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Hi.
Currently trying to sort out boxes and boxes of slides and photos and have several questions. I only want to scan the 'best/family history' slides and photos which will probably amount to 2 or 300 at most. None of the pictures are technically great, more just creating a record of the past.
1. I can probably find an old slide viewer around somewhere but is there a better/modern way of viewing slides quickly to decide whether they are worth scanning?
2. Can you suggest options for getting the pictures/slides scanned - better to do it myself or hand over to a shop - recommendations for scanners/shops gratefully received.
3. Any recommendations for cloud storage - would prefer somewhere that doesn't retain copyright, allows tagging of photos, and allows me to share one photo rather than a complete set of photos.
Thanks for any help.
P.S. I promise only to post the most relevant ones on UKC/H - half naked children clambering around on the Buddhas of Bamiyan might be stretching the Bouldering link too much
Currently trying to sort out boxes and boxes of slides and photos and have several questions. I only want to scan the 'best/family history' slides and photos which will probably amount to 2 or 300 at most. None of the pictures are technically great, more just creating a record of the past.
1. I can probably find an old slide viewer around somewhere but is there a better/modern way of viewing slides quickly to decide whether they are worth scanning?
2. Can you suggest options for getting the pictures/slides scanned - better to do it myself or hand over to a shop - recommendations for scanners/shops gratefully received.
3. Any recommendations for cloud storage - would prefer somewhere that doesn't retain copyright, allows tagging of photos, and allows me to share one photo rather than a complete set of photos.
Thanks for any help.
P.S. I promise only to post the most relevant ones on UKC/H - half naked children clambering around on the Buddhas of Bamiyan might be stretching the Bouldering link too much
In reply to Eeyore:
It would be good to even just get some advice about 'slide viewers' if you think I might be asking for to much info.
It would be good to even just get some advice about 'slide viewers' if you think I might be asking for to much info.
In reply to Eeyore:
I've no doubt everyone will have different opinions on this and folk will hopefully chip in with their ideas. There are a number of folk, quite often professionals, who have successfully used digital cameras for quite high quality slide scanning and if you search on tinternet, you'll find them soon enough. There's plenty out there to give you a good idea of how to go about it. I suspect the era of dedicted slide scanners has now been overtaken by cheap technology.
Anyhow, for what it's worth, what I have personally found to work quite well is the following:
If you can find one, a classic lightbox provides a fast way of both checking large numbers of slides (using a loupe) and also for then 'scanning' using a modern digital camera.
I've found that a camera that has around 12Mp resolution or higher, when used with a decent macro lens (or at least a lens that allows reasonably close focus, so that you can get the 35mm slide to fill at least around 25-30% of the frame which you can crop later) produces pretty good results - certainly comparable to, if not better than, a high end old-school slide scanner.
The advantages are manifold: it takes seconds to get a 'scan', compared to ages with a slide scanner, and you can bracket and muck around with white balance, aperture etc if you want, although I've found the auto white balance on modern cameras and between around f5.6-8 seems to get it spot on most of the time with a light box.
My set-up comprises an old Jessops lightbox, a Canon EOS-M mirrorless camera (available for under £150 these days) mounted on a tripod with a 11-22mm zoom lens. I use a cardboard tube with black interior (cut from an old whisky bottle) to act as a 'blind' to keep extraneous light out, plus a dark card mask over the slide on the box to make sure the light source is only shining through the film emulsion.
You put the slide on the lightbox, get the camera set up so it's square-on to the slide, with the lens inside the light-excluding tube and position the camera so that it's at its closest focus distance. With the Canon 11-22mm lens, because it's not a macro, it can't get close enough to fill the frame, only perhaps about 30%, but even so I've found that the EOS 18Mp sensor captures plenty of detail so that when the image is cropped, it's still got pretty decent resolution. The other advantage of the EOS is that it's got a touch screen you can use for focus and delayed shutter, so that you can take multiple exposures of a slide easily with different exposures simply by pointing at different bites of the slide - makes it very quick and easy to experiment to get the image you want.
I've also used a Sony Nex 6 with a Nikon Macro lens attached to produce similarly good results, so I think any modern camera with high-res sensor and decent glass will probably do the trick. If you've got a DSLR or full-frame, I imagine the resolution and image qulity would surpass most dedicated slide scanners these days.
I did a test with a slide that had been drum scanned 5 years ago for a magazine and the EOS scan was just as highly resolved. The colours also came out better! So that convinced me. One of my EOS 'scans' has since appeared on the front cover (A4) of a magazine - it looked pretty sharp and the colours came out great.
Don't forget you'll need a remote way of triggering the shot as well, either the touch screen delay available on some cameras, (or Sony have an app to trigger their shutters by waving your hand over the eyepiece) or an infrared remote release.
