trying to be clever dosent always pay off

ANYWAY to change the subject

i decided to archive some of the thousands of trannies i have packed up every where on to CD as you do

i have a digital camera and a zoom slide copier i thought why bother buying a scanner ha-ha all i have to do is pop the slide copier on the *istds and away we go woo hoo dosh saved

BUT the trouble is if you put a 35mm slide in a slide copier with a 35mm camera taking the pictures you get a full frame 35mm pictures (with me so far) however if you put a diital camera on the slide copier you get a cropped image

so it looks like ill have to buy a scanner after all

Hi Ali

I have a film scanner and use it for my slides and negs, but they are expensive (a decent one) and have their own issues in trying to get a digital image anywhere near as good as the film image (naturally).

There is another much cheaper option suggested to me recently that I intend to try when I get the time.

If you have a macro lens and good tripod that allows for overhead shooting, or can rig something similar up, then you can simply use a lightbox and photograph the slides on the lightbox with your dslr using a cable or remote release. Much quicker once you have it set up right for focussing etc....

An intital lazy hand held test I did today just to check it out seemed to prove very good, although naturally the very best results will be when the set up is complete and I have worked out the correct focus set up distance and aperture to use. Then it's just a case of positioning the slides one after another and shooting away.

Philip

good plan sir may try that

If you have a flat panel monitor, you are looking at a 'free' lightbox. Open a blank document, white background, and lay the monitor on its back. Place your trannies or negs on it and copy away.

Do be careful not to damage the front of the monitor, perhaps with slides in plastic mounts. You could lay a sheet of oversized glass on the monitor and put your copy subjects on that.

Also, as the light from the monitor is not pure white, set your white balance manually using the monitor as the source. Your colour replication should then be pretty well spot-on.

This technique will work just fine, but for best results:
1. Take the pictures in a darkened room to avoid ambient light reflections.
2. Black out the unused parts of the lightbox to prevent flare.
3. Tape down on the edges unmounted film so it is absolutely flat.
4. Ensure the lens is absolutely parallel to the negative to avoid distortion.
5. Use a small aperture to ensure evenness of illumination and definition.
6. Use a proper high quality macro lens.
7. Copying usually sees an increase of contrast - it might be worth experimenting with using a low contrast setting on your DSLR.
8. Focus very very carefully as DOF will be almost non-existent.

Needless to say it's a time consuming process to do the job properly. I don't have the patience....

I have a slide/negative scanner and that takes ages as well to setup properly and get good results out of it. The problem is that you have to scan a small area at high resolution. So the smallest dust speck will show up huge on the scanned image.

i use peak imaging in sheffield a lot i might just send them their and have them archived onto cd

thay do a fantastic job with quick turnaround trouble is it costs :-

£1.75 for 15-24 images (per image)

£1.50 for 25-49 images (per image)

£1.25 for 50+ images (per image)

the minimum amount is 15 images

mind you if i archive 50 images that will be £62.50 still cheaper than a scanner

and i just have films archived now at the time of prossing this only costs £7.90

I have thousands of slides, so in my case a very good scanner would be cheaper. But, then there's the time to consider. Scanning is slow work.

So it's the DSLR/macro route for me.

G

I'm using a Minolta Dimage IV scanner, which cost around £250 although Minolta gear is getting very scarce. If you really have a lot to do this could be the most cost effective way to go. It does batch scannnning of either 4 mounted trannies or 6 frames of uncut film. There was a bit of a learning curve at the start but it is quick, easy and effective.It ahppily works in the background as you get on with other things.

Ken

Amateur Photographer are reviewing a bulk slide scanner this week (Braun brand I think). It might be worth considering for anyone with lots of slides.

I use a Nikon LS40 scanner which has softwareto remove dust, specks etc. Works amazingly well. It does take some time though.

I tried the various macro options etc. but the results were never much good. I did have a film scanner (a Minolta) however it hadn't been used for a while as it's not compatible with Windows XP. I looked the various options for getting a replacement but in the end it was much cheaper to just put together a seperate Windows NT PC, stick it on my home network and use that for scanning before transferring the results to my main PC for post-processing.

There are lots of film scanners on Ebay that don't work with XP and usually they're pretty cheap. My Minolta Dimage, despite being some 10 years old, is still very effective and capable of producing results which are as good (and in some ways better) than anything I can get from my DSLR.

Excellent suggestion - must try it out. Thanks

I reckon is was compatible with Ed Hamrick's excellent VueScan package under XP

If you need to do any film scanning, then VueScan is definitely the way to go, especially when you have a large batch.

Matt