Photo slide converter

[John Geerts]

Has anyone experience with converting old Photo slides to digital images?  I have found some 2.000 photo-slides from the period 1965-1975 in the attic, mostly photo's my dad took. Is a digital scanner the solution? 

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Unless your slides are Kodachrome, I'd recommend a scanner. Do make efforts to weed out all irrelevant photos before you embark on the digitising job.

I probably have scanned at least 80.000 slides (and prints) for myself and clients. Setting up a well-organised work flow is paramount.

[John Geerts]

Thanks for your helpful advice Bjørn.  I think they'r all shot with Agfa at the time. (there is some work to do)

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Well, then they should be eligible for scanning. But don't expect miracles if the film used was Agfa CT-18 ... It had quite poor sharpness and colours might fade badly over time. A dedicated film scanner might be able to restore much of what is lost though, given it has the required hardware (IR channel) and appropriate scanner software is used.

[pluton]

The possible alternative to a slide scanner is an old-fashioned slide copying setup using a decent lens mounted on bellows, and a slide holder made for the bellows. 
Advantage over scanning: Usually much faster to cycle through the slides. 
Disadvantage:  Cost of acquiring is close to that for a mid-price(US$250-$350, lens extra) film scanner.  Results vary.  Slides and mono negs work well, color negs are much more bother in post.  Quality of the illumination source matters for color.
Shown without light source:

[Anthony]

The hardest part is cleaning the slides.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

I have all the bits and pieces you show here, Keith, yet decided against it for mass copying. To me, significant reasons are that you need to be present as all times popping slides in or out, the slides need to be cleaned otherwise you spend a lot of time retouching later, light quality and evenness of illumination are critical, and contrast does build up. A minor detail is that most DSLRs doesn't allow bellows to be attached unless you put an extension between it and the camera thus losing the full focusing range required for the Micro-Nikkor or equivalent that the copying outfit was designed for.

A scanner can be operated with a batch attachment so it runs through a lot (up to 50-60) slides in each batch, scanner hardware and software extracts more information, get the colours restored directly into the output file, and can remove almost all of the dirt and specks found on the slides so you can largely drop cleaning slides in advance unless they are very dirty. Start a batch scan with your scanner and then do something else for a good while. If you make the scanner transfer your files directly to networked storage with a sensible disk capacity and a RAID configuration, not much can go wrong apart for the odd jammed slide, and even this can be alleviated by using plastic instead of paper mounts.

The final job of processing the scans or copies to useful image files takes (a lot of) time and everything that can reduce the amount of post processing should be welcomed. Don't count on getting through more than a few hundred files per day.

[BEZ]

Sorry to hijack your thread John .....I have completed the marathon task of scanning my colour negatives with a Nikon Coolscan and Nikon Scan. I had a dedicated computer working through them while I edited on my main workstation or did other things. If I had to do it again I would repeat this process.

Now I have started on my larger collection of black and white negatives. I scanned in greyscale so they have no colour profile attached. My problem is all my plug ins and Photoshop filters are not available. This screws my workflow and limits my editing capability. Should I stick with greyscale and accept the limitations, or scan as colour negatives?

Cheers
Bez

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Scan as colour negative. That will make later editing easier.

Just out of curiosity, have you any idea of the volume of scans performed?

[BEZ]

10,000+ Colour ....I gave up choosing what images to scan half way through and just robotically fed the feeder.

I dare not count the Black and White I need to do, but will take the time to cull the negatives.

Thank you for the advise it will make life easier for me. If I scan in colour can I now use I.C.E or is it still not recommended (please say yes) :-)

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Using ICE depends on the scanner features and the type of film. Some combinations work, some don't. If turning ICE on produces scans with exaggerated contrast and blocked shadows and blown highlights, well, then ICE won't work ...

[BEZ]

Thanks Bjørn, I will run an experimental batch. 

[jhinkey]

Has anyone experience with converting old Photo slides to digital images?  I have found some 2.000 photo-slides from the period 1965-1975 in the attic, mostly photo's my dad took. Is a digital scanner the solution?

Here's my accumulated wisdom having copied several hundred if not thousands of slides - old and relatively new.
Three ways to do it digitally that have merit:
 (1) Dedicated slide scanner - CoolScan 5000ED + SF210 slide feeder
 (2) Dedicated flatbed scanner - Epson V750 or similar
 (3) FX Digital SLR + Macro Bellows/Slide Holder (alternative is using the ES-1 slide copying attachment)

For scanning a lot of slides that need scratch and dust treatment (1) cannot be beat.  These are going for a lot of $$ lately, but if you buy one used in great shape you will be able to sell it for little loss.  I actually sold my CS5000ED and SF210 for a small profit after I put a few thousand slides through it.  I had to clean the mirror (not for the faint of heart, but there are on-line directions) and futz with the SF210 to make it reliable (far more easy to do than most of the on-line suggestions because they usually have no idea what's causing the issue so they make elaborate modifications that are not needed).  Downsides to this are fare and dynamic range not as good as (3).

Option (2) can be pretty good, but is time consuming to load in a set of slides to the flatbed holder.  Dust and scratch removal not as good.  Can't comment on sharpness or dynamic range compared to (1), but it's supposed to be pretty good.

Option (3) is excellent IF:
 (1) You have relatively few slides that don't need much TLC (i.e., dust removal)
 (2) You want the maximum dynamic range (my D800 beat out the CS5000ED in this area)
 (3) You have high contrast slides that produce flare issues in the CS5000ED
Once you get this set up (I used a D800, PB-6/PS-6 bellows & slide holder, slide table as light source, 55/3.5 AIS macro), you can photograph a set of 36 slides in under 1/2 hour as taking the image is very fast (compared to minutes per slide for the CS5000ED).  The non-collimated light source of (3) is more forgiving on dust and scratches with sharpness not really suffering.

So, I started out with (1) - i.e., the CS5000ED, which worked out well.  Got through my slide collection AND my in-laws collection of really dirty/scratched Kodachromes/Ectachromes pretty well.

Kept (3) for any continued transparency shooting or if I wanted to go back and scan any certain slides with higher DR or less flare.

You don't need to use a D800 - there certainly is not 36MP of detail in the vast majority of slides - nor do you need to use FX (though it helps with the setup to image the whole slide area).  I would think any of the lower MP current FX bodies or latest DX bodies will do.  If you do use a DX body you will likely need an extension tube if you use a FX macro.

I'd just buy a CS5000ED and SF-210 slide attachment and re-sell it . . .
My 2 cents.

[John Geerts]

Thanks for all the very welcome advice. Gives a lot of options to think about. Found two other boxes of 2.000 slides. First the hard job to select what's fit for digital processing 

[Bjørn Rørslett]

I recommend you do the culling of the slides in two stages. First stage, divide into groups YES, MAYBE, NO. Second stage, browse through the MAYBE and NO groups again. Our perception of visual material is not absolute but relative and depends on the overall context.