Some examples of slides scanned in this way are here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/36689155@N02/25066750646/in/dateposted-public...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/36689155@N02/24257005541/in/dateposted-public...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/36689155@N02/23687296704/in/dateposted-public...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/36689155@N02/24209945056/in/dateposted-public...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/36689155@N02/24231754665/in/dateposted-public...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/36689155@N02/24205671636/in/dateposted-public...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/36689155@N02/17285258394/in/dateposted-public...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/36689155@N02/16197503777/in/album-72157650104...
Alternatively, if you want a very quick way of 'batch scanning' large numbers of slides at reasonable quality without having to spend much time at all, and you have a slide projector and a DSLR with Macro lens, I can recommend the following method which really does work:
youtube.com/watch?v=jnvhBXQrfzQ&
The quality isn't as good as the method I descibed earlier, but it's not bad and you can shift a carousel full of slides into digital in minutes. If it's just family snapshot type stuff, this is a pretty good way to digitise in bulk.
Hope this provides a few ideas,
Col
I've no doubt everyone will have different opinions on this and folk will hopefully chip in with their ideas. There are a number of folk, quite often professionals, who have successfully used digital cameras for quite high quality slide scanning and if you search on tinternet, you'll find them soon enough. There's plenty out there to give you a good idea of how to go about it. I suspect the era of dedicted slide scanners has now been overtaken by cheap technology.
Anyhow, for what it's worth, what I have personally found to work quite well is the following:
If you can find one, a classic lightbox provides a fast way of both checking large numbers of slides (using a loupe) and also for then 'scanning' using a modern digital camera.
I've found that a camera that has around 12Mp resolution or higher, when used with a decent macro lens (or at least a lens that allows reasonably close focus, so that you can get the 35mm slide to fill at least around 25-30% of the frame which you can crop later) produces pretty good results - certainly comparable to, if not better than, a high end old-school slide scanner.
The advantages are manifold: it takes seconds to get a 'scan', compared to ages with a slide scanner, and you can bracket and muck around with white balance, aperture etc if you want, although I've found the auto white balance on modern cameras and between around f5.6-8 seems to get it spot on most of the time with a light box.
My set-up comprises an old Jessops lightbox, a Canon EOS-M mirrorless camera (available for under £150 these days) mounted on a tripod with a 11-22mm zoom lens. I use a cardboard tube with black interior (cut from an old whisky bottle) to act as a 'blind' to keep extraneous light out, plus a dark card mask over the slide on the box to make sure the light source is only shining through the film emulsion.
You put the slide on the lightbox, get the camera set up so it's square-on to the slide, with the lens inside the light-excluding tube and position the camera so that it's at its closest focus distance. With the Canon 11-22mm lens, because it's not a macro, it can't get close enough to fill the frame, only perhaps about 30%, but even so I've found that the EOS 18Mp sensor captures plenty of detail so that when the image is cropped, it's still got pretty decent resolution. The other advantage of the EOS is that it's got a touch screen you can use for focus and delayed shutter, so that you can take multiple exposures of a slide easily with different exposures simply by pointing at different bites of the slide - makes it very quick and easy to experiment to get the image you want.
I've also used a Sony Nex 6 with a Nikon Macro lens attached to produce similarly good results, so I think any modern camera with high-res sensor and decent glass will probably do the trick. If you've got a DSLR or full-frame, I imagine the resolution and image qulity would surpass most dedicated slide scanners these days.
I did a test with a slide that had been drum scanned 5 years ago for a magazine and the EOS scan was just as highly resolved. The colours also came out better! So that convinced me. One of my EOS 'scans' has since appeared on the front cover (A4) of a magazine - it looked pretty sharp and the colours came out great.
Don't forget you'll need a remote way of triggering the shot as well, either the touch screen delay available on some cameras, (or Sony have an app to trigger their shutters by waving your hand over the eyepiece) or an infrared remote release.
Some examples of slides scanned in this way are here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/36689155@N02/25066750646/in/dateposted-public...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/36689155@N02/24257005541/in/dateposted-public...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/36689155@N02/23687296704/in/dateposted-public...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/36689155@N02/24209945056/in/dateposted-public...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/36689155@N02/24231754665/in/dateposted-public...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/36689155@N02/24205671636/in/dateposted-public...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/36689155@N02/17285258394/in/dateposted-public...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/36689155@N02/16197503777/in/album-72157650104...
Alternatively, if you want a very quick way of 'batch scanning' large numbers of slides at reasonable quality without having to spend much time at all, and you have a slide projector and a DSLR with Macro lens, I can recommend the following method which really does work:
youtube.com/watch?v=jnvhBXQrfzQ&
The quality isn't as good as the method I descibed earlier, but it's not bad and you can shift a carousel full of slides into digital in minutes. If it's just family snapshot type stuff, this is a pretty good way to digitise in bulk.
