Slide scanner advice

Discuss equipment and methods or ask for advice
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XP282
Posts: 415
Joined: Thu 22 Jan 2009, 9:55 pm

Slide scanner advice

Post by XP282 »

Hello,

Can anyone recommend a slide scanner for me? I don’t want something that costs thousands.... and it doesn’t need to be capable of producing an A0 print. I’d just like a reasonably priced scanner so I can view slides on the computer and have a few albums / photo books produced.
I quite like the idea of a stand along scanner that saves the imagines onto an SD Card but that isn’t essential.

Can anyone recommend something?

Many thanks
Mark

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D90Man
Posts: 652
Joined: Thu 28 May 2009, 12:54 pm
Location: Holland-on-Sea, 3.87m SSE of CLN VOR

Re: Slide scanner advice

Post by D90Man »

Hi Mark

It kind of depends on a few factors:

1. How much time you want to take on scanning each slide
2. How good is the quality of the originals
3. How many you want to scan

I've used a variety of methods (I had over 15000 slides to scan).

a) Canon CanoScan FS2710 - good quality but slow, needed a SCSI card in the PC for connectivity so eventually had to give it up.
b) VEHO slide scanner - early CCD scanner - useless
c) Nikon 60mm Macro lens with an extension tube and slide holder attached to my Nikon body - good quality and flexible but comparatively slow.
d) Automated system purchased from USA called SnapScan Lite (model discontinued but the company still exists) consisting of an adapted Kodak Carousel projector with a customised lens connected to a Canon G15 camera which was 12MP - very quick to scan and good quality but comparatively expensive.

The latter was what I used to scan the majority of the slides. I then sold it on eBay...

I've heard good reports about the Epson Perfections range of flatbed scanners and also Plustek but have no experience of either.

Lastly, there is this article from one of the team at 4Aviation tours which details how they scanned their slides:
https://www.4aviation.nl/reports/articl ... ng-slides/

I know there are others on this board who have asked the same question - here are a couple:
viewtopic.php?f=27&t=82661
viewtopic.php?f=27&t=80697

And there's a Facebook group who might be helpful:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1102434186467646/

Hope this helps

Leon
"Sharpness is in the eye of the holder"
More at http://www.planephotos.org.uk

blackfive460
Posts: 20
Joined: Sun 13 Oct 2019, 1:43 pm

Re: Slide scanner advice

Post by blackfive460 »

Do you have a decent macro capable digital camera?

If the answer is yes then you might like to try using that before spending money on a scanner.

All you need is a suitable stand to hold the camera and a light source; I used a tablet set to display a plain white screen.
If you use a tablet or mobile 'phone as your light source, you'll need to lift your slides above the surface to stop the camera focusing on the screen's pixels and you'll also need to mask the surrounding area to avoid flare but I spent much of last winter digitising over 7000 slides and negs with more than satisfactory results.

Brenden S
Posts: 201
Joined: Tue 05 Nov 2019, 5:39 am

Re: Slide scanner advice

Post by Brenden S »

This is what I am using
https://plustek.com/oeu/products/film-a ... -8200i-ai/

This is what I get.

digiman992
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri 21 Aug 2020, 9:46 am

Re: Slide scanner advice

Post by digiman992 »

XP282 wrote:
Sat 09 May 2020, 1:47 pm
Hello,

Can anyone recommend a slide scanner for me? I don’t want something that costs thousands.... and it doesn’t need to be capable of producing an A0 print. I’d just like a reasonably priced scanner so I can view slides on the computer and have a few albums / photo books produced.
I quite like the idea of a stand along scanner that saves the imagines onto an SD Card but that isn’t essential.

Can anyone recommend something?

Many thanks
Mark

hi mark, i've purchased scanner after scanner and i keep having problems and resulted in going to a local company that did it for me (supaphoto i think they're called). I thought i'd let you know that it's probably easier to get it done that way before you spend hundreds on different scanners

i know there's info on slide scanning and photo scanning here, even if you don't decide to choose this company it might give you an insight into the process of it all :) - https://www.supaphoto.com/photo-scanning-service.html https://www.supaphoto.com/slide-scanning.html
hope that helps

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