Help on a 35mm slide scanner

Hi all,

You may not think this is relevant to a digital forum, but...
I've had a 35mm of one sort or another since 1981, I'm now on a (year old now) EOS 5D MKII.

During the times of having a digital, I've noticed my shot count go up hugely, and my print/hard copy count go down to almost nil. After 2 weeks in Mexico last month I decided to redress the issue. I printed 110 (sorted) prints.

Then I thought, over the last 10 years I've had a lot of holidays, and for the life of me I cannot remember where a lot of them were, nor can I remember when they were.

The digital camera holidays I could pin down dates, but the 35mm print hols were harder.
However, some shots were on 35mm slide, they have dates! I've started looking at the 35mm slides, wow can anyone remember these? The colours are stunning, just a shame you have to dig out a slide projector and screen, lot of fiddling about (Yes I still have the kit)

Wouldn't it be great I thought, to scan the 35mm slides, then I can get the dates of all those forgotten hols, and I can get prints.

So, plan in place, I started to scan a holiday from 2004, using a Veho scanner, basic piece of kit, fairly cheap.

Unfortunately the colours don't look great, neither does the sharpness. I am either using it wrong, or I need a more expensive piece of kit.

Now, to the question, can anyone recommend a good 35mm slide scanner, and any techniques that they may use to fix colour casts that the scanner introduces?

I've attached one scanned shot from my first attempt, as you can see it's pretty poor. I used the best image scan settings I could but they don't look great. I will repeat the experiment again with the same pack of slides just in case I got it wrong, but I would be genuinely interested to know if anyone has any experience or thoughts on this.

Any help, suggestions, greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

Oh, boy.

Slide scanning is difficult. Good slide scanning is more difficult. My advice, unless you're looking to shoot slides regularly, is to outsource the job.

http://www.scancafe.co​m/services/slide-scanning

If you *really* want to do this yourself, I'd look into the Plustek 8200. It'll give you ~3600dpi of real resolution, but it's not great at digging into the shadows of particularly contrasty slides like Velvia or Kodachrome.

35mm slides->digital. need scanner recommendations

Popular Photography on How to Digitize Slides

If you are handy, you can set up a slide holder, light and camera rig to use your camera to capture the slides. You'll want a macro lens to "project" the slide onto your camera sensor.

If I wasn't on my phone I'd look one up Ive seen here on POTN

Edit: easier than expected to find https://photography-on-the.net …hp?p=15121381&p​ostcount=6

Thanks for the suggestions. Seems like I have my work cut out. I don't want to outsource the job though, can't afford it. I will practise, and/or look at a newer piece of kit.
Thanks all. R.

Rob-P wrote in post #16573871
Thanks for the suggestions. Seems like I have my work cut out. I don't want to outsource the job though, can't afford it. I will practise, and/or look at a newer piece of kit.
Thanks all. R.

Cheap, fast, good - pick 2.

Cheap + fast + good = Nikkor bellows, slide copy attachment and a Micro Nikkor lens. Attach to your Canon with an adapter.

Anything but a flatbed!

Plustek 8100, Pakon f125 (a modest 6MP, but the speed is incredible).

v35skyline wrote in post #16575114
Anything but a flatbed!

Plustek 8100, Pakon f125 (a modest 6MP, but the speed is incredible).

I have a Pakon...it doesn't do slides.

v35skyline wrote in post #16575114
Anything but a flatbed!

Plustek 8100, Pakon f125 (a modest 6MP, but the speed is incredible).

Seriously, there is no need to get the Pakon because the price isn't cheaper than the Plustek 8100 and the Plustek can do 3600 dpi, roughly about 5000 pixel. The Pakon maxed out about 3000 pixel. Two, you need a dedicated Windows XP system to run it because there are no supports for the scanner other than from third party users. I did some research on it before getting the Plustek. The Plustek may be a bit slow. With VueScan, it takes me about 4 minutes to scan at max 7200 dip resolution (downsampling by 50%) and to save it, per each scan. The preview scan is quick, about 8s. So, you don't need to scan every slide. The draw back is that, the bundled Silver Fast software is SLOW, 2x slower than using VueScan.

