35mm Slide Scanner

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 Chopper 29 Oct 2020

I've got several hundred 35mm slides which I want to copy to digital format. I would prefer to do this myself rather than get it done commercially so that I can make any adjustments and touching up that might be needed. It will also enable me to do the transfers on an as and when basis.

Can anyone recommend a good, moderately priced scanner please.

Thanks.

 Doug 29 Oct 2020
In reply to Chopper:

I have one which is good bought from Jessops but many years ago. But if you search you'll find several threads asking similar questions, one quite recently. You'll also find lots of folk saying how time consuming it can be.

 LucaC 29 Oct 2020
In reply to Doug:

There was another thread about this recently. My lockdown project was scanning nearly 2000 35mm colour slides. I used an Epson perfection v800.

My top tip for saving time is buy a second slide holder so you can be setting up the next batch whilst one scans. 

OP Chopper 29 Oct 2020
In reply to Doug:

Thanks. The time consumption is no big problem

 timparkin 29 Oct 2020
In reply to Chopper:

The best you'll get bar a professional drum scanner is the Minolta D'Image Scan Elite 5400

It's head and shoulders above everything bar machines that cost a few thousand pounds second hand (and that weight 100kg+). 

I'd buy one second hand, do your job and then sell it on (or rent it out to people and make a fortune). 

Buy one for around £450 and you'll sell for the same, if not more.

Tim

 ali.scott 29 Oct 2020
In reply to Chopper:

I would avoid Epson flatbeds for 35mm as imo they just don't have the resolution for a small frame. Go for a dedicated 35mm scanner off eBay, e.g. a Minolta Dimage 5400, Nikon Coolscan 4000/5000 or a Plustek Opticfilm. They're a bit more expensive but hold their value well and you shouldn't lose money if/when you want to resell.

They are generally a lot slower overall than using an Epson, though, so you might have to make a decision on whether you want speed or resolution.

Alternatively, if you have a good digital camera and a macro lens you could look at camera 'scanning', which works surprisingly well and can be very quick once you have a good setup. 

Post edited at 10:43
 greg_may_ 29 Oct 2020
In reply to Chopper:

Plustek here - currently scanning while marking school work

As others have said, make sure to get a second set of mounts. It is time consuming. I tend to batch scan while doing other tasks to break it up!

 kevin stephens 29 Oct 2020
In reply to ali.scott:

> I would avoid Epson flatbeds for 35mm as imo they just don't have the resolution for a small frame. Go for a dedicated 35mm scanner off eBay, e.g. a Minolta Dimage 5400, Nikon Coolscan 4000/5000 or a Plustek Opticfilm. They're a bit more expensive but hold their value well and you shouldn't lose money if/when you want to resell.

> They are generally a lot slower overall than using an Epson, though, so you might have to make a decision on whether you want speed or resolution.

I've got a Minolta Dimage 5400 which is superb if you can get one second hand, it is particularly good at filtering out dust and other defects on old slides .  The original software is obsolete so you would have to buy some third party software from VueScan or similar to run it with modern operating systems

 Howard J 29 Oct 2020
In reply to Chopper:

It is possible to hire slide scanners by the week.  I haven't tried it myself but it's on my to-do list for the winter.

 kevin stephens 29 Oct 2020
In reply to Howard J:

I'm not ware of any.  How about buying a used one off ebay and selling it after you have finished?

I was amazed to see I could sell my 15 year old Minolta for more than I bought it new!

 Rob Exile Ward 29 Oct 2020
In reply to Chopper:

I'm using a plustec 8200i with additional Vuescan software, and I'm chuffed with it -- the scans are at least as good as the original slides!

It's going to be a long project, so I purchased the thing.

 Al Todd 07 Nov 2020

I’d also recommend the Minolta Dimage 5400 with which I’ve scanned over 4000 slides. It’s a dedicated slide and negatives scanner and consequently the quality is superb with all the controls you need to change resolution, image size, digitally remove dust & scratches etc. As with all decent scanners its a slow process but well worth it seeing images come back to life especially those where exposure wasn’t originally correct. 

 Kimberley 07 Nov 2020
In reply to Howard J:

Yes, you can hire, just google it
heres an example http://www.jonasabbott.co.uk/rental-reflecta-digitdia-6000-slide-scanner-hi...

