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Author Topic: Converting a whole bunch of color slides Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-09-2009 05:45 PM                        My dad used to take slides, not "pictures." There are literally thousands of slides at my parents' house. I would like to find a way to digitize those slides but I hate to send them all to a "conversion service" because...well I'm cheap and I fear losing them. In computer equipment, all I've ever seen is these dopey little machines that convert slides one at a time. Doesn't anyone make a scanner that'll do a whole group of slides in one pass? Anybody ever heard of such a beast? EDIT: Okay, I've found a few scanners that will do, maybe FOUR at a time. I would think there'd be something that could do a dozen or more....anybody?  |  IP: Logged Ron Curran Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 504 From: Springwood NSW Australia Registered: Feb 2006 posted 06-09-2009 08:50 PM                        My wife purchased this to scan hundreds of seventies and eighties slides. It's a standalone and scans to a memory card. You can then transfer the images to the computer or disc or whatever. It's done a great job. (Look at various websites.) Filmscan35 II Slide and Negative Scanner -Standalone http://photovideo.com.au/filmscan35-slide-and-negative-scanner-standalone-p-5246.html  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-09-2009 10:38 PM                        Thanks, but I am hoping to find one that'll do maybe 12 at a time. That machine does only one at a time. I have probably at least 2000 to do. My family has given me a mandate!  |  IP: Logged Phil Blake Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 558 From: esperance western australia Registered: Nov 2003 posted 06-13-2009 06:54 AM                        Mike i purchased one of those HP photos scanners that has the strip for holding 4 slides , however i cannot see any reason you cant cover the whole scanning bed with slides the software identifies what is pic and what is boarder so it should be time efficient. the Hp does a very good job as well. the attached image is from a very old slide of my family .(before and touch up work was done)incidentally i am the baby in the pic. The old dakota in the back ground used to service the town by landing on a dried up salt lake as there was no airfield.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-13-2009 09:28 AM                        Covering the whole scan bed won't work because slides have to be back-lit to be scanned. My scanner has a device that holds 4 slides so I've started my project using that. It works pretty well...I scan 4, then do whatever work is necessary on those four while the next four are being scanned. I keep a magazine handy in case of lag time while the scanning is happening. But I still would like to find something that'd let me scan, say 20 at a time.  |  IP: Logged Paul Mayer Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under! Posts: 3836 From: Albuquerque, NM Registered: Feb 2000 posted 06-13-2009 11:03 AM                        If you don't mind the loss of resolution scanning so many slides at once, that would be fine. Personally, I would put up with the upfront inconvenience and scan them one at a time on a scanner built for doing 35mm slides or negs. Even for just snapshots I'd want the max res available for later digital manipulation, assuming the intent was for archiving. But that's just me.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-13-2009 12:30 PM                        I'm doing the 4-up at the highest resolution the scanner offers (it's not in front of me and I forget what DPI it is) but it takes it about 2 minutes to scan the 4 slides. They're turning out very nice. Of course we'll keep the originals, which are all stored in those Kodak carousel doohickeys.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-13-2009 04:30 PM                     Personally, It would take gobs of time to get a job like that done... I'd send em out. You'll also get better quality images than if you tried to do it yourself. Then when you install D-Cinema at your theater you can play back slide shows through the DVI input!!! Here ya go Phil.... wasn't high enough rez for me to remove the dust... dust is the biggest pain when transfering old pics.  |  IP: Logged Adam Martin I'm not even gonna point out the irony. Posts: 3686 From: Dallas, TX Registered: Nov 2000 posted 06-13-2009 04:55 PM                     I haven't used it, but the Braun Multimag SlideScan 4000 will do up to 100 slides at a time. It comes with a hefty price tag of $1700.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-13-2009 08:37 PM                        I guess I need the Braun Multimag Slidescan 4000 Junior! If they would just make one.  |  IP: Logged Robert E. Allen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1078 From: Checotah, Oklahoma Registered: Jul 2002 posted 06-14-2009 03:11 PM                     Hey Phil! I don't mean to hijack the thread but isn't that a DC-3 in the background? You know some of those things are still being used around the world. It's one of the most rugged aircraft Douglas ever built.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-14-2009 03:17 PM                        How about the "Pacific Image PowerSlide 3650"? It scans batches of 50 35mm slides at a time, and available for $723 at B&H Photo. There is supposedly a $100 rebate for it, too, but I don't know the details.  |  IP: Logged Phil Blake Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 558 From: esperance western australia Registered: Nov 2003 posted 06-16-2009 10:34 PM                        thanks mark , the actual image was scanned at high res but i reduced it to post it here. quote: Robert E. Allen I don't mean to hijack the thread but isn't that a DC-3 in the background? yes it sure is MMA used dakotas widely over Western Australia in the 60's alot of towns they serviced had no proper airstrips, . My pic was taken on a salt lake in Norseman WA a small mining town in the middle of now where, with no airstrip. The DC3 was the best aircraft for the job. When the took off from the salt lake they would park the dakota at one end with brakes of rev it up till the tail came off the ground the let here go.  |  IP: Logged

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