mint condition that I will sell for $75. I no longer have a need for the scanner. Please PM me if interested.

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Jun 21, 2022 07:25:18   #
Grey Ghost
 
I have a plustek 35mm slide scanner in near mint condition that I will sell for $75. I no longer have a need for the scanner. Please PM me if interested.

Reply
 
 
Jun 21, 2022 07:25:19   #
Grey Ghost
 
I have a plustek 35mm slide scanner in near mint condition that I will sell for $75. I no longer have a need for the scanner. Please PM me if interested.

Reply
Jun 21, 2022 07:25:36   #
Grey Ghost
 
I have a plustek 35mm slide scanner in near mint condition that I will sell for $75. I no longer have a need for the scanner. Please PM me if interested.

Reply
Jun 21, 2022 07:28:32   #
Robertl594 Loc: Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and Nantucket
 
That’s a project! I also had tons of slides and 8mm and Super 8 film rolls. I researched the best way to do this, knowing that it would take a very long time to do. I found a company called Digmypics who specializes in digitizing photos. They shipped me a box, I sent all off to them and in no time, I had all of my old film and slides cleaned, digitized and color corrected. They sent me my old pictures back and sent me a usb stick and a link to download all. I was pleased.

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Jun 21, 2022 07:37:33   #
BebuLamar
 
I think you do fine and the color I would get looks close to the slides but if I were you I would try to correct the color.

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Jun 21, 2022 08:03:26   #
CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City
 
Use a scanner, not a camera. I've done both. The camera is a miserable process with inferior results.

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Jun 21, 2022 09:22:15   #
pendennis
 
CHG_CANON wrote:
Use a scanner, not a camera. I've done both. The camera is a miserable process with inferior results.


Amen!

I also had/have over 15K transparencies of all sorts of formats, emulsions, etc. I chose an Epson V850 for the project, and I've also scanned in about 5K negatives, so far. Since I'm no longer interested in projecting them, I dismounted every slide and scanned from there. The software for scanning is varied, and I learned, in short order, to select scanning software based on the particular logarithms. It was also amazing just how much color shifting had occurred, and all my transparencies have been stored in a low-humidity temp-controlled environment.

The end result is that I got results that far exceeded the original intent. No matter how you exposed the originals, the image was/is a compromise. When I went to post-processing, the colors could be adjusted, and any color shift corrected. The worst problem was with a slight violet shift in Ektachrome, but easily corrected.

As for dismounting, I don't do any slide shows, and my Ektagraphic projector has been gathering dust for years. I put the slides in acid-free envelopes by subject and date, and they are now filed away.

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Jun 21, 2022 09:35:23   #
therwol Loc: USA
 
Gatorcoach wrote:
I finally got started on my long awaited project of digitizing a dozen or so trays of slides dating back over 50 years. I was stimulated because my 50 year anniversary is coming up and one of the reels is my wedding and honeymoon.

I decided to use good equipment: Nikon D750, micro Nikkor 60mm 1.2, Nikon ES-2 adapter, and process them in Lightroom Classic.

Took the pictures outside in fairly bright sunlight, shot RAW, manual focus, AP at f8 so the shutter speed ranged from 1/40-1/320.

The slides were in good condition considering their age and the color shift on most seemed manageable. Side note – they were mostly almost all Kodachrome, Ecktachrome, Agfachrome, and a number of purchased slides. The most color shift occurred in the commercial slides followed by Kodachrome & Ektachrome, and the least (by far) with the Agfachrome...nothing significant but interesting.

In camera they looked good, in focus, and sharp but after importing them into LR I was devastated. I knew it would be a bit of work getting the color, balance, and light correct but the focus was awful; soft and fuzzy! Sharpening was impossible.

Not only was I not able to get them sharp they weren’t even passable.

I took the adapter off and took some shots with just the lens and they were fine.

What I did not do was shoot them as jpgs. Should I have?

I have attached two originals.

Any thoughts and suggestions, other than use an X-brand scanner or different equipment would be appreciated.
I finally got started on my long awaited project o... (show quote)


These photos of slides are simply out of focus. This is apparent after downloading and magnifying the images. You can try again by focusing manually in the live view mode while magnifying the image on the back of the camera to get the focus just right. Keep in mind too that the depth of field at that range from camera to slide is razor thin and that slides are always warped to some degree. Each one should be focused individually. Also try stopping the lens down even more for better depth of field but keep in mind that diffraction may come into play at f/22-f/32.

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Jun 21, 2022 09:41:07   #
therwol Loc: USA
 
CHG_CANON wrote:
Use a scanner, not a camera. I've done both. The camera is a miserable process with inferior results.


I've done both with roughly equivalent results. I think that the camera method is a bit more tedious. For best results, my camera was tethered to a computer which assisted in the process of precisely focusing on each slide. (I've done color negatives too. That's a different ballgame when reversing them. You need dedicated software. It's almost impossible to do correctly in a photo editor.)

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Jun 21, 2022 09:47:16   #
Gatorcoach Loc: New Jersey
 
therwol wrote:
These photos of slides are simply out of focus. This is apparent after downloading and magnifying the images. You can try again by focusing manually in the live view mode while magnifying the image on the back of the camera to get the focus just right. Keep in mind too that the depth of field at that range from camera to slide is razor thin and that slides are always warped to some degree. Each one should be focused individually. Also try stopping the lens down even more for better depth of field but keep in mind that diffraction may come into play at f/22-f/32.
These photos of slides are simply out of focus. T... (show quote)


Thank you for the first useful answer. I mentioned in the original posting I'm not interested in recommendations for scanners. I was looking for reasons and/or suggestions using my current process. I'll shoot a few of them over again using liveview. Any thoughts about shoting RAW vs. Jpg or Photoshop vs. LR?

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Jun 21, 2022 10:04:56   #
therwol Loc: USA
 
Gatorcoach wrote:
Thank you for the first useful answer. I mentioned in the original posting I'm not interested in recommendations for scanners. I was looking for reasons and/or suggestions using my current process. I'll shoot a few of them over again using liveview. Any thoughts about shoting RAW vs. Jpg or Photoshop vs. LR?


I can only tell you what I did. I didn't experiment. I shot RAW and did the post processing in Photoshop. There is no disadvantage to doing it this way, but you may get decent results with JPEGS and Lightroom as well.

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Jun 21, 2022 10:06:16   #
Gatorcoach Loc: New Jersey
 
OK, thanks again. Much appreciated

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Jun 21, 2022 10:18:53   #
therwol Loc: USA
 
Gatorcoach wrote:
Thank you for the first useful answer. I mentioned in the original posting I'm not interested in recommendations for scanners. I was looking for reasons and/or suggestions using my current process. I'll shoot a few of them over again using liveview. Any thoughts about shoting RAW vs. Jpg or Photoshop vs. LR?


In case you didn't catch it, I suggested magnifying the Live View image using the + button to achieve critical focus. Depending on the slides, you may even be able to focus on the grain in the images. If you end up with an part of the image with no detail, you can move the magnified image around to find a better part to focus on.

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