Slide scanners

[chad thomas]

Wow guys,
Thanks for all your responses. At this point I have no intention of archiving my collection. I have about 2500 slides and I have better things to do with my time right now. The main purpose is to be able to share some of my work on the net.

I lucked out though. I had a chance to see my dad this last weekend. When I mentioned I was thinking about getting a slide scanner he told me he had a couple and that he only needed one and I could have the other. We didn't discuss what exactly it was but he usually only uses quality equiptment. He is going to send it to me when he gets a chance. I will play with it and if it works for me I'll stick with it. If not I'll go shopping.

Again thanks for all your responses. And sorry I took so long getting back here. I've been gone on a road trip all week.

[dante]

I cannot speak from personal experience - just yet! - however, our "local" technology expert has used and raved about inexpensive slide/film scanners with the name of PrimeFilm (www.scanace.com). They are considerably less expensive and almost as good as the most expensive, based on his extensive and personal experience. I intend to go that route, myself, when I finall have time to do my approximately 3000 slides!

[eastside]

QUOTE: Originally posted by gmstm

In addition to slides, I have a large number of 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 (120 size) B&W negatives. Any recommendations for scanners?

See Web page marginalsoftware.com (earlier) for comments on the Nikon LS-8000 and 9000. They produce quality output. Some consumer flatbeds come with film scanning attachments that will handle MF but with much inferior quality.

[Dr Leonard]

While I won't compare my input to that of the experts who have weighed in on this topic, an option that has worked for me is to copy transparencies with my digital camera. My Nikon CoolPix has an attachment for this purpose. A few of my slides even go back to the steam era and in most cases the results have been adequate for my purposes. The attachment also has a provision for 35mm negative film (both color and B&W)which can then be reversed with an imaging program. I have even been able to copy old size 116 negatives with the digital camera, hand-held in front of a frame with a translucent window for the light source. With my particular camera the resolution for 35mm slides or frames is about 2000 pixels wide.

[gmstm]

In addition to slides, I have a large number of 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 (120 size) B&W negatives. Any recommendations for scanners?

Keith K.

[rustysly]

If you are a serious photographer with many slides and plan on shooting many slides, I'd recommend the Konica-Minolta Dimage Scan Elite 5400. It's sold at a lower price than the Nikon 4000 dpi and has a higher resolution: 5400 dpi with a density range of 4.8, which no other scanner in the under $1000 price can match.

I've scanned around 3500 slides, mostly Kodachrome, including slides so dense, you can barely make out the image projected on a screen. The density range of the Elite 5400 is so great that it pulls out all of the image from dense slides that couldn't be achieved with a wet dark room using a Beseler 23C XL with a dicroic color head. (I['ve stepped away from wet printing now.)

I've also scanned Kodak professional Ektachrome slide film and Ektacolor negative film and used the included software, which removed all of the silver halide grain from the images and I printed 13 x 19-inch borderless prints with absolute sharpness and brilliant color on the Epson Photo 2200 printer.

With the 5400, at a full 5400 dpi scan, there is enough image to do a lot of cropping, whereas scanning at 2400 dpi pretty much limits your scanning capability, and as others have mentioned, a flat bed scanner, even one with a wide density range and dpi range, cannot match a dedicated film scanner for sharpness, even with the same density range and dpi capability.

Keep in mind that your output image must have 300 dpi at the finished image size for an inkjet printer's optimum output. (This has no bearing on the printer's dpi capability, which is an internal function.)

Russ S.

[jchnhtfd]

I'll go with the consensus -- sort of (no comment on brands!): first, use a dedicated slide/film scanner. The difference in sharpness is incredible. Second, 4800 non-interpolated resolution is an absolute minimum for pictures which are worth archiving in any form; the native film resolution is still higher than that! Third, I would recommend maximum bit depth (16) for the colour and save in an uncompressed format, such as TIFF. Yes, it will take a lot more space. Yes, it will take longer. And never, ever, mess with the original scanned image. Put it on a high quality CD. Then, if you want to play with it (I love Adobe Photoshop (oops, I said no brands... oh well)) play with a copy of the image -- that way, when you finally get somewhere and it's horrible, you can start over (yes, I know Photoshop has the best undo in the business, but...). You can always save the file at a lower bit depth and lower resolution...

