Scanner recommendation for 1000s of slides?

Hello.

I tried an Epson 4990 Photo a while ago. Good scans but dynamic range a bit flat. I also found it extremely noisy, with a high pitched, rather piercing sound that really irritated me. So I went with the Canon 9950F. Apart from the loss of Digital ICE (Canon's equivalent is OK for me, but not as good meaning I have more time in Photoshop), it is extremely quiet and the dynamic range is definitely superior.

Both have slide holders. I do about 24 at a time with the Canon, but it is a couple plus hours when I use dust/scratch removal on all 24. .... similar to the Epson, although I recall I couldn't do as many at one time.

I use the Epson scanner. The 4990 would be nice but I have the 4780. "digital ICE" is absolutly worth it to get. It makes the scans go very slow, as long as 10 minutes per slide but there is no way you could remove the dust and scratches in Photoshop in only 10 minutes. I start a batch before I go to bed. The scanner will do the whole bacth and place each image in it's own file. Later I go in with PS to make a fine adjustment to the white balance and exposure and save the 100MB tiff files to JPG. Next I import the JPG files to iPhoto and add date, keywords and comment and rate it with stars. Figure on doing about 100 slides per week if you have a job and a life. You will be done within a year.

Scanning at 4800dpi wil capture all of the detail in a good slide,

Hi, I have been scanning negatives in 35mm, 120 and 220, and 4x5 and 8x10 format for many years. I currently have a Minolta DIMAGE Pro (discontinued), considered the BEST (Drum scanners not considered) and an EPSON 4990.
I assume you have 35mm negatives (not slides), and you want to keep all of them in storage.
My first recommendation, equipment wise, is to wait for the NEW Epson V-750 M Pro ($799). According to preliminary reviews, it is much better than the already excellent 4990, plus you get optical 6400 DPI, an absolute MUST for 35mm negatives. This will outresolve film grain (in all likelihood you will have 200 and 400 ASA film, which is very grainy).
Be prepared to do A LOT OF COLOR CORRECTION, which is what film labs do before printing, to take bad exposures and other problems people run into when using their cameras.
Another suggestion, DO NOT SCAN ALL OF THEM. It takes a lot of time, and is probably not worth it. Sort them in a light table (a 5000K good one is $60) with a 6x loupe (again another $120 for a good one). Scan for the resolution you will likely print them: if you want 5x7 or 4x6, scan at 1800/2400 dpi. Get a good system for storage and rescan if you need a larger print (do not try to print larger than 8x10, unless you really know what you are doing). Silverfast is recommended.
Be prepared to spend LONG HOURS doing this. A good 2/4 pass scan of a 35mm negative, plus correction and retouching will take no less than 5 minutes, times 3,000 is a lot of hours: More than 10 days of non-stop non-sleep work.
If you have a LOT of money, you can send them to a lab and they will give back a CD for you, for a price.
Good luck

Adam - I'm not familiar with that Pacific scanner, but I found this rather unfavorable review:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1788182,00.asp

My recommendation would be either a Minolta or Nikon film scanner, with an autoloader attachment. There are several models available, so let your budget be your guide (they are all pretty good.)

But whatever you get, make sure it has Digital ICE technology, which has nearly magical abilities to remove scratches and dust from film scans, saving you untold hours of retouching.

Tangential:
There are lots of folks who have discovered their DSLR will shoot fabulous slide reproductions using conventional (if antique) extension tubes, bellows/stages or slide duplication attachments. You should be able to find several articles online describing the procedures.

I'e adapted some conventional techniques form my old slide-shooting days:
Edit ruthlessly.
Do your rough cataloging from memory. Orgainize by date, location, family tree, whatever.
Uniquely number every image you are going to scan (get an incremental stamping device from a rubber stamp supplier, ancient office supply).
Do your rough scans/captures/digitizing at medium resolution.
Do your rough cataloging with your database application.
BACK UP YOUR IMAGE LIBRARY.

