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Photo Forum / General Photo Topics / UK Photography / November 2007Converting slides to jpeg
Prompted by reading a previous post! Given that I have say 500 slides which I would like to convert to jpeg so that I can keep and view them on my computer. What is likely to be the best way of getting the slides converted. Taking them to a shop? Trying to hire a scanner? The slides themselves are quite old, maybe 40 years and I have not seen them for a long time.  SignatureMichael Chare > Prompted by reading a previous post! > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > shop? Trying to hire a scanner? The slides themselves are quite old, > maybe 40 years and I have not seen them for a long time. Taking to a shop will not help if there are any marks or dust on them as they dont spend costly labour on doing the job . A flat bed like the canoscan 4400f (I think that's the current model ) will allow you to scan them and has all the software needed to convert negs and slide with preset for the popular film brands. Price will Very from around £65 to £79 depending on seller Debs Looks good. SignatureTrev You can always tell a Yorkshire man, But you can't tell him much. > > Prompted by reading a previous post! > > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > slide with preset for the popular film brands. Price will Very from around > £65 to £79 depending on seller Debs Looks good. Take a look at this link: http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=76&idprodu ct=189 I started scanning my slides in 2003 and after two different scanners which I weren't happy with I decided to copy them by camera as I had done in the distant past. Once set up it can be much quicker than scanning for a lot of slides. Roger Roger Blackwell <r.blackwell1@nospamhomecall.co.uk> observed >> > Prompted by reading a previous post! >> > [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] >http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=76 >&idproduct=189 I'm pleased it's not racist ("free from colour castes")! Have you used this one? >I started scanning my slides in 2003 and after two different scanners which >I weren't happy with I decided to copy them by camera as I had done in the >distant past. Once set up it can be much quicker than scanning for a lot of >slides. I've certainly used a camera for making copies of slides - but evenness of illumination has always been the main problem. (even a white piece of paper illuminated from the side can be unevenly illuminated, tho' looking OK.) Thanks for the link. Mike [The reply-to address is valid for 30 days from this posting] SignatureMichael J Davis <>< Some newsgroup contributors appear to have confused the meaning of "discussion" with "digression". <>< > Roger Blackwell <r.blackwell1@nospamhomecall.co.uk> observed > > [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > > Have you used this one? I've only recently discovered this after some experiments using a lightbox (and also trying flash) for illumination. The lightbox is fine if I put the slides in the exact spot otherwise the illumination can vary. The problem with flash is that it needs a good craftsperson (which I am not) to construct a suitable box and screen. I intend to try Barry Beckham's device fairly soon. > >I started scanning my slides in 2003 and after two different scanners which > >I weren't happy with I decided to copy them by camera as I had done in the [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > [The reply-to address is valid for 30 days from this posting] >> Prompted by reading a previous post! >> [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > negs and slide with preset for the popular film brands. Price will Very > from around £65 to £79 depending on seller Debs Looks good. Thanks, that might be quite economical. I have not managed to find out how slides are copied from the Canon web site, though the unit appears to have a built in film reader which accepts slides up to 2mm thick. Alas there is no user manaul in pdf format. SignatureMichael Chare >>> Prompted by reading a previous post! >>> [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > appears to have a built in film reader which accepts slides up to 2mm > thick. Alas there is no user manaul in pdf format. No free Manuals on the UK site But on the US site they give them away. There is a light built into the lid that allows the slides or negs to be scanned by transmitted light as opposed to reflected as you would with Documents the slides or negs are placed in a plastic frame that is laid on the glass plate. The software will have presets to match the colour of the negative masks for most makes of film. The more expensive 8800 has a larger lighted lid so you can make a contact sheet of 20 slides should you want and maybe more PPI SignatureTrev You can always tell a Yorkshire man, But you can't tell him much. >Prompted by reading a previous post! > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >a scanner? The slides themselves are quite old, maybe 40 years and I have >not seen them for a long time. I am going to offer a 20p/slide scanning service :) I got various quotes from 50p (£2500 for my 5000 slides) to £10 (yes 10 quid each) for a scan while immersed in oil, apparently. The scanner I use is a Nikon 5000ED. It cost about £1300 including the bulk slide feeder. There is another Nikon one for about £5000 and I scanned some slides using both (in a helpful shop) into uncompressed TIFFs and no matter how hard I looked at the pixel level I could not see any difference between the two. I also got a film strip scanner adaptor with it, which does both trannies and negs. It's pretty crap; the strip needs to be really straight otherwise the software reports it has jammed and crashes. It doesn't actually jam but it's extremely temperamental. The bulk slide feeder works fine though which is the main reason I bought the shole setup. The strips must be 2-6 frames in length, which (especially the max length) is stupid since the 5000ED has a hole in the back so one could scan unlimited strip lengths. The 5000ED scans slides to 130MB TIFFs so one can choose as much or as little compression according to the desired file size. I normally convert to jpegs of about 5MB. I also have a Canon 2710 slide scanner which does one slide at a time, or a manually positioned film strip. This is my backup. I was going to put it on Ebay and then I saw they fetch only about £20 so I didn't bother because it works perfectly. Takes for ever, of course, not having a bulk feeder. The quality is noticeably worse than the Nikon but TBH some originals are so bad one can't tell any difference. It's output is either a 25MB BMP, or a Jpeg whose quality cannot be configured and which comes out at about 1MB. Amazingly, it is virtually impossible to see any difference between the uncompressed BMP and the 1MB Jpeg - not sure whether this means the 2710 is crap or it uses some sort of jpeg compression which is a lot more clever than what digital cameras use. I reckon there is a lot of business out there for scanning old slide collections. Unfortunately all the commercial outfits charge way too much for anybody to bother. > >Prompted by reading a previous post! > > [quoted text clipped - 44 lines] > collections. Unfortunately all the commercial outfits charge way too > much for anybody to bother. Would your scanner really be able to compete with commercial machines especially if it has a tendency to jam? 20p is a very reasonable price in today's market but there are so many variables in copying slides and negatives there is a real incentive for photographers to do this work on their own images. Of course, there is always the holiday slide market but won't you get bored doing so much by hand? > Would your scanner really be able to compete with commercial machines > especially if it has a tendency to jam? He only said that's a problem with unmounted media. > 20p is a very reasonable price in > today's market but there are so many variables in copying slides and > negatives there is a real incentive for photographers to do this work on > their own images. Of course, there is always the holiday slide market but > won't you get bored doing so much by hand? Just load the bulk feeder, set it running then burn a CD - not too much effort really assuming it works out around £20 a go. >Would your scanner really be able to compete with commercial machines >especially if it has a tendency to jam? 20p is a very reasonable price in >today's market but there are so many variables in copying slides and >negatives there is a real incentive for photographers to do this work on >their own images. Of course, there is always the holiday slide market but >won't you get bored doing so much by hand? I would never do this for the money. The way I see it, the scanner paid for itself 2x over on that one job, so if I can get £100 for scanning in 500 slides (10 magazine loads) that's worth having. Obviously if the scanner packs up it will not be worth repairing, at Nikon's prices, never mind their poor attitude to customer service. The slide feeder has never jammed. It's just the film strip feeder. I could put the 130MB TIFFs onto a DVD but I reckon the 5MB jpegs are just as good. Unless the customer wants to do his own colour correction, of course, which he may well do. However, only about 35 slides would fit on one DVD. > Given that I have say 500 slides which I would like to convert to jpeg so > that I can keep and view them on my computer. What is likely to be the best > way of getting the slides converted. Taking them to a shop? Trying to hire > a scanner? The slides themselves are quite old, maybe 40 years and I have > not seen them for a long time. I bought a mid-price Minolta Scan Duo IV a few years ago, and embarked upon a big scanathon. I should have bought no scanner, and driven them over to someone like Peak. If I'd got them to do it, it'd have been cheaper, and they'd have used a