Slide scanner recommendations?

[dtrayers]

My Dad has a lot of slides from many years ago and wants to scan them (I have no idea of the quality of the slides today).

I don't know much about slide/film scanners, but being retired I'm sure my Dad doesn't want to spend a fortune and wants something that's pretty straightforward to operate.

He has a fairly recent PC, but I don't know any of the specs.

Any recommendations on scanners or sites to learn more? Reviews?

[ssim]

I had mixed emotions about what type of scanner to buy. My first inclination was to get a dedicated film/slide scanner but after looking at my personal requirements I ended up going with a flatbed that has inserts for doing slides and film strips. I purchased the Epson perfection 3200 Pro which was about 500.00CA$. I love it and it has produced some great results. An example is attached here that was scanned off an old 35mm slide.

No matter what you do just about every image is going to have to be edited in photoshop for color balance and the odd dust spot. At least that has been my experience.

http://www.pbase.com/image/23882950.jpg

[aeroshots2003]

I'm not familiar with flatbed scanning slide film, so I can't comment on that part.

I have the Monilta Dimage Scan Dual II, which scans at 2820 dpi. I use it for scanning slides and mostly put the settings to the highest resolution - in theory over 10 Mio pixels, but with some edge cropping it boils down to + 9 Mio. File size in TIF of RGB mode scans is then about 28 Mb. You could of course store the final result in Jpeg, which would save considerable disk space.

I'm pleased with this device and, although in the recent past I had some sensor problems (resulting images with fine horizontal red line) customer service was good and fast.

If you really want to scan your images at high resolution for good detail, you might consider Minolta's Scan Dual III.

[CyberDyneSystems]

The Minolts are fantastic.. I'm sure the Nikon and Canons are too,. but I've worked with a Minolta for slides and negatives.. very nice!

[kie]

a dedicated slide scanner will give you much much better quality than a flatbed
I've used a nikon slide scanner and thought it very good

personally I would get a dedicated one and a cheap $40 flatbed if you need one of those as well.

[scottbergerphoto]

I use the Nikon CoolScan iv which was recently replaced by the CoolScanV. They are super slide scanners. They come with Digital Ice from Applied Science Fiction for dust and scratch removal. They also scan film strips. The included software Nikon Scan is very good.

Check out www.hamrick.com for VueScan and www.scantips.com.
Regards,
Scott

[Bruce Watson]

I also tried out a slide adapter on flatbed (HP) and although it worked, it was too fussy and inconsistent.

With well over two thousand of my dad's slides to scan, I bought the Minolta Dual II for about $400 Cdn.

Good results, much better than flatbed, but it does not have the ICE dust removal feature. In hindsight, that feature would certainly be nice.

Check around and see if you can rent a scanner for at short time period when you can dedicate lots to time to scanning.

For the number of scans I had, the rental was going to be about half the cost of a scanner, so I decided to purchase and will sell it in a few months when I am finished the project.

If I get half the price back, it will have worked out fine for my purposes.

Cheers,

Bruce

[GPR1]

I use the Minolta Dimage Scan Elite 5400. It cost $800US and change. It's a great scanner -- excellent quality, good bundled software, the digital ICE works wonders. I looked at the Nikon Coolscan IV, but this provided comparable quality for a better price. If it's in your price range, it gets my vote.

Greg

[BoySpot]

The Elite is pretty impressive but I have been using the Minolta Scna Dual III. It has just been replaced with the version IV. It is a lot cheaper than the Elite but produces great scans for me. Pretty user friendly, too.

If your Dad's slides are old, are any of them in glass? If so, you will have to take them out when scanning since the glass can screw things up a bit. If they are in the more modern plastic holders, you will be fine.