# anyone here with experience scanning slides?



## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

I have a vintage slide collection that I'm considering selling and have been doing a bit of web research but not getting the answers I need at this point. I have found a few websites that give reviews on various types of slide scanners but was just wondering if anyone here has firsthand experience scanning slides. Any specific scanner models you can recommend (based on your own experience) for good quality images? I tried a cheap ($120) unit but it did not produce the desired quality. From what I have found it seems a mid-range ($500-900) scanner would be the thing to shoot for?


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## nathan79 (Feb 21, 2011)

I have a Nikon Coolscan V, which I would very much recommend. Scans at 4000 dpi, colours are accurate, and it's reasonably quick. I paid about $599 plus tax, though that was some years ago.


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

Thanks!

Can you post a typical/sample slide scan here?


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

TRM: when I did a bunch of slide scanning, I ended up using a commercial self-serve service which allowed me to scan the slides myself using ultra high-end equipment. There will be a break-even point but if the volume of slides you want scanned is relatively small and the quality of the scan is paramount, this may be your best option (presuming you have access to a rental facility in your city). In Toronto, you used to be able to use a slide scanner at the Toronto Reference Library (and you may still be able to do so) - but not an ultra high-end machine. 

As a bonus, if you don't need/want the capital expense, renting is more tax-efficient and an unused slide scanner probably fits in your beloved category of "ewaste." If you only need it for this one project, I'd seriously consider renting if possible.


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## Nemo2 (Mar 1, 2012)

We have one of these: http://alberta.kijiji.ca/c-buy-and-sell-electronics-it-Film-and-Slide-Converter-W0QQAdIdZ449701178 that we bought new at ~$80.....slow, but does the job.


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## nathan79 (Feb 21, 2011)

the-royal-mail said:


> Thanks!
> 
> Can you post a typical/sample slide scan here?


I tried posting some but kept getting the message, "exceeds your quota by 90.9 kb". I reduced the size multiple times to no avail. 

The images are only about 112 KB, so there must be a problem with the forum software.


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## CanadianCapitalist (Mar 31, 2009)

nathan79 said:


> I tried posting some but kept getting the message, "exceeds your quota by 90.9 kb". I reduced the size multiple times to no avail.
> 
> The images are only about 112 KB, so there must be a problem with the forum software.


I've edited the image settings. Try now.


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## nathan79 (Feb 21, 2011)

Still getting an error message. The image I'm uploading is 112.1 KB, and it says I'm 104.6 KB over my quota. There must be a setting somewhere that is capping the limit at 7.5 KB.


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## CanadianCapitalist (Mar 31, 2009)

nathan79 said:


> Still getting an error message. The image I'm uploading is 112.1 KB, and it says I'm 104.6 KB over my quota. There must be a setting somewhere that is capping the limit at 7.5 KB.


What format is the image in? The 120K limit is set for jpegs and gifs.


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## nathan79 (Feb 21, 2011)

CanadianCapitalist said:


> What format is the image in? The 120K limit is set for jpegs and gifs.


It's a jpeg. I decreased it to 85 KB and still no luck. Is anyone else able to upload images?

Maybe instead I'll upload the images somewhere else and then provide a link to them.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

nathan79 said:


> It's a jpeg. I decreased it to 85 KB and still no luck. Is anyone else able to upload images?


what does work is to send the image to a dedicated picture site like flicker or imgbox. Then dl the pic from that site into a cmf forum post.

flicker is charging now for 3rd party dls, but it's possible to dig up the html addy for the picture & use this for free. I observe that flicker knows about this & is quite cooperative. I guess most people don't mind paying $7/month/whatever for the convenience of a normal addy for photos, but once a person gets the hang of looking for the html version (hint: it'll be a numbered farm) all is fairly easy.


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## CanadianCapitalist (Mar 31, 2009)

testing a 113 kb jpeg image...


View attachment 229


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

this 66 kb png loaded ok

View attachment 230




but this 96 kb jpeg
did
not
load
message said "exceeds quota by 90.5 kb"


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## nathan79 (Feb 21, 2011)

I did get it to work, but had to reduce the size to 50 KB. I tried several sizes between 50 and 120 KB.









Lost some sharpness due to the small size, but the colours are still good.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

nathan79 said:


> I did get it to work, but had to reduce the size to 50 KB.


way too small i feel ... why not dl full size via flicker account?


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## nathan79 (Feb 21, 2011)

humble_pie said:


> way too small i feel ... why not dl full size via flicker account?


Yeah, I think I'll look into something like that. I agree it's way too small.


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## nathan79 (Feb 21, 2011)

Here, this should work: http://i.imgur.com/pln27si.jpg

This was scanned at 2700 dpi, the max on the machine is 4000 dpi.