Hope this provides a few ideas,
Col
1
In reply to Colin Wells:
Many thanks for your suggestions. As this is probably a one off exercise and I no longer own much photography equipment I'm leaning towards just getting all the slides scanned (along with selected photos) and then choosing to sort them using the computer.
If anyone can provide a recommendation of where to go for bulk slide scanning plus photo scanning (different sizes and both b&w / colour, that would be helpful.
Many thanks for your suggestions. As this is probably a one off exercise and I no longer own much photography equipment I'm leaning towards just getting all the slides scanned (along with selected photos) and then choosing to sort them using the computer.
If anyone can provide a recommendation of where to go for bulk slide scanning plus photo scanning (different sizes and both b&w / colour, that would be helpful.
In reply to Eeyore:
I have thousands of slides and just bought an Epson V550 scanner. Many of my slides aren't great and some have perished over the years. I have bit the bullet and am just scanning everything, it doesn't take too long to rattle through a box of slides. My wife has also done the same.
Cloud storage I've not got a clue, but tend to upload all my better images to Flickr, you can manage the privacy settings so only you, family, family and friends or anyone can see them. It's free and you can upload a huge amount of images before you have to pay.
I have thousands of slides and just bought an Epson V550 scanner. Many of my slides aren't great and some have perished over the years. I have bit the bullet and am just scanning everything, it doesn't take too long to rattle through a box of slides. My wife has also done the same.
Cloud storage I've not got a clue, but tend to upload all my better images to Flickr, you can manage the privacy settings so only you, family, family and friends or anyone can see them. It's free and you can upload a huge amount of images before you have to pay.
In reply to craig h:
Would be good to get other views of the Epson V550 - I had an Epson scanner with a slide scanner attachment and never really managed to get good results.
Cloud storage - do the likes of Flickr and Instagram not take a certain amount of control away from you. Some of the photo's I want to upload are not mine so I want to make sure I can delete them if required.
Would be good to get other views of the Epson V550 - I had an Epson scanner with a slide scanner attachment and never really managed to get good results.
Cloud storage - do the likes of Flickr and Instagram not take a certain amount of control away from you. Some of the photo's I want to upload are not mine so I want to make sure I can delete them if required.
In reply to Eeyore:
Just set private or friends and family on Flickr, that way the only people to see are who you invite. Think they would have to register to see. The images remain your images on Flickr.
Just set private or friends and family on Flickr, that way the only people to see are who you invite. Think they would have to register to see. The images remain your images on Flickr.
In reply to craig h:
Thanks. A couple of last questions - hopefully.
If I delete a photo on Flickr does it get deleted?
If I want to share a single photo without identifying my account, can I do this?
Thanks. A couple of last questions - hopefully.
If I delete a photo on Flickr does it get deleted?
If I want to share a single photo without identifying my account, can I do this?
In reply to Colin Wells:
Colin, do you need to remove the slides from the mounts or otherwise ensure that the film is completely flat in this technique?
Colin, do you need to remove the slides from the mounts or otherwise ensure that the film is completely flat in this technique?
In reply to Stone_donkey:
No, you just bung 'em on the lightbox (or at least I do)!
Obviously, you try to get them as flat as possible and the crucial thing is to get the plane of the lens exactly square-on with the slide on the lightbox, but I think if you're taking a shot of a slide which doesn't entirely fill the camera frame, and have the lens stopped down to about f5.6-8, the depth of field seems to sort out any small misalignments there might be. (I forgot to mention that I use aperture priority and let the automatic shutter sort out the exposure - it nearly always gets it right and it's easy enough to bracket if it's not quite right).
One advantage of not completely filling the frame and cropping later seems to be that it helps with getting sharp scans right across the image, possibly (I guess) because most lenses tend to be sharpest in the middle of the glass. (But I'm not a techie expert on these matters, so if anyone wants to wade in and correct my amateur conjectures, please feel free!)
When I've used a macro lens to completely fill the frame it seems to be a lot fiddlier to avoid soft corners. The difference in resolution between filling the frame and only partly filling it and cropping seems to be pretty small anyway with a 18Mp sensor. So I've tended to do stuff with a non-macro, but still quite close-focusing lens, just for ease of workflow.
Col
No, you just bung 'em on the lightbox (or at least I do)!
Obviously, you try to get them as flat as possible and the crucial thing is to get the plane of the lens exactly square-on with the slide on the lightbox, but I think if you're taking a shot of a slide which doesn't entirely fill the camera frame, and have the lens stopped down to about f5.6-8, the depth of field seems to sort out any small misalignments there might be. (I forgot to mention that I use aperture priority and let the automatic shutter sort out the exposure - it nearly always gets it right and it's easy enough to bracket if it's not quite right).
