Slide / Film Scanner

I'm very happy with my Epson 4990, which has a built-in transparency adapter and can scan eight slides at a time. It includes adapters for a variety of film formats and can dig deep into the shadows of Velvia. I got it because I also needed something that would scan 4x5s.

Cheers,

Andreas

Keep your eye on this new hybrid scanner from Microtek.

http://www.microtekusa.com/microtek-artixscan-m1.html

It's a flatbed which autofocuses and scans film below the glass. B & H has them for $600. Here's a review:

http://www.imaging-resource.com/SCAN/M1/M1B.HTM#res

I've owned an earlier version of the Nikon CoolScan V ED and can recommend it. It's a 35mm-only film scanner widely available for $550.

How do you think that compares with the Epson 700?

I don't really know but this link could be helpful:

http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/interactive/Epson%20V700/page_1.htm

If you are serious about the quality of the resulting image, you will need to go with a dedicated film/slide scanner, such as the Nikon CoolScan series. Flatbeds just don't provide the IQ that you'll be looking for. B&H carries them.

For slides, the Nikon CoolScan V or 5000 have fantastic quality. I have the 5000 and it is VERY impressive. And the V is also quite nice; and you can get it for about $500.

They are miles ahead of a flatbed scanner for scanning slides; it's not even the same league.

I personally use the CoolScan 5000 with the Vuescan software to scan (it works better for me than does Nikon's old scanning software). It can also use the Digital ICE technology to remove scratches (this works VERY well).

Not whatever you do, scan to TIFF format. Don't be tempted to use Nikon's NEF format or VueScan's own proprietary RAW format when scanning; neither of these formats are supported by Aperture (Some Nikon NEF files are supported, but not ones from the scanners).

How many slides can the CoolScan you mention (the V) scan at one time. (I have over 10,000 slides to scan and then edit.)

Thank you.

Message was edited by: BflatBlues

I've had the same headacke.
Nikon Coolscan is the way to go if you want quality! i tried batchscanning on the hybrids and it just isnt the same even though its nice to have 4 strips scanned in one run instead of one single strip!
Unfortunately using coolscan for 10k pics is a nightmare. my plan is to have 80% of pics scanned by pro nikons in a company that does this stuff. tiffs, corrected and end of story. there is no way i can scan these myself. the precious ones ill do myself but i've given up on doing the huge job myself - just no way to make the time and not go nuts. bigger scanners are dedicated to scanning mass quantities with choices up to 4000dpi...I dont see how you can scan 10k pics on either of the solutions by yourself 😉

send away large amounts AFTER tested the company you chose and play around with your pearls on a dedicated filmscanner.
good luck /Dom

There's an optional slide feeder which can take 50 at a time. So you can set it to batch and come back in an hour or so and load it up with 50 more.

Still, 10,000 will take quite a while 🙂

I've tried several scanners, including a flatbed scanner with a TMA (Transparent Materials Adapter) for slides, and none of them can even come close to my Nikon CoolScan 5000. It's much brighter than any other scanner and has an infrared channel for reducing noise.

I also highly recommend VueScan as the scanning application. http://www.hamrick.com/ It blows the Nikon software to pieces.

I have the 50 slide batch tray for the Nikon and it works great. My recommendation for a workflow is to batch scan a whole bunch of slides using the batch tray and save them in RAW DNG format, that way you can walk away while the 50 are being scanned, then post process the files for color, etc. on your own time without waiting for each slide to be scanned before editing.

In response to all who've made valuable suggestions:

I haven't yet decided. I checked out services which in bulk will talk about less than 30 cents per slide, but given that there may be 10k or 12k (or more!) it might make more sense to purchase a tried and true product like the Nikon Coolscan 5000 with the 50 slide automation device and just take my time. If I do a few hundred a week it's not that overwhelming a task.

I just finished a project taking ~900 CDs and transferring them to iTunes using a relatively lossless format and cleaning up every darn track, album, symphony, composer, musical period, etc. My iTunes database is ~200GB. That project took me about 5 or 6 months. I'm satisfied with the result and don't feel that it was a waste of time. (It's nice to have packed away all the CDs and put them in storage.)

Unfortunately, this endeavor requires about $1,500 plus to purchase the Coolscan unit and the slide automator, perhaps 2/3 as much if I can find it used.

Supposedly Microtek's A1 scanner will have Leopard drivers in the next month or so. That unit can do 12 slides at a time and comes with an extra 12 slide tray so you can always have another ready to go. That's about half the price or the Coolscan. I'm currently using a Canon 8800F that works OK, but 4 slides at a time is tedious. In addition, it's poorly designed since you wind up touching the glass each time you take out the tray for each slide. It's not very well-thought-out. (It does create nice images, but it's so easy to let dirt ruin them.)

Sorry for the long-winded train of thought. I'll let you know what I decide -- and if I'm lucky I'll figure out why.

Thank you for your useful suggestions.

I've recently bought a Coolscan 5000 and Bulk Slide adaptor and working through about 2000 slides.

I figured that I'd only get the slides scanned once, so I'd try and do it right the first time.

The slide adaptor actually takes up to 60 cardboard Kodachromes when full. I load it up before going to work, reload it after getting back from work and before going to bed and forget about it - leaving the system to churn away.

Vuescan software makes the process really easy. It'll keep scanning until the feeding tray is empty, so you can add more slides on the fly without stopping it (provided it doesn't jam of course - fortunately not too often in my case, usually with a warped slide).

The major (huge) advantage of the dedicated film/slide scanners is the infra red channel to reduce dust - I find it makes a huge difference. Just ticking a box before scanning takes out hours of post processing. The only down side is the disk space - I've decided to save them all as 4000dpi TIFF at 16 bits per pixel making each file 130Mb!

I manage about 200 slides a day doing it this way.

I can very much recommend the Nikon Coolscan 5000 and Bulk scanning attachment. Makes scanning (almost) a dream!