Mongo is with Pluton. Mongo did not think people still used slide scanners to digitalise their slides. Even specialised scanners seem to take too long, are too expensive and often give less than satisfactory results.
Mongo has been using the following set up for years with very good success.
Images 1 to 3 are of a better quality Nikon slide copier used back in the film days when they copied slides onto film. Mongo is not suggesting you get anything like this one unless you you already have one or can get one cheaply. Mongo now uses it to copy slides straight onto digital media using an digital SLR - nothing could be simpler. you also get the benefit of RAW images if you like and that gives great scope for corrections etc during post processing if you intend to “clean them up a little”. This set up gives full slide coverage even using a 1:2 macro lens.
image 4 is of a much more obtainable and inexpensive after market unit (this one is made by Pangor but there are many other types)
Always clean your slides and remove any dust, fungus etc. you can before copying them. It is false economy to think the fancy scanners can remove all this stuff - they cannot and it takes forever for them to try and they can not do as good a job as you can in post processing if necessary but prevention is better than cure.
when starting off , take a few test images to get a good light reading/balance or setting up your flash for better consistency. Set your white balance to suit. Use a reasonable depth of field setting , say, f8 or f11 (although, it does not seem to be strictly needed as the slide is a flat field object (these are Mongo’s words). Your ISO can be as low as your camera will go because even if long exposures are required (and usually they are never required), there will be NO movement as the unit moves as a whole (if it does at all). Set the focus (and this is not usually required for subsequent slides after setting up the focus for first slide - but just check especially if you have slide mounts with different thicknesses).
Once these things are done (and they really take very little time indeed), you can copy a slide in as much time as it takes you slot it in, press the shutter button, remove the slide and slot in another slide. It takes Mongo less than 10 seconds per slide doing this instead of minutes each.
the images themselves will hopefully answer most of your questions but open to questions if you have any.
cheers Mongo