Post edited at 08:56
In reply to Chopper:

I have a Nikon Coolscan 4000 ED from when I used slides and love it, however it uses software that no longer runs on Windows 10 so I have to dig out an old laptop to run it. I still occasionally shoot film so it does get used, it produces 4000x2600 files and has good dust removal software. Out of interest I looked one up on ebay and they go for c£500!

 kevin stephens 07 Nov 2020
In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

VueScan do software that enables most legacy scanners to run on Windows 10. It works well on my Minolta 5400

 Sean Kelly 07 Nov 2020
In reply to timparkin:

> The best you'll get bar a professional drum scanner is the Minolta D'Image Scan Elite 5400

> It's head and shoulders above everything bar machines that cost a few thousand pounds second hand (and that weight 100kg+). 

I also have a Minolta Dimage scanner which unfortunately won't connect to my new PC until I can find some sort of new lead.  But it is very good for the money. Professional scanners use a drum  to achieve the scan which does give impressive results and worth it for just a couple of top quality slides. Scans are better off colour negatives than trannies which can be too contrasty and have a courser grain structure.

In reply to kevin stephens:

Thanks - I will look into that. I found the cleaning software Nikon ICE really useful when scanning old slides but maybe Vuescan mimics that feature.

 timparkin 07 Nov 2020
In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

> Thanks - I will look into that. I found the cleaning software Nikon ICE really useful when scanning old slides but maybe Vuescan mimics that feature.

Don't forget that the scanner needs infra red feature to be able to use ICE correctly. 

In reply to timparkin:

Tell me more about this please - I often wondered why ICE was never available on mono scans, is this connected?

 Frank R. 07 Nov 2020
In reply to kevin stephens:

VueScan works great in bringing old scanners to life but the one guy behind it is hopelessly stuck in the 90s of User Interface "design" with little quirks that make Windows 3.0 look modern! It's one of the most frustrating apps I have ever used, period. Unfortunately (or fortunately, as I am glad that at least something exists for my scanner, of course!) it's the only option.

Post edited at 21:23
 kevin stephens 07 Nov 2020
In reply to Frank R.:

> VueScan works great in bringing old scanners to life but the one guy behind it is hopelessly stuck in the 90s of User Interface "design" 

That's a plus for those of us old enough to have large collections of 35mm slides

 Frank R. 08 Nov 2020
In reply to kevin stephens:

I get that, but even in the 90s there were apps with great UI - this is just not one of them 

I don't need any fancy interfaces either, but hunting for such basic options that just set the correct filename for both DNG and JPG files to be the same (sic!) hidden in five separate preference tabs is not old school, it's just bad.

Other than the UI, it's a great app - the author went to great pains to reverse engineer all the proprietary protocols and my hat off to him for that, supporting esoteric old scanners on 64-bit modern systems, it's just I'd actually prefer it to be command line only - might be less frustrating to use!

 timparkin 08 Nov 2020
In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

> Tell me more about this please - I often wondered why ICE was never available on mono scans, is this connected?

Yes it is related.

Colour film is transparent (mostly) to infrared light and hence if you scan in IR you just get an image of the dust on the film (which isn't transparent). Then your software can use this 'dust map' to use heal/clone to get rid of the dust. 

Black and white film contains silver and is not uniformly transparent to IR and hence you can't make a map of just the dust. If you want to have the benefit of dust removal with pure black and white film, you'd have to use C41 black and white. 

 timparkin 08 Nov 2020
In reply to Frank R.:

> VueScan works great in bringing old scanners to life but the one guy behind it is hopelessly stuck in the 90s of User Interface "design" with little quirks that make Windows 3.0 look modern! It's one of the most frustrating apps I have ever used, period. Unfortunately (or fortunately, as I am glad that at least something exists for my scanner, of course!) it's the only option.

Personally, I'd rather run an old PC (which you can get for peanuts) and have it dedicated to driving your scanner. The advantage that it doesn't block your using your own PC when scanning. I run three dedicated machines, one for each scanner I run (we run a drum scanning service - if anybody wants to see just how good film can look, feel free to send a test scan to us which we'll process for free). 

In reply to timparkin:

Thanks for this - I do use XP2 and I will try scanning it as C41.


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