Slides to digital (Page 2): Years ago I had a $100 or so Pacific Image slide scanner that did a fantastic job. My old model isn't made any more, but I see B&H is selling newer Pacific...

F8 Forever Loc: Lng Island, NY

Years ago I had a $100 or so Pacific Image slide scanner that did a fantastic job. My old model isn't made any more, but I see B&H is selling newer Pacific Image ones that should (hopefully) be at least as good.

I also had a bellows with a Leica thread for micro/macro work that did the job with enlarger lenses, but setup was always tricky. If not using flash, watch your light source when doing that-- adjust your camera to whatever light temp you have. And make sure the source is full spectrum.

Projected pictures off the wall? Yeah why not... But, if it's not much more work or expense, why not get the better quality from other ways?

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

cat30 wrote:

Hi- new guy here.
I have thousands of slides from the golden age of film photography of course now I am thinking of updating them to digital format. Wondering if anyone has projected them on a wall or screen and shooting them with digital camera. Might be faster than s scan them with scanner I would need to buy. Quality of scan less important than maintaining the image.
Thanks
Don

I've used ScanCafe. Otherwise -

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.photos.scanner&hl=en
http://opteka.com/slidecopier.aspx
https://smile.amazon.com/Wolverine-Super-20MP-Digital-Converter/dp/B00GIDADP0/ref=smi_www_rco2_go_smi_g2609328962?_encoding=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0&ie=UTF8
http://www.scancafe.com/services/slide-scanning

Biglemon Loc: Briarclff manor,ny

Please be more especific.what kind of Bellows?

F8 Forever Loc: Lng Island, NY

Biglemon wrote:

Please be more especific.what kind of Bellows?

Eh?

Just yer plain ol' Novoflex bellows to fit a plain ol' Exakta a long time ago. Absolutely nothing special or automatic, but with a good lens it worked very well with Panatomic-X or Kodachrome. One of the neat things about the Exakta was the cute knife by the film cartridge so you could snip off just a couple of frames and change back to your usual film.

Biglemon Loc: Briarclff manor,ny

Thanks

cthahn

It will b e so time consuming that you will never do it.

rmm0605 Loc: Atlanta GA

cat30 wrote:

Hi- new guy here.
I have thousands of slides from the golden age of film photography of course now I am thinking of updating them to digital format. Wondering if anyone has projected them on a wall or screen and shooting them with digital camera. Might be faster than s scan them with scanner I would need to buy. Quality of scan less important than maintaining the image.
Thanks
Don

Hi cat30,
No way. I scanned all nthousands of my slides, both 35mm and medium format. Results were good. I was surprised at how many less-than-spectacular photos I had taken and saved!

cat30

Good chance to edit down- with some perspective, some pictures can be tossed. Bad ones were originally tossed, now mediocre ones don't need to be saved for posterity!

jeryh Loc: Oxfordshire UK

Quality of scan IS the image ! You could get a used epson scanner very reasonably, and it would do a much better job than trying to capture/ photographing a projected image; dicey/time consuming to say the least.

lbjed Loc: New York

Have done it that way. Not bad but make sure the background is devoid of color.

cat30 wrote:

Hi- new guy here.
I have thousands of slides from the golden age of film photography of course now I am thinking of updating them to digital format. Wondering if anyone has projected them on a wall or screen and shooting them with digital camera. Might be faster than s scan them with scanner I would need to buy. Quality of scan less important than maintaining the image.
Thanks
Don

FloydP Loc: Arvada, CO

One suggestion: Pick up a slide scanner from ebay, scan your slides, then resell the scanner on ebay. Did this several years ago. Got back cost of scanner within a couple dollars.

lsimpkins Loc: SE Pennsylvania

PixelStan77 wrote:

Don, why not just save the projector with a spare bulb? Easier and it meets your objective of maintaining the image?
A white wall is better than a beaded screen.
Welcome to UHH

Not quite true about maintaining the image. All film, including slides, will degrade over time, so the sooner they are digitized the better.

suterjo Loc: Delaplane, VA

I haven't read all of the advice you're gotten but I would suggest that given today's scanner technology, you can get acceptable results using a decent scanner. If have some slides that you want to print to a high quality (eg: 16x20), a higher resolution scanner is available at your local photo store.

I've probably got a couple of thousand slide that I'm slowly scanning. It's time consuming but I can scan them at 50-75 at a wack. I also inherited my mother's collection of Kodachrome slides from around the world which I'm scanning. The good news there is that the color dyes in Kodachrome is good pretty much forever.

chasgroh Loc: Buena Park, CA

jim quist wrote:

This attaches to your lens and you can just photograph each one. The fastest way to get the job done.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=slide%20duplicator&N=0&InitialSearch=yes&sts=ma&Top+Nav-Search=

I have the Bowers one and it works fine! Very quick compared to a scanner but you have to do all the corrections that modern scanner technology affords...

watebo

This works very well.