[MacDV] Re: Film Scanners

[Brian Sledz]

AMEN.  I just inventoried 3000 negs to scan.  I called a big photo store in 
my area and first they said $1.19 for photocd.  Then the lady asked if I 
was in a hurry, if not I could have them for $.50 each.  I dropped my 
shopping for the scanner and decided to get a Nikon d100 instead.
IF you only require web res there are places that would do it for a good 
price.  Maybe send some out and do some?
Brian
At 01:17 AM 12/30/2002 -0800, you wrote:
>on 12/28/02 2:19 PM, Randy Wilson at wilsonr at fonix.com wrote:
>
> > The problem is that while the Epson 2450 is the fastest flatbed scanner 
> I've
> > heard of (17 seconds for a 6x4" print at 600dpi, for example), it is still
> > painfully slow on transparent scans (3-7 minutes per slide).  The Super
> > Coolscan slide scanner is suppsed to be "fast", but still takes about a 
> minute
> > per slide (at full resolution, but without any of the additional processing
> > that can make it take 10 times that).
> >
> > I think I have mentioned here before that I have about 10,000+ slides 
> to scan,
> > and I've been trying to figure out if there is any possible way to do 
> this in
> > a reasonable amount of time.  I don't necessarily need absolutely optimal
> > quality and resolution--just scans that look good on a computer screen 
> (e.g.,
> > a screensaver that zooms in on part of the picture), TV screen (e.g., slide
> > show video with appropriate music and/or narration), and perhaps a 
> print of up
> > to 8x10 inches.  A 4 megapixel image would be sufficient.
>
> >
> > To scan a large collection of slides, there seem to be a few alternatives:
> > 1. Use a flatbed scanner.  This is slow (3-8 minutes per slide), and the
> > quality may not be as good as a slide scanner.  However, for me it would be
> > "free", since I already have the scanner.
> >
> > 2. Use a slide scanner.  This is only slightly less slow (1 minute per 
> slide
> > with a $1200 firewire scanner; slower on a cheaper or USB scanner).  This
> > would probably yield the best quality, if an expensive (>$1000) scanner is
> > used.
> >
> > 3. Use a miniDV camcorder: Blast through the slides, filming off of a 
> screen
> > or transfer box, and extract images from the video.  This would also be 
> "free"
> > for me, since I have a camcorder, and would be much faster than the other
> > ways: about 2 seconds per slide to shoot the video, and another few seconds
> > per slide to save each slide from the video stream (or perhaps done
> > automatically).  But the quality would be nasty: 640x480 and highly
> > compressed.
> >
> > 4. Use a digital camera: Project each slide onto a movie screen or transfer
> > box, and use a 4 megapixel digital camera to snap off each picture.  This
> > would probably take 3-5 seconds per picture (assuming the digital 
> camera could
> > store things off that quickly), and would be high enough resolution for 
> most
> > things.  I need to experiment to see how the quality compares with a slide
> > scanner.
>
> > Is there such a thing anywhere (even for $100,000) as a scanner that 
> will do
> > fast high-quality scans of slides?
>
>What your time is worth? A few years ago I spent $600 (CND) on an HP
>Photosmart S20 scanner for my Dad with the intent of archiving thousands of
>family slides/negs. By the time all was said and done, we were lucky to come
>out with maybe 25 scans in a hour (and of course that doesn't include time
>to catalog, backup data, etc.). It was totally discouraging, and to be
>honest, the quality wasn't that great.
>
>Previously we had sent several hundred slides in to a Kodak Photo CD shop;
>awesome quality, no muss, no fuss, and they had 300 slides done in less than
>a week. It seemed a little pricey at the time (about $1/slide) which is why
>I went the scanner route, but in retrospect I should have saved my money on
>the scanner, and countless hours of time, and just had them all done to
>Photo CD.
>
>My advice - take them to a service bureau that does Kodak Photo CD/Picture
>CDs and spend your time/money on the creative side of things.
>
>http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/products/storage/pcdMaster/about
>PCD.jhtml?id=0.3.6.30.17&lc=en
>
>
>
>--
>Gregg
>
>
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