One advantage of not completely filling the frame and cropping later seems to be that it helps with getting sharp scans right across the image, possibly (I guess) because most lenses tend to be sharpest in the middle of the glass. (But I'm not a techie expert on these matters, so if anyone wants to wade in and correct my amateur conjectures, please feel free!)
When I've used a macro lens to completely fill the frame it seems to be a lot fiddlier to avoid soft corners. The difference in resolution between filling the frame and only partly filling it and cropping seems to be pretty small anyway with a 18Mp sensor. So I've tended to do stuff with a non-macro, but still quite close-focusing lens, just for ease of workflow.
Col
1
In reply to dek:
I have several times, for the sort of use the original poster had, plus some special climbing slides. They'll scan all sorts of images and do a good job.
> Recommended, but I've not use them.
I have several times, for the sort of use the original poster had, plus some special climbing slides. They'll scan all sorts of images and do a good job.
1
In reply to Colin Wells:
Interested to know what you mean by a dedicated slide scanner?
I've got a Nikon film scanner and a couple of Scanmate drum scanners, and I've had completely the opposite experience - camera 'scans' can't touch them.
> If you've got a DSLR or full-frame, I imagine the resolution and image qulity would surpass most dedicated slide scanners these days.
Interested to know what you mean by a dedicated slide scanner?
I've got a Nikon film scanner and a couple of Scanmate drum scanners, and I've had completely the opposite experience - camera 'scans' can't touch them.
In reply to Colin Wells: the problem lies in your parac 3. Scanning professionally is not really a problem. What is, is viewing your slides sufficiently large to see if they are worthwhile. In the old days you had an illuminated box thing which you put your slide in and pushed down and could see a reasonable image. I still have one that works, but trying to find a new one before I got it working again... ! If there is some modern equivalent I should be interested to know.
In reply to jcw:
I've resorted to just searching on Google for 'slide viewer', they all seems pretty much the same as the 'olden day' slide viewers. Too many slides (estimated at over 2000) to justify the cost of scanning them all.
To everyone else thanks for the replies.
Have got through the first 20 photo albums - only another 40 or so to go, and then it is on to the boxes of loose photos, and then it is on to the slides. After that I'll start looking at the digital stuff from 2003 - talk about bouncing your memories all over the world
I've resorted to just searching on Google for 'slide viewer', they all seems pretty much the same as the 'olden day' slide viewers. Too many slides (estimated at over 2000) to justify the cost of scanning them all.
To everyone else thanks for the replies.
Have got through the first 20 photo albums - only another 40 or so to go, and then it is on to the boxes of loose photos, and then it is on to the slides. After that I'll start looking at the digital stuff from 2003 - talk about bouncing your memories all over the world
In reply to L'Eeyore:
Thanks. I looked on google and they all seem to be the old type, indeed my old one seems better. Two thousand, that's nothing!! I started looking further at some of mine and found some new good ones, but it takes a lot of time. And then you have to select the ones you want and they all seem to get out of order as a result. And half of them have no date on them. How do you keep your slides?
Thanks. I looked on google and they all seem to be the old type, indeed my old one seems better. Two thousand, that's nothing!! I started looking further at some of mine and found some new good ones, but it takes a lot of time. And then you have to select the ones you want and they all seem to get out of order as a result. And half of them have no date on them. How do you keep your slides?
In reply to jcw:
How do you keep your slides?
Some all nicely labelled and boxed in special containers, some still in the original containers (some labelled and some not), some just drifting around loose in boxes. A bit like the photos. 2000 is just a rough guess, but a large enough number for me to realise I can't afford to get them all scanned.
The whole exercise is just to reduce the numerous boxes that never get looked at to something that is easier to access some of the memories.
Looking at using Photo Director for helping to organise the photos once all scanned.
How do you keep your slides?
Some all nicely labelled and boxed in special containers, some still in the original containers (some labelled and some not), some just drifting around loose in boxes. A bit like the photos. 2000 is just a rough guess, but a large enough number for me to realise I can't afford to get them all scanned.
The whole exercise is just to reduce the numerous boxes that never get looked at to something that is easier to access some of the memories.
Looking at using Photo Director for helping to organise the photos once all scanned.
In reply to Colin Wells:
Very impressive results.
Thanks for the detailed explanation: I think I'll give this a try.
> Some examples of slides scanned in this way are here:
Very impressive results.
Thanks for the detailed explanation: I think I'll give this a try.
In reply to Rob Parsons:
All the photos in my gallery, bar one done by a friend, have been scanned by the local Fuji shop in Chamonix. I just dump a pile of them from time to time, saying do them when you can, and they don't work out too expensive. Certainly better than when I tried to do them myself.
All the photos in my gallery, bar one done by a friend, have been scanned by the local Fuji shop in Chamonix. I just dump a pile of them from time to time, saying do them when you can, and they don't work out too expensive. Certainly better than when I tried to do them myself.
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