35mm Slide Transfers to Digital?
Does anyone have an inexpensive way to transfer 35mm slides to digital? This is a pricey operation at Samy’s Camera, and I have a stack I’d like to transfer. My friend, Vanessa, found some 35mm slides of a group of us roller skating at Wolman’s Rink in New York when we were in the 6th grade. They’re hilarious. We’re all wearing matching short shorts and striped Izod shirts. We’re skinny and awkward and beautiful.
Responses and Conversations
There’s fast, and then there’s cheap.
Fast – pay someone like Samy’s to do it for you.
Cheap – use a scanner with a film attachment. Note this option will not result in the same quality as a dedicated film scanner, but the point was cheap. My Epson RX620 and R300 both came with film attachments.
Comment by John Koontz on August 10th, 2006 at 8:13 pm
I tried the have someone else scan it for you cheap routine – I was dissapointed.
Samys has a high end scanner but wants huge money.
The problem is when you have thousands of old negatives, it’s just not cost effective to outsource.
Konica/Minolta and Nikon make some great Slide and film scanners – 5400 DPI, and all kinds of solfware to remove damage. They run $500-600 or so.
I’m running all my old negatives thru mine – after I’m done, I’ll sell it on ebay for $350-400.
There is one more alternative for people close to Covina, California – there is a photography school there (Tri-Community), and if you are a student, you can use their scanner – if you have a lot of negatives or slides, this can take a lot of time – you have other students competing for the timeslots.
Comment by Pete Parker on August 11th, 2006 at 9:22 am
I agree with Pete. Minolta’s cheaper scanners do an admirable job for less than 300 bucks. good dynamic range and resolution. You’ll probably have to find them used, since the buyout they can be hard to locate. A couple of other ways would be to lite them from behind with an even (and cool) light-source (no center hotspot like a flashlight) and shoot them with a 6+ megapixel camera and a macro lens. the last would be a bellows set-up and one of those slide attachments, many of which can be found used for not too much money.
Oh, like Steve Jobs says, just one more thing…project the slides in a dark room and shoot them off of the screen with your digicam. They can be enhanced later in Photoshop (could use a rear-projection screen or a FLAT piece of vellum and shoot them off of that too).
Comment by JimmyD on August 11th, 2006 at 10:05 am
Thanks for all the great ideas. For this first batch, I might just set up my slide projector in the dark and shoot them with my Nikon. Maybe that can be a part of August’s Light Painting project on DP Blogs!
http://dpblogs.com/project-of-the-month/
But one of these days, I’m going to have to tackle the dirth of old negatives wedged in notebooks in the closet. But that’s a project for another day…
Comment by Stephanie Simpson on August 11th, 2006 at 12:50 pm