Slides to Digital Format
 

I understand there are specialized scanners for scanning 35mm slides for conversion to digital format...but have never seen one in a big electronics store like Fry's or similar...can anyone name a good one or give me a link. I have over 5000 slides in old Kodak Carousel trays...I'm afraid the projector may bit the dust one of these days. Also suspect I could recover some closet space.

They're called "film scanners." This'll get you started. http://www.scantips.com/basic13f.html
You probably want to get one with an infrared channel for automated dust removal.

Most of the digital photography sites have reviews. Here's one
http://www.imaging-resource.com/SCAN1.HTM

It's probably easiest to buy them online from the big electronics and photo dealers.

It's worth checking out Vuescan: http://www.hamrick.com/vsm.html

I went to a community college that had 35mm scanners on their computers and they worked great. Now all I can find are photo scanners with an extra tray for negatives. I hate to recommend something I haven't used and can't find reviews about, but nobody else has posted anything yet so maybe this will get you started. You're looking at $189.99 for the Epson.

go to www.pricewatch.com
under "peripherals," click "scanners"
in the center, column click "negative scanners"

I use a Minolta Dimage Scan Dual IV film and slide scanner, and it works great. You can even color correct and crop before saving the image to the hard drive. I don't remember what I paid for it, but it was quite reasonable - otherwise I wouldn't have bought it (on sale) from the Ritz Camera site.

Do you currently have a scanner? There is a chance if it's a recent one, that there is already an adapter for it available. Check the manfg's website.

I looked at slide scanners a while back. I have about 1,500-2,000 slides, but have moved to digital. Consumer Reports has a report on photo scanners within the last few years that you might want to look at. As I wanted a scanner with a pretty good resolution (4000 dpi or better), Nikon seemed to have the best product which also had a slide feeder, so that you could load 50 slides to be scanned, rather than one (or sometimes 3) at a time with most scanners. However, the price was pretty high (you can find them on Amazon, as well as other sites). I found the business represented by site below, which would scan all of my slides for significantly less than what it would cost me buy a scanner with feeder. It would also avoid the time required for me to scan all of the pics. I have not tried them yet, hoping for some feedback from someone who has used them.

http://www.digmypics.com/

Don't have an existing scanner so that's not an option.
The service is very interesting....comments would be welcome on that or any other similar service

My dad projected his slides onto a screen and took pictures of them with his digital camera. I'm sure the quality is not as good as a direct conversion, but it wasn't horrible, and it's definitely cheaper.

Basically a bump.

Still interested if anyone has used the service below and, if so, their impressions.


http://www.digmypics.com/

I have not tried that service but maybe it's worthwhile for you to send them a couple dozen slides and see if you like the results. The "camera store" scans I have gotten - i.e. develop & print film + scan images to CD have all been totally useless - big dirt specks, uncorrectable color problems (I suspect they were scanned in 8- or 12-bit color, not the 24-32 bits you need to capture high quality color rendition).

I have an Epson flatbed 2400dpi scanner that produces very, very good results from negatives and slides. The problem, as you point out, is that it can scan only a small handful of images at a time. It's also slow and tedious. The Nikon auto-load slide scanner would definitely be faster but they're not cheap.

Given you have a finite number of images to scan and how tedious it is to do, I'd be very inclined to use a service like the one in the link -- if the results are good and the price fair -- rather than buying an expensive scanner and doing it myself.

Another bump...for this or any other service that someone can recommend (or avoid)..

Check this site out: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/scanrex.htm

I did as UAL_Rulez suggested and sent them a set of slides as a test. I was pleased with results and plan to send them more.

TRRed

If doing it yourself, I would urge caution before buying a film scanner. These can give great results, but they can take a while to scan each slide (or neg - they can do those as well).

I used to sell scanners, and it was the classic enquiry "I've got X thousand slides/photos" blah blah blah. If you max out the resolution, then you could be looking at a minute per slide depending on the speed of your PC. That's before you've got into cropping, improving the pic etc.

Even with a fairly sensible resolution, the process can be rather slow.

If you have a good digital camera and an adapter is available, I would consider that. Else as an earlier poster said, project on to a screen. Then photograph that (put the camera onto a tripod as close as possible to the projector). If your camera has a remote control, its so simple. Projector remote in one hand, camera remote in the other and away you go - as fast as your camera can go until you run out of memory. Then upload and continue. I got best results by setting my camera to manual and experimenting a bit first.

My projector was a rather poor one. Although not immediately noticeable on the screen, it was clear afterwards that the pics were brighter in the centre than in the corners. Since this was a systematic error, I was able to create a filter in Photoshop and apply to each in turn.