[mogul264]

Have you checked the ads on the side of this forum?

[txcracker]

I have been archiving 50 years worth of slides using a Nikon Super CoolScan 4000 ED (LS-4000) scanner with great results. One thing that became readily apparent in the process is that Kodachrome is by far the best slide film I ever used. It retained the original colors for as long as 50 years with no special handling of the slides. Other films varied in quality from worthless to good. The Nikon internal processing is very good at correcting for color imbalance on the off color slides. Photoshop did the rest.

This scanner has a crop function, but I do not use it. I prefer to crop the saved image in Photoshop. Since the image is much larger to work with, I can do a more precise crop.

By all means, get a good scanner and archive the slides now. Time is not a gentle keeper of slide film.

Good luck!

[CopCarSS]

If you are archiving the images, I would also suggest the dedicated film scanner. If you're just scanning to share stuff on the web, that's not necessary.

In the film scanner world, oddly enough, I like Nikon, and despise Canon (which is 180 degrees from my camera opinions). YMMV of course.

There's one other option here, too. If you just have a few spectacular or rare shots that you are looking to archive, consider going to a pro shop that has a drum scanner, and let them do a drum scan for you.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

If you want top quality scans to archive images for any possible future use then you need to use a dedicated film scanner (Nikon, Canon, Minolta). Best to be a 4000dpi model and save scans as uncompressede files (.tiff).
If you just want less er quality scans for posting on the net or as email attachments then any scanner with a tranparency adapter will do.
The film scanners cost more but you get what you pay for in terms of quality.

[jrummell]

When I did this a year ago, most people I talked to recommended a "true" film scanner, for the reason ChuckCobleigh listed previously. The other thing mentioned is the optics on a flat-bed scanner are focussed on the surface of the glass, so the slides would be a little off-focus, unless you want to take the slide out of the holder. I have no idea if the off-focus is noticeable or not, or if scanners can adjust for that.

I rented a Nikon 4000ED for a weekend, and had no problem scanning 200 slides. However, it took a couple of hours to get it working properly, as there are lots of settings to play with. My only regret is that I saved the images as JPEG files, rather then leaving them in raw format.

[Medina1128]

Check back issues of PC Magazine for tests and evaluations of slide scanners. They usually have a "Best Buy" selection.

[eastside]

Chad:
Check the NG comp.periphs.scanners. I have some editorial stuff at marginalsoftware.com plus some scans done with various Nikon film scanners. The Minoltas are good also. Feel free to ask questions.

[ChuckCobleigh]

I would recommend the "true" flim scanner, rather than the flatbed attachment approach. The native resolutions are much higher and the optics are optimized for transmission rather than reflection. If you are going to be scanning a large number of existing slides, consider getting a unit with a feeder. It is pretty easy to "set and forget" a bunch of slides and let the machinery and computer create a bunch of files.

You can use a lot of disk space up saving in uncompressed formats like TIFF, which would be necessary if you are scanning in 16-bit depth rather and 8-bit depth in channels. However, if you have slides with a wide tonal range, you are better off scanning at the higher bit depth, then post-processing in Photoshop to bring things under control and then converting the file to 8-bit and then saving as a high-quality JPEG file. Or, you can just keep the files in an uncompressed format and burn them off to DVDs or external drives as needed.

For an interface to the computer, I think FireWire is the first choice, though USB 2 is not noticeably slower in most cases.

I have had Nikon and Minolta film scanners and have been pleased with the results from both. The Minolta accepted the slide feeder accessory, and I used it to archive my Dad's slides from 20 years of travel and family and it was a relatively painless process.

There are also some film scanners from Microtek that look good as well.

