Author Topic: Slide Scanners? (Read 1504 times)

Rivkid · **on:** August 25, 2010, 09:36:09 AM

Slide Scanners?

on: August 25, 2010, 09:36:09 AM

Anyone ever used one fo these? Its my dads birthday in November and I thought it would be a cool present to convert all his (thousands!) of old slides and negatives to JPGs. I know he hasnt seen many of them for years.

Are these easy enough to use and is there just 1 size/standard of slide or do I need to check that I buy the correct scanner for his slides?

Cheers

Riv

Mongoose · **Reply #1 on:** August 25, 2010, 10:14:01 AM

Re:Slide Scanners?

Reply #1 on: August 25, 2010, 10:14:01 AM

I have a Konica Minolta slide scanner. Mine was about £300 several years ago now so Im rather out of the loop as regards which ones are any good but I can offer some answers to your questions:

Mine works MUCH better on slides than it does on negatives, but it will happily do both. The more expensive (as in more expensive than mine) ones can be fitted with an autoloader for slides, otherwise you have to load them 4 at a time, which makes the process quite slow. Youre better off cherry picking which ones to scan than trying to do a whole collection.

His camera is almost certainly 35mm, in which case youll be fine because everything is standard. I did come across one or two unusually thick slide mounts which wouldnt fit into the slide carrier, but this is rare and in these cases I took the slides out of the mount and used the negative carrier.

As far as I understand, the current generation of flatbed scanners are quite good at negatives. When I bought mine you basically had to get a dedicated slide scanner with auto-focus to get a decent scan, but apparently the newer flatbeds rival the quality of my Minolta while being much more flexible. Worth a look.

knighty · **Reply #2 on:** August 25, 2010, 10:40:06 AM

Slide Scanners?

Reply #2 on: August 25, 2010, 10:40:06 AM

Rivkid.... if you get one,,,, keep us updated.... I was thinking about doing the same thing for my parents wedding photos... (slides)

they had the video (old reel type thing - state of art 40 years ago) done onto DVD about a year back and loved it

Rivkid · **Reply #3 on:** August 25, 2010, 11:27:03 AM

Re:Slide Scanners?

Reply #3 on: August 25, 2010, 11:27:03 AM

Sounds like the one Im looking at should be ok : http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/B-Stock-Ion-FILM2SD-FILM-2-SD-Film-Slide-Scanner-/200484905613?pt=UK_Scanners

Alan - think Im def going to get one. Want me to send it up to you for a few weeks when Im done with it?

zpyder · **Reply #4 on:** August 25, 2010, 11:32:30 AM

Re:Slide Scanners?

Reply #4 on: August 25, 2010, 11:32:30 AM

Id be wary as it doesnt state the resolution of the scanned slides, but I dont know whether slides are high resolution to start with...

EDIT:
Seen the res on amazon, sounds alright if the quality is good

knighty · **Reply #5 on:** August 25, 2010, 11:33:56 AM

Slide Scanners?

Reply #5 on: August 25, 2010, 11:33:56 AM

do they even have a resolution ? its all just lens quality/focus ? (same as a camera negative?)

zpyder · **Reply #6 on:** August 25, 2010, 11:37:16 AM

Re:Slide Scanners?

Reply #6 on: August 25, 2010, 11:37:16 AM

I was thinking more along the lines of quality of the slides, Id imagine some cheap slides likely were pretty poor to start with so scanning them wont offer much, as well as the scanner output size, last thing you want is to scan a slide only to find out the size of the scan is the same as the slide ><

Rivkid · **Reply #7 on:** August 25, 2010, 11:39:10 AM

Re:Slide Scanners?

Reply #7 on: August 25, 2010, 11:39:10 AM

haha I think Id be more worried about my dad friends 60s/70s camera skills to be honest.

and the haircuts!!!

Res/quality really isnt going to matter.