Help Please

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Name
BEN Warman
Edit My Images
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Hi All,

Firstly apologies if I am asking this question in the wrong area of this forum.

I am after something that can convert old photography slides (hundreds, probably even thousands) into digital format to be saved on my laptop/cloud. So far I (think) I have been able to find equipment that can do the job but it looks like only one, or a very small amount, at a time which means hours and hours of pain if i need to convert a large amount.

Slides im dealing with look like this

WhatsApp Image 2020-07-03 at 09.43.30.jpeg

Can anyone tell me if something close to what im describing exists and if so how and where i could get one.

Examples of what i found are below.

Link 1
Link 2

Thanks very much in advance

Ben
 
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You'll get better quality (much better) by using a flatbed scanner like the Epson V550.

Slower yes but better quality.

To get a good scan it takes some time to "read" the image.

I user the forerunner of the V550 and it's great.
 
A lot will depend on what you want to do with the scans and the size and image quality you want.

Something like Plustek Opticfilm 8100 will do a good job or a flatbed like the Epson V650.

Some people will use a light box and digital camera with a macro lens set up on a tripod.

Either way there is no real quick solution, it will usually involve loading 1, 6 or 12 at a time and letting the scanner do its work.
 
thanks both, it is just so that i can save some old family photos somewhere. I guess i assumed, with my little knowledge, that the resolution of the slides would be very small and therefore would get easily picked up these days quickly by something in 2020.

@Karl.t1965 when you say up to 12 at a time, how would i go about doing that?
 
We used a flatbed scanner with a holder, I think 6 at once.
Do you have a computer to control this process? The 2 options you linked are standalone devices meaning you’re spending on parts you don’t need.
 
You'll get better quality (much better) by using a flatbed scanner like the Epson V550.

Slower yes but better quality.

To get a good scan it takes some time to "read" the image.

I user the forerunner of the V550 and it's great.


I would agree wholly with Terry.
When my mother died 5 years ago i decided that i would put together a large book of family photos which were a mix of faded/strangely tinted prints and Kodak and Boots colour transparencies that my father liked to use in the 60s.
I researched at the time and opted for a Epson V500, which is probably the forerunner that Terry mentions.
It performed really well and the advantage was that it scanned both types of medium. I have it today and it still does the job on all sorts of items.
The whole process is a little slow - the nature of the beast i think - but once you get into the flow of loading, preview, scan, import, repeat , then it is quite a nice way to spend a few hours!
And then the advantage of having them all on the pc means all sorts of editing and presentation techniques can be used.
 
The Epson V550 has a tray that holds 4 slides in one go. I believe the higher level scanners (V850) have a bigger bed and can scan more - but are more expensive.

With these being slides they won't need pp work to flip them which should make things easier. Perhaps even a regular document scanner might work - where you could lay 12-15 on the bed in one go? MIght be worth a punt if you know anyone that has a normal scanner.
 
The Epson V550 has a tray that holds 4 slides in one go. I believe the higher level scanners (V850) have a bigger bed and can scan more - but are more expensive.

With these being slides they won't need pp work to flip them which should make things easier. Perhaps even a regular document scanner might work - where you could lay 12-15 on the bed in one go? MIght be worth a punt if you know anyone that has a normal scanner.
The slides / negs need a backlight, so the size of the platen glass is less important than the illumination (which is usually matched to neg carrier)
 
The other tip I’d give is to cull before you scan, there’s no point in scanning thousands of images you’ll never look at. But you’ll feel rewarded for the cleaning and printing of a few dozen special ones.
 
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The other tip I’d give is to cull before you scan, there’s no point in scanning thousands of images you’ll never look at. But you’ll feel rewarded for the cleaning and printing of a few dozen special ones.


Very much this.

Bulk scanning can be soul destroying if you have a lot to do. Many scanners need fairly regular attention to swap the slides over and almost inevitably, the results will need to be cleaned up and generally fiddled with to get good results.

Might be worth a read of THIS article comparing several different scanners and you might want to consider a bulk feeding (50+ per batch) scanner to reduce the time spent feeding the scanner.

Final use is worth considering too. If you just want to look at the pictures on a phone or even a computer screen, it's not worth having the absolute best quality files - full HD is about 2MP, although 4K is bigger but if you want/need big prints, you'll need more resolution from the scans.
 
The other option is to take them into a shop like snappy snaps and let them do the scanning for you. I've no idea what they charge but they can scan them and put them on DVD.
 
Thank you all for your responses. I will spend a bit of time looking at everything you have all suggested and go from there. very much appreciated
 
Thank you all for your responses. I will spend a bit of time looking at everything you have all suggested and go from there. very much appreciated
One word of warning: The people who post here are keen amateurs or professionals and will have much higher expectations than most people. If you don't fall into that group you may be disheartened by the price and complexity of some of the solutions suggested.

"Camera scanners" such as the Kodak SCANZA described on the page referenced by @Nod can be found for £50 and may be all you really want or need; they are much faster than the true scanners, typically by a factor of 10:1. I have in the past converted 36 frames of film in under 10 minutes using a camera scanner. A conventional scanner could take as long as 2 hours to do the same number of images.

We have a special thread on scanning here: https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/a-big-film-scanner-thread.709453/ It's worth a good study.
 
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