Dedicated slide scanner

[chim_knee]

Hi,

Slide scanners... anyone have? Do you have any recommendations?

My parents are after scanning all of their slides and probably some film negatives too.

They want to get a "dedicated" one as a) it'll be quicker, b) they tend to be smaller and they need the space and c) they never have any need for a flat-bed type.

Don't want to spend a fortune but likewise don't want 72dpi scans that take 10 minutes each.

Any have one that they want to sell for bugger all?

All advice gratefully received.

Cheers,
Phil.

[randlemarcus]

Dont fall for the little mirrory Toblerone thing that you sometimes get with scanners. It works, but only up to a point, and you need lots of massaging afterwards.

[Furyous]

may not be quite the ticket, but my epson flatbed has a thingy that takes all sizes of negs, and scans the usual 4 image length of 35mm neg in about 4 minutes I think.
Im more than happy with it, but all Im really doing is digitising my old 35mm.
Can post an example if any help.Oh,I think it cost about £60.

Cheers
F

[Parrot of Doom]

I had a proper one, Canon IIRC, but it wasn't that great. Ok the scans were allright, but it was awful at feeding film through, it couldn't use the sprockets. Single slides you had to mount, and the mounts weren't that great.

Also, you'll have to correct the colours/contrast in PS.

The upshot is, if you want to do it reasonably well, prepare to shell out a fair bit of money. Although once you've done them all, you'll easily be able to flog it on Ebay. I got nearly what I paid.

[chim_knee]

Parrot of Doom said:

The upshot is, if you want to do it reasonably well, prepare to shell out a fair bit of money. Although once you've done them all, you'll easily be able to flog it on Ebay. I got nearly what I paid.

I think that's the conclusion I'm coming to. I did have a look on eBay to see about getting one and then noticed that they're not a great deal cheaper than brand new.

Thanks for the info.

[pdV6]

I bought a slide-capable replacement lid for my flatbed HP scanner. It adds a slide mount (2 at a time) and lightbox in place of the standard plastic lid. Cost about £40-odd iirc.

Results are ok once the initial period of fiddling with the various settings is out of the way. Only used it for digitising old slides, though, so can't really comment on absolute image quality.