higher-end scanner, and I wouldn't have lost a good few evenings of time. I treat this as a lesson learned. :-) Andy :: Regards, Andy Davidson blog www.andyd.net :: http://www.localphone.com/ - Call Global, Pay Local :: /* opinions and thoughts expressed here are my own */ > > Given that I have say 500 slides which I would like to convert to jpeg so > > that I can keep and view them on my computer. What is likely to be the best [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > Andy I've had two cheapish neg/slide scanners since 2003 and haven't been too happy with the results. I'm sure that the scanner introduces a certain amount of noise amongst other problems. Currently I am experimenting with finding the best way to copy by camera. Roger >> > Given that I have say 500 slides which I would like to convert to jpeg > so [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > > Roger Have you had any success with the Beckham Slide copier mentioned in your earlier post? Am I right in thinking that this unit does not in anyway magnify a slide and that you therefore need a camera that will focus on something about an inch from the lens? Presumably you also need some sort of stand for the camera and preferably a remote control. SignatureMichael Chare > Have you had any success with the Beckham Slide copier mentioned in > your earlier post? > > Am I right in thinking that this unit does not in anyway magnify a > slide and that you therefore need a camera that will focus on > something about an inch from the lens? All it seems to be is a miniature battery-powered lightbox. The spec doesn't even say how bright it is (it gives an exposure time of 1/50 @ f3.6, but doesn't say what ISO this is for). Given the benefits of camera AWB, I suspect I could probably achieve equal results using my old slide viewer as an illumination panel. OK, in fact I just tried the above in the interests of science. An old AAA-powered viewer with the lens removed, put the camera lens against the hole where the viewing lens had been, white balance set to incandescent. Exposure was 1/15 @ f4.4 (ISO 80) and even hand-held the results weren't too bad, a little blurry from camera shake but illumination looked pretty even and white balance was good even without bothering to calibrate it manually (which imples colour temp of about 2700K from the bulb which powers it). The results are encouraging enough to persuade me to try again with a tripod at some point instead of wheeling out my film scanner. >> Have you had any success with the Beckham Slide copier mentioned in >> your earlier post? [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > encouraging enough to persuade me to try again with a tripod at some > point instead of wheeling out my film scanner. And do you have barrel or pin cushion distortion on your zoom lens. I used to use My Kaiser enlarger with film Camera and bellows mounted on column and colour head turned upside down on base gives colour correction But you had to use type a film SignatureTrev You can always tell a Yorkshire man, But you can't tell him much. >> OK, in fact I just tried the above in the interests of science. An old >> AAA-powered viewer with the lens removed, put the camera lens against >> the hole where the viewing lens had been, white balance set to >> incandescent. ... > And do you have barrel or pin cushion distortion on your zoom lens. There's a little bit of barrel distortion but it looks correctable. I'll play around with it when I upload it to my computer. The slide is one I already scanned with my old Minolta Dimage Scan Dual so I'll be able to compare the dynamic range and see if this method is losing any shadow detail compared to a real scanner. > >> > Given that I have say 500 slides which I would like to convert to jpeg > > so [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] > Presumably you also need some sort of stand for the camera and preferably a > remote control. > Michael Chare I know that I'm a bit slow getting round to ordering the Beckham light unit but I'm still considering the options. I used a lightbox to copy slides with my DSLR mounted on a tripod and with a 50mm lens and extension tubes (21mm or 25mm) using a cable release. I preferred the results to my (pretty much useless) scanner but the slide has to be positioned quite precisely on the lightbox to get even light coverage. I was considering the Beckham light unit because it promised a uniform light source at 5200K which would allow me to copy slides quickly. I also use f11 and a slower speed rather than a larger aperture because that gives me the best results. Roger > I've had two cheapish neg/slide scanners since 2003 and haven't been too > happy with the results. I'm sure that the scanner introduces a certain > amount of noise amongst other problems. I find that what were originally smooth blue skies look grainy after scanning, it's the same blue insensitivity problem which afflicts digital camera CCDs. |
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