The MIL has a few packs of slides from old holidays etc and wants to view them and perhaps access them easily in the future.
I suggested a digital scanner but I’ve never used one so wondered what I should be looking for.
Basic quality is fine as the originals are not top notch quality anyway.
If anyone has one they would be prepared to loan, (I’d obviously cover the postage) then that would be smashing.
Thanks.

As it happens, I’m in the same position. If we know of a place, we can certainly do a bulk buy…

Let’s hold out for a generous forum member for now! 😀

My mate does this – info@digitiseyourphotos.co.uk

Digitise Your Slides

Drop him a an email – I’m sure he’ll give you some pointers as to equipment etc

Buy a viewer such as http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hama-Slide-Viewer-Battery-powered/dp/B00005QF9T. Use this to identify what’s worth keeping and what’s not.

Then either

A) Pay someone like tiggs121’s mate to scan them, £0.50 a slide it looks like. This is good value when you add up the amount of time it’ll take you with option B

B) buy a decent secondhand scanner on eBay, use then sell on. £150 upwards

The new cheapo scanners on eBay or Amazon aren’t worth the money.

I’ve got a cheap USB scanner that I got from Aldi a few years ago. It certainly did a good enough job for us – you;re welcome to take it on extended loan Rachel if you;re passing this way

edit – it;s this one

http://chalkhillroad.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/aldi-tevion-scanner.html

We had no problems using it

What do you mean Rachel can borrow it…I started this thread! 😉

It’s a good point to check which are worth copying as much like flicking through photos, some will be easily passed over.

if you are anywhere near west cornwall i can lend you an epson scanner thats great for that.

failing that buy a used one locally on ebay. i bought a 3170 a few years back for peanuts. and i also have a 4800 (i think) that i was given.

Yorkshire!

The cheaper ones like that Aldi one are just cameras that take one picture. A true scanner moves along the image and scans it. That’s the crucial difference for good quality consistant results

I know, but I know Rachel 😉

This item did a fairly good job for a friend recently

http://www.mymemory.co.uk/PC-Accessories/iPhotojet/iPhotojet-Smartphone-Photo-and-Negative-Scanner

Back in the day when scanning slides was cutting edge I made a living from it.

For home use I had one of these.

If you want to borrow one let me know: its probably total overkill for snaps. You;ll need to learn the basics and will probably only work with XP (xp drivers available: not sure about later).

While this machine was the dog’s doofers for home users back in the day: it is SLOOOOOW by today’s standards.

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2001_reviews/canoscan4000.html#conclusion

For a decent quality scanner, look at the Plustek Opticfilm. Looks like the latest version is the Opticfilm 8100 or 8200, cost about £200.

I didn’t really like the software included with mine, so I recommend using Vuescan instead. Also it is worth getting a scanner with infrared dust/scratch removal, this helps a lot if the slides are not in great condition.

Though it rather slow, especially if you want to tweak each slide. So if you have loads of boxes of slides, it will take a long time.

😆 thanks!

Rachel

There is an alternative way to digitize slides that I’ve been using with pretty good results. If you’re into digital photography then you may already have the kit needed. Basically a digital SLR with macro lens, set up on a tripod to take a digital photograph of the slide on a light box or other light source. This is not a scan but an image of an image, but using proper quality camera gear should give far better results than one of the cheap slide copiers available.

Obviously if you don’t have or don’t want to fork out for a macro lens or tripod then this is a non starter, but I found a budget Manfrotto tripod for about £50 new and a second hand Tamron 90mm macro off ebay for about £150. Both of these will be useful for other photography tasks so a good investment.

The results I’ve got from Kodachrome 64 slides so far have been as good as I used to get with an old and very slow 2700 dpi film scanner. Certainly good enough for web / computer screen use. It takes a while to set everything up and you still have to post process with photoshop for colour adjustment, sharpness, dust cloning out etc, but the initial imaging process is very quick – put slide in cardboard frame on light box, click with remote shutter (and mirror lock up setting) remove, repeat. i.e. as quick as you can physically move the slides and click.

I’ve got thousands of slides to process and will be using this method.

example image here