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## CanadianCapitalist (Mar 31, 2009)

Thank you for testing this out. I wonder if this is a bug in the bulletin software. I've set the image size limits to 120kb but the software appears to set arbitrary limits and spits out confusing error messages.


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

Thanks nathan79.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

nathan79 said:


> Yeah, I think I'll look into something like that. I agree it's way too small.



here's my 96 kb job downloaded, not directly from my computer, but from flicker where i sent it exprès for this purpose.
.










you'll see in the download image window a checkpoint to "download remote & reference locally." This usually comes checked & u would think checked would work best, right. But nah, the thing has to be unchecked. 

cute, isn't he. The image, i mean. A former in-law. Heh.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

nathan79 said:


> Here, this should work: http://i.imgur.com/pln27si.jpg
> 
> This was scanned at 2700 dpi, the max on the machine is 4000 dpi.




nathan try this via flickr or imgbox, you might like it! 
.


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## Dibs (May 26, 2011)

My parents bought an Epson V600 after some research to scan their old slides. It was on sale for around $150 and they were happy with it. 

http://www.filmscanner.info/en/EpsonPerfectionV600Photo.html

This site may also have some good reviews of other scanners that you might be considering.


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## Homerhomer (Oct 18, 2010)

I would first ensure that there is a market for what you want to sell before spending any money on it since there is plenty of vintage photo related stuff online for next to nothing.
Are you going to be selling the actual slides or digital copies/prints of them?

Few years back I bought a scanner for about $350 which produced good results (epson, don't recall the model of the top of my head).


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

Thanks for the responses thus far. I have been carefully considering all the options. Yes, there is a market for the content of these slides. They are not just ordinary family vacation slides and the like. So far it seems the Epson V700 is a pricey option at around $800 all-in but seems to have a good reputation. There are many facets to this issue of course. One of the many options I am am considering is a slide scanning service. It seems there are a couple of places I found online but one of the GTA ones (photoscanning.ca) seems to have some BBB and RFD complaints and website is 3 months out of date. Their scan cost was around 15-20 cents per while other local options came to 50 cents per. It seems the most money can be recovered if I buy a good scanner, scan and list individually myself on ebay. Or do the same but with a good slide scanning service. Either way I won't get paid for my labour and time to deal with all of this. Lots of angles to consider on this.


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## Four Pillars (Apr 5, 2009)

You should be able to sell the scanner once the project is done which should help with the $$.


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

The ninja-level approach is to buy the capital equipment used, and then sell it for a price equal to or greater than the purchase price.


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

Absolutely agree with the concept of buying lightly used as I do this with my digital cameras and cars. It is not easy to find quality used scanners in the mid-level price range though. Lots of demand for them. This is a niche product. Right now one option I'm considering is buying new, using, then selling when done. Hoping I can recover at least half my capital cost by doing that. But the ideal for me is to find a quality scanning service locally (I have a couple in mind), which reduces capital cost and ultimate ewaste (ie. better for two people to use one machine than one machine per person). We'll see. Lots to consider.


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

I used a commercial lab that did 500 35mm slides for $150 and also did 30 2x2 slides for another $20. They did colour balancing.

Happy with the results, delivered on CD and online. Granted higher numbers would justify purchase but it is labour-intensive. The lab is in Delta BC. They deal online anywhere.


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## Ponderling (Mar 1, 2013)

I am a hobbyist photographer, still very into film. I realise that many want digital output. 

I went the higher end scanner route - an Epson V scanner a few years ago, at the time mostly to get digilal scans for my mom to print kodachomes for some albums of family vacations she is compiling. 

I found the more important variable than the scanner was the driving software. 
The OEM Epson software of the time was quite weak, and it took a long time to get good scans.
I sniffed the web and came up with Vuescan, which I spent $100 for a lifetime of updates, and it works wonderfully.

Vuescan lets you use scanners whos makers did not bring out software compatible with the latest of operating systems to be still used.
That lets you find bargain basement prices scanners lightly used online, and buyand then use them to your advantage.

I use Vuescan to scan 4 slides at a time to high quality output, and set it on batch mode.
I come back about 10-12 minutes later, load more slides, and go on with my cooking, housework, reading or tv watching. 
After the session of scanning, I review the output, rename files or add tag to the images as I see fit, and burn the CD or upload to the web for client use.


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## Sampson (Apr 3, 2009)

Yeah, what a pain in the butt to scan slides.

I own a Minolta Dimage Scan Dual IV which yields excellent results.

The problem with scanning slides is that now with superior digital processing techniques, you sometimes want to scan to extract maximum useability, and not necessarily fidelity. This by definition requires tweaking, and immensely slows the process down.

It sounds like you have a great collection of something, so if you can make money from the results, then it is worth spending more on it and consider it a capital cost of the subsequent business.


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