Curious about Slide Scanner
in [Digital Cameras]
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From: David J Taylor on 5 Aug 2010 04:24 "Bruce" <docnews2011(a)gmail.com> wrote in message news:60sk56996h93eheit7lev5ifn5gea879ga(a)4ax.com... [] > It's junk. There are many of these cheap Chinese-made scanners > around. As you say, they can be bought even more cheaply than the one > linked to. They have poor resolution and very low dynamic range. > Dynamic range is very important when scanning slides - it is slightly > less important with negatives. [] Agreed. I had the chance to use something similar for an evening and could never get satisfactory results. I don't think the country of origin matters, it's the spec to which it's made. Cheers, David
From: ray on 5 Aug 2010 11:26 On Wed, 04 Aug 2010 18:52:52 -0700, Mirsky wrote: > Hi. My mom has 3000 slides and wants to digitize them. She can't afford > to have a store do it. I just found a cheap scanner on Amazon that scans > slides: > > http://amzn.to/9K7DHs > > It's even cheaper on buy.com > > I can't find any reviews of it anywhere other than Amazon. I'm a little > skeptical that the quality of the scans will be good, but I'm not an > expert on scanners and scanners are much cheaper than they used to be. > > So, I'm looking for some opinions on whether it's worth buying the > scanner. It's cheap and mom can afford it. I just don't want her to > spend lots of time scanning if the quality of the scans isn't any good. > > Thanks, > > M As mentioned in the recent "Digitizing Slides" thread, you can indeed buy a decent flatbed scanner with film/slide capabilities for around $100 (a refurb from the Epson online store would do). But - it's going to take a LONG time to digitize 3000 slides - at any level. If you pursue that approach, I'd make a first pass at a fairly low resolution - about equal to 800x600 pixels. It will go a lot faster and allow viewing to see which ones you want to do at a decent resolution.
From: Dave Cohen on 5 Aug 2010 14:24 David J Taylor wrote: > "Bruce" <docnews2011(a)gmail.com> wrote in message > news:60sk56996h93eheit7lev5ifn5gea879ga(a)4ax.com... > [] >> It's junk. There are many of these cheap Chinese-made scanners >> around. As you say, they can be bought even more cheaply than the one >> linked to. They have poor resolution and very low dynamic range. >> Dynamic range is very important when scanning slides - it is slightly >> less important with negatives. > [] > > Agreed. I had the chance to use something similar for an evening and > could never get satisfactory results. I don't think the country of > origin matters, it's the spec to which it's made. > > Cheers, > David Same experience here. Couldn't get a decent color slide copy, no adjustment provided. Did a little better on negative strip. Definitely do not purchase.
From: OG on 5 Aug 2010 15:08 "Mirsky" <mirsky(a)mirsky.com> wrote in message news:mirsky-D32546.18525104082010(a)free.teranews.com... > Hi. My mom has 3000 slides and wants to digitize them. She can't afford > to have a store do it. I just found a cheap scanner on Amazon that scans > slides: > > http://amzn.to/9K7DHs > > It's even cheaper on buy.com > > I can't find any reviews of it anywhere other than Amazon. I'm a little > skeptical that the quality of the scans will be good, but I'm not an > expert on scanners and scanners are much cheaper than they used to be. > > So, I'm looking for some opinions on whether it's worth buying the > scanner. It's cheap and mom can afford it. I just don't want her to > spend lots of time scanning if the quality of the scans isn't any good. > How's she going to view the scans? The level of quality you actually need, may not be that great depending on the quality of the viewer. I've got a similar one (4.2M px) and, yes, the output quality isn't great (you'll probably find that the results are very contrasty), but a bit of workflow on the slides in your photo editing software should probably bring them up to a presentable standard. After all, if you're waiting for a perfect copy, they'll never get done. It's worth spending a bit of time getting the slides as dust free as possible before you scan them of course, and make sure you put the slides the right way up in the holder before you scan them - you can flip the image before writing it to the SD card, but it's easier to get the slides the right way around before you start.
From: Bruce on 5 Aug 2010 18:59
On Thu, 5 Aug 2010 20:08:52 +0100, "OG" <owen(a)gwynnefamily.org.uk> wrote: > >"Mirsky" <mirsky(a)mirsky.com> wrote in message >news:mirsky-D32546.18525104082010(a)free.teranews.com... >> Hi. My mom has 3000 slides and wants to digitize them. She can't afford >> to have a store do it. I just found a cheap scanner on Amazon that scans >> slides: >> >> http://amzn.to/9K7DHs >> >> It's even cheaper on buy.com >> >> I can't find any reviews of it anywhere other than Amazon. I'm a little >> skeptical that the quality of the scans will be good, but I'm not an >> expert on scanners and scanners are much cheaper than they used to be. >> >> So, I'm looking for some opinions on whether it's worth buying the >> scanner. It's cheap and mom can afford it. I just don't want her to >> spend lots of time scanning if the quality of the scans isn't any good. >> > >How's she going to view the scans? The level of quality you actually need, >may not be that great depending on the quality of the viewer. > >I've got a similar one (4.2M px) and, yes, the output quality isn't great >(you'll probably find that the results are very contrasty), but a bit of >workflow on the slides in your photo editing software should probably bring >them up to a presentable standard. No, it won't. The scanner doesn't have sufficient dynamic range to produce acceptable scans of slides. The situation with negatives will be better, of course. >After all, if you're waiting for a perfect copy, they'll never get done. With a cheap scanner, it doesn't matter how long you spend in post-processing, it will never produce an acceptable scan of a slide. |