Advice on Scanning 35mm mounted slides

Hi All
I want to scan and digitize some 35mm mounted slides.Has anyone used flatbed or dedicated film scanner ? I am thinking of getting Epson 4990 or one of the Plustek model.
Thanks

I'm also about to buy a decent scanner. I read a lot of positive comments on Epson V700. The only problem is the price, but it's still cheaper than dedicated film scanners, it's more versatile and allegedly the quality is not much worse if it is.

Oh, I may have another problem - I use Linux, so I'm not sure how it will work there. In the worst case scenario I'll buy MS Windows

There is quite good review:
http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/interactive/Epson%20V700/page_1.htm

Did anyone of you used that scanner? With Linux, perhaps?

Thanks Michal, The V700 is a good scanner and can scan 12 slides or 24 negatives in one go. It cost £384 at amazon.
But it is still cheaper than Dedicated film scanners like nikon 9000 which cost £2300
I was also looking at Plustek opticfilm 7300 and use Vuescan software with it.
kind regards

I thought about the Plustek, but after I read some reviews and forums comments I gave up on it. Well, I never used it, and there are some pros and cons:
- it has lower max optical density than the Epson flatbed scanner (3.5D vs 4.0D) - and how important this feature is I learned some years ago (it's similar to dyamic range in a camera, so shadows within shadows, highlights details etc.)
- it is only film scanner (so less versatile)
+ it's smaller
+ cheaper than Epson

Quick search on Google:
http://www.filmscanner.info/en/PlustekOpticFilm7300.html
http://photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00KAri

So it might be OK. But then I'd rather spend more and be happy for a longer time. Still, I did not decided yet, probably will buy before summer

I read more on Plustek film holder, which can take only 4 slides and need pushing in when one has been scanned so that would be a problem for batch scanning I think.

kind regards

I recently bought a Plustek scanner and I also have an old Umax flatbed scanner which has an illuminated lid for transparency scanning which I have used for the odd slide before the Plustek (but is limited to 1200dpi max).

I bought the Plustek because we have a 35mm slide collection that dates from about 30 years ago that I'm keen to digitise. I did a little research and decided that I would go with a dedicated slide scanner.

From my direction the most desirable was the Braun Multimag Slidescan 4000 as this can take a 100 slot circular slide holder which suggests that it would be good for batch scanning. However it has a price tag of around £900 which ruled it out for me.

There is a whole range of plustek scanners. I went for the 7500i SE which I got on an offer from picstop.co.uk before the recent price increases.

I went for the i version because our slide collection has spent the last 30 years either in lofts or under beds and is suffering from dust contamination. I was therefore keen to have the infra-red dust removal functionality.

The Plustek has a manually advanced slide holder that holds 4 slides. I bought a 2nd holder so that I could load the next set while scanning the first set.

It came with Siverfast SEplus software. A lot of reviewers appear to have trouble with this software and recommend VueScan. So far I have had no serious problems wih the Silverfast software. If you decide to go this way and not use the Siverfast software then its cheaper to buy a Plustek SE rather than the more expensive AI version.

So far I have scanned about 100 slides(with around another 500 to do ). The Plustek has lots of options and its difficult to work out which combinations are best. I'm mainly doing a two pass scan, with auto histogram adjustments, and a third infared dust removal pass. I'm also scanning at 5000 dpi as this seams to give a near equivalent to 10m pixels. This seems to work fairly well but each slide appears to need individual tweaks to get the best result.

Scanning at 5000dpi creates rather large temporary files although the final jpegs are similar in size to "best" on the K20D. At this resolution it is also very slow, taking over 5 minutes for each slide. So I tend to do my slide scanning in the background while doing other things on the PC.

The dust removal sometimes produces some strange results and its advisable to clean each slide before scanning to minimaise the dust removal processing. I have bought a dedicated brush for this. For some slides I have had to turn off the dust removal and do a post scan manual clean-up up in photoshop.

A few times I have had some sort of registration misalignment between the multiple passes of the scanner but they come good on a 2nd attempt.

I found this link Scanning Tips very helpful.

I hope this helps,

Glyn

Thanks Glyn, the link is very useful - it's better when I learn things before I buy

If you want to try an old fashion cheap method get a light box I have a Hama LP550 and retake the slide with your digital camera in Macro then downloaded to software crop out any bits of the cardboard frame and make any other adjustments you can with your photo software then print.It works I did some 50yr old colour slides today and bearing in mind taken as snap shots with a bog standard Iford Sportsman camera and little photography experience they are acceptable But if looking for tip top quality I guess the advice given on scanners will be for you.I found the info on this method when I first wanted to convert some old 35mm slides

Thanks Glyn,Plustek has got some good reviews for 35 mm slide scanning.
I have seen it fetches a good price on auction site as an used scanner.
I have been reading on this subject recently, got here some links :
organizing and digitizing
Converting your Slides into Digital Images
Scanning Software, Tips and Help
Plustek Opticfilm 7200i Scanner Review
kind regards

I have a cheap slide scanner which cost me about 150 Euro's when I bought it about 8 years ago. It is quite terrible. It is a Pacific Image 2700 scanner.
The only real good results I have seen come from really expensive scanners.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?criteria=Film%
I use an Epson Perfection 3170 Photo scanner, it does 35mm slide and film and 120mm film/slide I have excellent results from it. Scanned and printed slides I took back in the 60s with excellent results.
A friend of mine recently purchased an ION film & slide scanner from Maplins (see link above) its simple to use and I was staggered at the quality of his prints from his 1950s slides, really impressed me and for the price you could not go wrong, give them a look.
Rees

Thank you all for sharing your experiences with Film¦Flatbed scanners and suggestions, Finally I have ordered a Epson 4990 as it can scan 4 mounted
35mm slides in batch process.I have few glass lantern slides so I believe flatbed scanner would digitize them as well.

The Minolta Dynax film scanners are very good - if you can find ione s/h. Beware, though, slide scanning takes a lot longer than you might imagine!

That would be Minolta Dimage.Excellent scanners indeed! Dynax was the name for their AF camera's.

Martin.

Doh!