[MacDV] Re: Film Scanners

Mon Dec 30 15:20:24 PST 2002

I also have a few thousand slides I'd like to digitize and catalog. I  
was thinking of the Nikon S4000 with the automatic feeder. I know that  
costs about $2000. However, if I send two thousand slides to a store  
and they cost even $.50 each (I cant find the cents key), that would be  
$1000, and additional slides would cost even more. Perhaps if I bought  
this equipment, I could offer a service for friends to cover my costs.

David

On Monday, December 30, 2002, at 05:23 PM, Brian Sledz wrote:

> 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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