As far as native resolution goes, anything in the 3,000-4,000 ppi should be more than adequate. This would provide enough detail to support a 20x30 print, if your transparencies have that level of detail. What I have found is that at that level of resolution, the film grain becomes apparent and requires a little help from Kodak's GEM plug-in to clean things up for printing.

[Overmod]

mud, remember that he's not scanning a flat original, he's working from slides, so you essentially need to take the "expected" full-size image as rendered at 150 to 600dpi (as you correctly indicate) and scale that down to the size of the visible slide image -- a 4x6" print, for example, scanned at 600dpi would involve no less than 2400dpi if the resulting image is to have 600dpi resolution when rendered or printed. Same applies when you're scanning directly from negatives in the smaller sizes.


A couple more bitty points: The size of the slide files on disk is not much different from what mud is recommending, even though the resolution is much higher, because the image frame size being acquired is much smaller than usual. However, if you're using cheap imaging or control software, you have to be careful not to 'save' too much blank area around the slide image, as the computer will gleefully record your slide-mount material at very high resolution and high color depth, using megabytes of storage as it does so... If you have a pre-scan crop feature, or special setting for slide imaging, USE IT.

And you can reliably set your color bit depth to a smaller number than the large number of bits per pixel that many manufacturers advertise. (This reminds me a bit of the 'smokestack jewel' wars that American railroad-watch manufacturers engaged in!) Some of the increase in file size required by high bit depth will come out if you use JPEG compression in the final image save... but this might not be what you want for archiving slides 'forever' with full recovery of fine details in the recorded film. Of course, in this world of 4.7GB recordable disks for about $3 apiece retail, and 160GB hard drives for $99 (to quote the most recent price I happened to notice at Wal-Mart) you may not really care as much about large raw file sizes as you might a few years ago...

[zardoz]

If you are serious about preserving your slide collection in digital form, I strongly suggest getting a scanner built specifically for scanning slides.

I am using a Minolta DiMage Scan-Dual III, model #AF2840. It has the capacity to scan a 35mm slide in such detail, that the file size of each photo can be up to 35MB! Cost was around $300. But like I said, i you're serious........

[mudchicken]

HP and UMAX sell additions to their basic flatbed scanners, basicly the lid is replaced with a modified lid with a secondary light source. Work very well. I have versions of both at home and at work. Part of what you are going to have to decide is how high a resolution of scan you want for what you wi***o do with it. High resolution scans are space hogs, if you are just printing 300-600 dpi is almost too much, 150 dpi is common.

[Overmod]

You're going to have three rough choices:

1) A computer scanner that has built-in provision for slide scanning (usually involves a holder built into the lid, with a second light source inside);

2) A separate slide-scanning attachment that goes on the glass flatbed of a regular scanner -- I believe you can get these in much larger sizes than the 'typical' built-in slide attachment, and can scan a bunch of slides each time if you want, and your software can separate the images after acquisition

3) A dedicated slide scanner -- I remember seeing these with magazines and automatic feed; stack 'em up and let 'er rip, which if you have lots of slides to convert may be a tremendous advantage.

My opinion is that you want as high a NATIVE resolution as possible if you want a good image that can be used to produce large-area prints: I'd want nothing less than 2400dpi, and perhaps 4800dpi non-interpolated. Since each slide has a comparatively small area, scanning time even at high resolution may be short; of course, you may be quite satisfied at lower or interpolated resolution, particularly if the slides are older and not utterly sharp.

I would prefer USB 2 as a connection method where available. You'll have to decide whether you want an expensive scanner with on-board processing, or a cheap one that offloads most of the work onto the attached computer -- in my opinion, if you're running much faster than 2GHz with adequate memory, you should have little difficulty getting the 'dumb' stuff to work just fine...

[chad thomas]

After several months of having all my stuff in storage I am finaly going to get my camera and my slide collection. Science I shoot 35mm slides almost exclusively I am considering getting a slide scanner for my computer. Does anybody have any words of advice or warning for me before I go shopping for one. Any input would be greatly apriciated.[8D]