There are always drawbacks when comes to film scanners, price versus quality and etc. The Plustek 8100 has no build-in dust and scratches removal. This isn't a problem for me because I am not archiving my old film stocks. So, the OP may want to get the 8200i model. http://www.bhphotovide​o.com …80019&Q=&is=REG​&A=details

Funny that when I got my 8100 the price was $260. Now, both the 8100 and 8200i cost the same.

TooManyShots wrote in post #16575882
Seriously, there is no need to get the Pakon because the price isn't cheaper than the Plustek 8100 and the Plustek can do 3600 dpi, roughly about 5000 pixel. The Pakon maxed out about 3000 pixel. Two, you need a dedicated Windows XP system to run it because there are no supports for the scanner other than from third party users. I did some research on it before getting the Plustek. The Plustek may be a bit slow. With VueScan, it takes me about 4 minutes to scan at max 7200 dip resolution (downsampling by 50%) and to save it, per each scan. The preview scan is quick, about 8s. So, you don't need to scan every slide. The draw back is that, the bundled Silver Fast software is SLOW, 2x slower than using VueScan.

There are always drawbacks when comes to film scanners, price versus quality and etc. The Plustek 8100 has no build-in dust and scratches removal. This isn't a problem for me because I am not archiving my old film stocks. So, the OP may want to get the 8200i model. http://www.bhphotovide​o.com …80019&Q=&is=REG​&A=details

Funny that when I got my 8100 the price was $260. Now, both the 8100 and 8200i cost the same.

The Pakon is all about speed. 5 min per roll, with Digital ICE. That's damn impressive. For 8x12 prints and smaller, it's perfect.

I agree, however, that there are better choices for larger scans and/or slides (which the Pakon cannot do).

The issue with the Plutek and slides is the quite poor shadow detail it provides. For negs, it's not an issue; they don't have the density range of slides.

edge100 wrote in post #16576014
The Pakon is all about speed. 5 min per roll, with Digital ICE. That's damn impressive. For 8x12 prints and smaller, it's perfect.

I agree, however, that there are better choices for larger scans and/or slides (which the Pakon cannot do).

The issue with the Plutek and slides is the quite poor shadow detail it provides. For negs, it's not an issue; they don't have the density range of slides.

Is that from VueScan of SilverFast? I realize that with the SilverFast software, sometimes, my shadows or very bright highlights would get blocked out. Here is a new scanner model just came out recently. Not much reviews on it and so far the resolution and details are on par with the Plustek 8100. Unfortunately, it does not come with Silverfast software even thought it claims to include it.

http://www.adorama.com​/IPIPFXE.html

TooManyShots wrote in post #16576043
Is that from VueScan of SilverFast? I realize that with the SilverFast software, sometimes, my shadows or very bright highlights would get blocked out. Here is a new scanner model just came out recently. Not much reviews on it and so far the resolution and details are on par with the Plustek 8100. Unfortunately, it does not come with Silverfast software even thought it claims to include it.

http://www.adorama.com​/IPIPFXE.html

The Plustek just does not have the DMax to get into the deep shadows of slides. This is true, even with multi exposure in Vuescan or Silverfast. It's a hardware issue. For negatives, however, the Plustek is excellent (as negs have very little density range).

You don't really notice the difference until you use a scanner that has a better DMax; then the difference is shocking.

hes gone wrote in post #16573859
=he's gone;16573859]If you are handy, you can set up a slide holder, light and camera rig to use your camera to capture the slides. You'll want a macro lens to "project" the slide onto your camera sensor.

If I wasn't on my phone I'd look one up Ive seen here on POTN

Edit: easier than expected to find https://photography-on-the.net …hp?p=15121381&p​ostcount=6

do a google search on DIY slide scanning, a cardboard tube connected to the end of your lens actually works pretty good

Just like with photography, film scanning usually doesn't provide very good results on auto-settings. The film scanning software doesn't know the colors in the scene so it can auto-expose a film exposure to fill up the histogram not knowing that the scene might be mostly dark. You have to fine tun the scan settings if you want to get good results. Scanning film is an art that I continue to get better at... after 6 years!