Photograph slides

[David]

In the poor weather lately we have been clearing out some cupboards, and have come across many old photograph slides.  Our slide viewer which we also found seems to have given up the ghost, and we cannot find the slide projector though we do still have the white film screen on a tripod.

Is it possible to buy a device for scanning these photo slides onto the computer?

Many thanks in advance,

David

[Bugsy]

Yes it is,  for an example see HERE

Get one with good definition though.

There are also firms that will transfer them onto CD for you.

Gary.

[kimg]

david

most good quality paper scanners have a facility to scan negatives and slides.

 

i have an epson perfection 4870 photo, which is now  2 years + old and that has such a facility.

 

most also have software which repairs and improves that oriiginal image, especially if its faded with time.

 

kim

[David]

Bugsy,

I am not sure if your suggestion would suit my slides.  Your suggestion seems to be aimed at negatives, and negative strips.  My slides are individual transparent photos, not negatives, and they are surrounded by a cardboard frame.

David

[Alex H]

I haven't tried ebay.fr but ebay.uk has lots of these from about £60 brand new (just search for slide scanner)

I bought a pro one from ebay uk last year for just over £100, scanned my 3000+ slides and then resold it at more than I paid [:D]

I can't remember the make unfortunately, but new it was around £400

[Bob T]

I have two Epson scanners which can scan slides, mounted or as film strips. One was mine and one was my wife's. We now only use one as the newer version only works with windows and not Linux, must get around to selling it one of these days.

[sid]

I too have an Epson scanner which is capable of copying slides. It has a light in the lid (normally covered) which shines through the slides in order to obtain a positive copy.

I find the process of copying slides very tedious; they have to be fitted 4 at a time into the frame and then clipped onto the lid of the scanner then scanned. I have boxes and boxes of slides taken during the 70's and 80's, probably a couple of thousand slides in all, many of them holiday pictures when our boys were young. We occasionally get them out and have a slide show (about once every 7or 8 years!!! The thought of scanning all these makes me feel queasy! [+o(]

I'd love to see a USB reader which would display them on the pc screen!! There's an idea for a bit of kit! I bet there's a great demand for it! [8-)]

Sid

[David]

A USB reader would be ideal.

David

[Pierre ZFP]

What, you mean something like THIS

[Ecossais]

I have a HP ScanJet 3570C which has the ability to scan 3 or 4 slides or negatives at a time in an adapter built into the lid, and have used it from time to time to scan a few slides.  However, like Sid, I find the process too slow (pre-scanning each image one at a time, tweaking the colour etc, adjusting the image size to take away the rough edges on Kodak mounts, and then saving the image…..  (Repeat 1000’s of times for all the pictures I took during my 35mm SLR period from Zenith E to Olympus OM2N!)

I’ve looked at the 700 items on sale on eBay UK and most of them are for the same 2 or 3 products and companies offering to do the work for about 17p per slide.  The purpose-made slide and negative scanners still seem to only accept about 4 slides or a strip of negatives at a time, so I doubt if I would gain anything over the HP scanner I have.

My ideal deal solution would be a scanner which would work like a sheet feeder on a photocopier – insert a pile of slides and the mechanism works through them, automatically scanning, optimising the colour balance etc and saving them at a choice of resolutions…..

Does anyone know if such a device exists?  If it does, I imagine it could be pricey compared to the other devices for sale at around £70, however it could be the sort scanner one could buy, use and then sell on?

 

[Russethouse]

 I think I may have seen something on a web site called 'I want one of those' it maybe worth a look ?

[ChezShells]

I found some cracking negatives in our attic
some photos of people lining the street whilst tanks drove by

I scanned them on our printer/scanner and altered the colours on photoshop, takes a while to do tho

 

[ventodue]

[quote user="Ecossais"]

<snip>

My ideal deal solution would be a scanner which would work like a sheet feeder on a photocopier – insert a pile of slides and the mechanism works through them, automatically scanning, optimising the colour balance etc and saving them at a choice of resolutions…..

Does anyone know if such a device exists? 

[/quote]

Or, even better, a scanner which enabled you to feed the slides through using a standard slide carousel or tray ...

Cheers

Craig

[sid]

PierreZFP

My knowledge of German is zero, but that product you linked to looks like a scanner. I've already got one of those, incorporated into my printer. I grant you that yours looks simple to use but I really meant someting similar to a 'projector' which plugs into USB, so a "slide reader" in effect with the normal carousel arrangement. It's doubtful anyone would produce such a thing now as the demand will be limited to all the old f4rts like me with boxes of slides in the attic. [blink]

Sid

 

[Jay]

Or THIS

[Clarkkent]

Like other people, I have thousands of slides accumulated from the 1950s onwards which I have steadily been digitising. I started with the HP scanner mentioned earlier - doing four slides at a time with the fiddly scanner masks and secondary light source. I did not find the results (even at the highest resolution) to be all that good and I eventually went to Jessops and bought one of their in-house scanners (Pacific Image, I think) which was fine - while it lasted. It packed up after about 18 months. (One very useful feature was the ability to scan a complete roll of 35mm film in one operation.) I eventually paid good money for a Konika-Minolta Scan Elite 5400 which I am still using, I have a few hundred slides still to go.

I think that for anyone with a lot of slides or negatives should go for the best kit they can.

Incidentally, did anyone else see the annoucement that Kodak have made their last batch of Kodachrome?

[Albert the InfoGipsy]

Re Kodachrome, I'm not surprised. It had the world's second most complicated development process ever (see the original Technicolor for the champion). As far as I know there's only one surviving Kodachrome processing line and that isn't even owned by Kodak.

[George]

[quote user="David"]

Bugsy,

I am not sure if your suggestion would suit my slides.  Your suggestion seems to be aimed at negatives, and negative strips.  My slides are individual transparent photos, not negatives, and they are surrounded by a cardboard frame.

David

[/quote]

hi David

I came across the same link as Bugsy, quite by accident and followed through to Product Features - not only is it USB it also works with mounted slides, the spec goes on to say 3 in a tray or 6 negatives in a tray - this is what I found:-

" Bring back to life those old memories on old photographic formats. The Ion Film and Mounted Slide Scanner will scan your old 35mm slides and flims and allows you to edit them in Photo impressions software ready for printing, archiving and just viewing them on the big screen.The Ion FIlm and Slide scanner has multi-directional insert tray flaps and faster one touch scanning."

I've no experience of the product, it suggests 5mp, so would have thought reasonable quality, but hope this is of some help.