Shel B wrote:
This old dog is trying to learn some new tricks. It's cold here in the Lost River Valley of Central Idaho...so... my wife dumped boxes and boxes of old slides and negatives in my lap and told me to do something with them. I'm talking a few thousand images taken from 1970-1990. There are 35mm slides, 35mm negatives, 120 transparencies and negs, 645 slides and negs, and a few 4x5 transparencies and negs. I guess you know what the question is. How can I convert these to digital? Can I scan them? Do today's scanners produce good enough resolution to print, say 20x24 inch prints? I have copied quite a few of the 35mm slides using a macro lens and slide copier. It's mostly the larger transparencies and negatives that I don't know how to deal with. I need advice.
This old dog is trying to learn some new tricks. ... (
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You can scan them. You can also put a light behind the image and copy them with your digital camera. You would need a macro lens. Nikon makes an adapter to go in front of two of their macro lenses that holds both slides and negatives, but you can build one yourself with a little bit of work. There are plenty of youtube videos of how to copy slides with your camera. One thing of note - the results work much better with some slides than others. If the slide has a lot of contrast then you are probably going to have to scan them. The problem with scanning is if you make the scan a very large file size it takes a lot of time to scan an image. The problem with copying them with your camera is keeping your exposure and focus accurate, but either system can work.
btbg wrote:
You can scan them. You can also put a light behind the image and copy them with your digital camera. You would need a macro lens. Nikon makes an adapter to go in front of two of their macro lenses that holds both slides and negatives, but you can build one yourself with a little bit of work. There are plenty of youtube videos of how to copy slides with your camera. One thing of note - the results work much better with some slides than others. If the slide has a lot of contrast then you are probably going to have to scan them. The problem with scanning is if you make the scan a very large file size it takes a lot of time to scan an image. The problem with copying them with your camera is keeping your exposure and focus accurate, but either system can work.
You can scan them. You can also put a light behind... (
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Indeed a slide copier for a lens has been around fifty years or more. But the results will not be better than the shortcomings of shooting the shot twice. So if you need quality with your archive---get any of the high quality 35mm scanners they have had since the nineties or what I suggested for large negs---the Epson V700 with all the film masks and a good book on scanning software for the V700. It is not easy and if you want digital quality you can't take a short cut and merely use a Nikon slide camera copier. I have one of those from the 1970s or maybe the 1960s---of course they have not changed from iilm to ditital---all compromised compared to a good slide digital 35mm copier.-----ew
I have struggled with the problem of old slides, looked at inexpensive slide duplicators and was not satisfied and here’s my quick and dirty method. First a bit of background. I’m 86 years and have been using an Exakta SLR since the late 50s. Took slides of our 4 kids until my wife complained about the hassle of looking at them, and insisted that on switch to prints. What to do with those old slides if the kids?
My kids are confirmed cell phone or I-pad users, so I didn’t have the need to make ultimate resolution copiers. They would only use an iPad ro look at them. I set up my old slide projector, a LaBelle, that could holf 175 slides and projected them onto a piece of foam care, which is grainless and dead white to a size of about 24 inches wide. Set my Canon Rebel 4ti on a tripod and photographed each slide in sequence. Experimented with aperature to get the best resolution and went to work. My biggest problem came about with portrait format mixed into landscape formats. I ran through all slides, photographing the landscapes first, then re-orientating the camera and reshooting only the portrait ones. This used the full area is the sensor. The only downside is that the file resulting numbers in the sequence taken, all the landscapes first and then the portraits. On an iPad, they look great, and that’s the way the kids will,ever look at them.
The use of foamcore is critical. First attempts with a glass bead screen and them a ridged silver screen wert ruined because the granularity was evident in the pictures. The projected size was about 24 inches wide and I adjusted the camera zoom to about midrange and distance the camera distance to the screen for best resolution.
Dick Lucas
OldSchool-WI wrote:
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Indeed a slide copier for a lens has been around fifty years or more. But the results will not be better than the shortcomings of shooting the shot twice. So if you need quality with your archive---get any of the high quality 35mm scanners they have had since the nineties or what I suggested for large negs---the Epson V700 with all the film masks and a good book on scanning software for the V700. It is not easy and if you want digital quality you can't take a short cut and merely use a Nikon slide camera copier. I have one of those from the 1970s or maybe the 1960s---of course they have not changed from iilm to ditital---all compromised compared to a good slide digital 35mm copier.-----ew
______________________(reply) br br Indeed a slid... (
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The Epson V700 and V750 can only be found used. Epson has moved on to the V800 and now V850. Independent reviews conclude that all of these scanners are equivalent in terms of results, but if you want a brand new V850, it will set you back $1299. These are the premier flatbed scanners for film, and they can handle multiple formats, even large format film. Keep in mind that if your goal is to scan only 35mm film and slides, some dedicated film scanners may give better results. As for photographing negatives and slides, if it is done properly with the right equipment and macro lens, results can match those of a scanner. I can say this because I've done it myself.
May have to try this, Thanks!
rcl285 wrote:
I have struggled with the problem of old slides, looked at inexpensive slide duplicators and was not satisfied and here’s my quick and dirty method. First a bit of background. I’m 86 years and have been using an Exakta SLR since the late 50s. Took slides of our 4 kids until my wife complained about the hassle of looking at them, and insisted that on switch to prints. What to do with those old slides if the kids?
My kids are confirmed cell phone or I-pad users, so I didn’t have the need to make ultimate resolution copiers. They would only use an iPad ro look at them. I set up my old slide projector, a LaBelle, that could holf 175 slides and projected them onto a piece of foam care, which is grainless and dead white to a size of about 24 inches wide. Set my Canon Rebel 4ti on a tripod and photographed each slide in sequence. Experimented with aperature to get the best resolution and went to work. My biggest problem came about with portrait format mixed into landscape formats. I ran through all slides, photographing the landscapes first, then re-orientating the camera and reshooting only the portrait ones. This used the full area is the sensor. The only downside is that the file resulting numbers in the sequence taken, all the landscapes first and then the portraits. On an iPad, they look great, and that’s the way the kids will,ever look at them.
The use of foamcore is critical. First attempts with a glass bead screen and them a ridged silver screen wert ruined because the granularity was evident in the pictures. The projected size was about 24 inches wide and I adjusted the camera zoom to about midrange and distance the camera distance to the screen for best resolution.
Dick Lucas
I have struggled with the problem of old slides, l... (
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Although your method is the solution for your purpose, I am writing to congratulate you on having chosen the Exakta camera, the KING of cameras in the 35mm film line. Particularly with good German lenses like the Schneider Xenon F: 1.9, or the Zeiss Sonnar. I use an Exakta today and use the lenses on various digital bodies with adapters. As for digitizing my slides---I only digitize a few special ones with a dedicated slide digitizer---otherwise I will continue to watch on my 6ft beaded screen.-----ew
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