slide / negative scanner

[wallofbeans]

hi all,

we found a lot of slides the parents took in the 70's and 80's in the loft the other day and i thought it might be a good idea to try and get them scanned in at a hi res and kept on disk / hard drive.

im assuming i can get this done at a pro photo place but wondered how good the DIY scanners are these days... Can I do this myself and get a high quality result? A result as good as the pro's might be able to get?

Found this on amazon... any good?

Veho VFS-002 Slide & Negative Scanner for 35mm & 110 Instamatic Negatives (http://www.thedvdforums.com/affiliatelink.php?localaffiliateid=8&url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B002IRXAZ0/thedvdforums-21)

[maddogsuk]

Moving to Photography and Video & Please remember the affiliates :)

[Wishy]

im assuming i can get this done at a pro photo place but wondered how good the DIY scanners are these days... Can I do this myself and get a high quality result? A result as good as the pro's might be able to get?


Well the pros would use a drum scanner costing tens of thousands of pounds. But you wouldn't be sending them over to a pro photo place unless you have more sense than money.

Have a search through the threads there have been plenty. But it basically boils down to how many photos you've got to scan and what formats they're in. (Standard 35mm slides?)

[At The Gates]

I got a Canon 8800F to scan negatives and it seems to be doing an average job. It's not great but it works. If there had been a cheaper alternative for 120 film like the one you linked above i would have got that instead. I'd imagine they'd be fine.

Depends how many slides you have. Snappy Snaps aren't too expensive and they use a proper scanner (like the Nikon Coolscan jobbies) or so i'm told. But yeah anywhere that does drum scaning will cost you hundreds to get loads done.

[wallofbeans]

there are quite a few... it might be a case of looking through and picking the best ones out but in a perfect world, there's over 100 and we'd like them all scanned as back up and as a way of viewing them!

i dont think we need to go down the fancy pro scanners but what would somewhere like a boots/snappy snaps type place use?

i had a scanner years ago that had a slide scanner attachment but it was terrible... i want to improve on that and if it cant be done pretty decently DIY'd then i'll go pro and pay the money...

[Wishy]

we'd like them all scanned as back up and as a way of viewing them!

I paid £2.50 for my slide projector, including a spare bulb. Viewing them on a computer screen is a pale imitation I can promise you.
As far as backup is concerned, why aren't they going to last longer in their original form than the digital media your backing up to?

If everything *has* to be digital these days, For ~100 slides, photo express will do them at 50p each. http://www.photo-express.co.uk/pricelist.html
Realistically, you'd need an epson v350 to do a decent scanning job at 75 quid, you'd spend forever feeding them and its a very very tedious task.

[wallofbeans]

I paid £2.50 for my slide projector, including a spare bulb. Viewing them on a computer screen is a pale imitation I can promise you.
As far as backup is concerned, why aren't they going to last longer in their original form than the digital media your backing up to?

If everything *has* to be digital these days, For ~100 slides, photo express will do them at 50p each. http://www.photo-express.co.uk/pricelist.html
Realistically, you'd need an epson v350 to do a decent scanning job at 75 quid, you'd spend forever feeding them and its a very very tedious task.

thanks for the tips. i know what you mean about slide projectors but that would everyone in the family has to get one and we'd have to ship the slides all over the world for people to see them. If we scan them then all can see via email...

[DM]

I've got a veho.. It's worth it IMO. Time is a pain but I have a pretty dull job so can squeeze it in no bother on a nightshift.