Then you have to decide what to do next:
a) Print proof sheets and send them to your family asking for additional information about the images.
b) Start rescanning the most important images at best rez with all processing and effects active.

bogiesan

Lateral thinking. An off the wall idea but fast (and possibly cheap) option ....

Project the slides onto a screen (borrow or rent a projector and screen if you have neither).

Set your digicam on a tripod. Center and focus on the screen to fill the viewfinder with the projected image.

Sit back, watch the slides with friends, click your digicam shutter amd enjoy.

Upload to your PC and continue in Aperture or other.

My brother tried this and had very reasonable results. Given the age of the slides and grainyness, little was lost in his mind vs. a platten scanner. Of course you need a good screen and kave the digicam as on-axis as possible.

Are you saying that there is an attachment for an Digital SLR camera that will allow me to shoot slides instead of scan? My neighbor has two DSLRs that she would gladly let me borrow.

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All of the DSLR mfrs have something in their catalogs of attachments that can be used as a slide duplicator but they will be expensive. Look for bellows, extension tubes, macro setups, and, of course, slide copiers.

You can check these:

<a class="jive-link-external-small" href="http://">http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A= details&Q=&sku=82193&is=REG&addedTroughType=search

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=8 1740&is=REG&addedTroughType=search

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=1 68186&is=REG&addedTroughType=search

bogiesan

Slide copying attachments are ok, but they require careful lighting to get best results, AND you'll have a lot of dust to remove. And most of them are set up for full frame coverage, so any DSLR you use will have to also be full frame (e.g. Canon 1Ds, Kodak 14n/c, etc.).

I have a Nikon Super Coolscan 4000 (current version is the 5000). Scans at up to 4000 ppi optical, fantastic quality and features, and digital ICE that removes dust/scratches. The other advantage is the 50 slide feeder you can get for it. I use one, it's the best for unattended scanning. And you can keep taking slides out of the "out" side and putting new ones in the "in" side as it's going, to scan continuously. I've been archiving much of my slides that way, and I have WAY more than 3000.

Check eBay, probably a few people have done what I'm doing, and now that they're done, they'll sell the scanners. Worth the investment, cheaper than sending them all out to be scanned. But there are some places that will scan them for you and take all the trouble out of this if you want, as well, for the same or a little more.

I haven't checked this out thoroughly, but virtually ANY CVS store with a photo lab will also have a commercial slide scanner, compressed air tank and a kid who will sit there 8 hours a shift and scan your slides on pro equipment you could never afford.

Last time I looked, the going charge was about $0.25 per.

Scanning 3K slides yourself will take you all summer!

I might be off about cost, but I bet you can make a simple test with a few slides and then if the quality is up to par bargain a deal for the bulk of the work with the store manager who'll probably be interested in a project like this.

Alternatively there MUST be services that do this regularly.

Between the $800-$2K you're likely to spend on a scanner plus the HOURS and months of tedium to do the work, I'd say don't do it yourself!

JMO of course! HTH

Adam,
Coming in late to this topic but I recommend the Minolta Dimage series. I have the Scan Elite 5400 and scan Kodachrome slides for archiving. I'm very pleased with the results. I agree with the earlier posts on editing before scanning to save time. My slide holder has 4 slots and scanning at 1300 dpi (6-7 Mb file size - any image I'm serious about gets scanned at higher dpi) takes about 10 minutes total, not counting the time to mount and clean slides for scanning. I've gone through 2000 slides off and on for the past year. It's something I do while reading or web surfing.

MM

Not sure who considers the Dimage the "Best" outside of a drum scanner. First I've heard of it. If you could afford a Nikon CS 5000 with the bulk slide attachment, that would be the " best" for 35mm under $1500 USD. Does 50 at a time and will also work on the less expensive, older and slower CS 4000.

There's several "buy it now" 5000s with the attachement for about 1300 USD on the auction site. If you trust those sellers. Depending on the speed of your computer, and the scan settings you set, will be extremely fast compared to the many hours discussed below on the flat bed.