converting 35mm slides to jpeg images

[killiepiedave]

Hi Everyone, I've joined up here to see if anyone can advise me how to convert literally hundreds of my dads old 35mm slides which I've inherited to digital files. Its going to be a lengthy task, so is there a particular piece of kit with a USB/scanner to do the job?

[InaGlo]

Hi Dave

Welcome to the forums... just moved your post over to 'talk photography' as its likely to get seen by more peeps in here.

[RogDen31]

Hello and welcome

my epson all in one printer RX500 has a light head and slide/neg frame to do copying on, it is a very slow job

i am sure there are others that do this, the most expensive way is a dedicated filmscanner like Nikon Coolscan to name one £1600 or more.

[DCCD]

I've got the same issue and been looking at scanners....huge range out there. The other alternative is to get a lab to do it for you. They might give you a good discounted price if you have volume.

[cowasaki]

There are quite a few film scanners which will scan negatives and slides and cost a few hundred pounds. The thing is will you still want to scan negs and slides once this batch is done? If not it would be hard to justify the cost. How many are there because there are some companies which can do it and without paying for the equipment this might be the best route alternatively some not to expensive scanners will scan slides but doing it that was will take ages if there are a lot.

[PsiFox]

Look at

http://www.tobyhost.co.uk/acatalog/3...vices.html#a18

[DCCD]

Another option is possibly to hire a scanner?

Or if there was enough interest, buy one to share with a few others and split cost then resell when everyone has done there scanning

[FranchiseJuan]

The best option (which is the one I used) is to buy a used Minolta/Canon/Epson/Nikon dedicated film scanner off ebay, use it to scan your slides, and then sell it again. For me this worked out to cost me $100 (Aus). I did this 3 years ago, and I had about 35 rolls of negative film to scan.

You get better quality with a dedicated film scanner, and you also get the benifit of what ever cleaning mode they have to make sure you get a clear scan even with scratched negs and slides.

One thing to remember is that you will be spending about two hours per roll of 36 if you want to do it properly with two pass scanning (at least this is how long it took me).