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A non-scanner method of digitizing old slides Apps
The June issue of Macworld describes the use of flatbed scanners and dedicated scanners to copy slides. There is a much easier and faster method that gives exceptional results, if you intend to burn all your old slides onto DVD as I am currently doing. All that is required is a good quality digital camera, a slide projector, iLife, and a sheet of slightly off-white posterboard.

Set the poster board on edge and place the projector at a distance that will produce an image approximately 18" to 24" wide. Then set your camera up on a tripod, with the axis of the lens as close to the axis of the projector as possible. Zoom the lens to fill the frame. After some tweaking of the white balance and EV settings, you can take high quality pictures of your pictures.

Fill up your memory card and import into iPhoto. There you can make adjustments and crop if necessary prior to burning as a group of slides, or make a slide show with all the trimmings. Using this method, you can import as many slides in an hour as you could with a scanner in a month of working in your spare time! This also works for your old 8mm movies.

[robg adds: I used a similar technique to convert old printed photos for use in an iDVD project. I set the photos on the ground, then put the camera on a tripod and shot down at the photos. The quality was more than sufficient for TV viewing, and I shot literally hundreds of images. Doing the same via the scanner would have been much more work.]
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A non-scanner method of digitizing old slides
Authored by: pub3abn on May 08, '06 10:33:23AM

I think if you're doing just a few photos, the scanner is definitely faster. Especially if the scanner comes with slide mounts and allows you to do multiple scans in one pass. But for hundreds of photos, this might the best way to do it, especially if you have a carousel on your slide projector.



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hmm...
Authored by: nick on May 08, '06 11:14:19AM

the scanner wins hands down in exact color-reproduction, contrast and color-depth if you don't shoot raw and do post-processing when converting the raws to jpg or tiff. and if you do so, the scanner isn't slower any more.

i imported some hundret slides using a scanner with a batch-feeder. and even that was pain in the a[s]{2}.



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A non-scanner method of digitizing old slides
Authored by: TvE on May 08, '06 12:37:03PM

If you want to go to "all" that trouble, then get hold of a large piece of cardboard and cut a rectangular hole in it (eg 24cm x 36cm).
Then tape a piece of semi-transparent paper/canvas to cover the hole (looks like baking paper - I don't know the correct term for the material… ;-) and voila - you can now position both the slide-projector (in front of…) and the digital camera (behind…) at a 90 degree angel to the image and get the proportions/perspective 100% correct.

PS.: Remember to "mirror" the slides or photos :-)


PPS.: I took some surprising good 1:1 shots of some of my old negatives by holding the negative in front of my 60 mm macro Nikkor and had my flash illuminate a white piece cardboard behind the negative…
Where there is a will there is a way…



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A non-scanner method of digitizing old slides
Authored by: jt777 on May 08, '06 12:40:26PM

You can by all kinds of adapters that fit over a lens and let you drop the slide right in. No need for a tripod, copy stand, slide projector, etc.



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A non-scanner method of digitizing old slides
Authored by: lvsyr on May 08, '06 03:00:42PM

Hi jt777, What are those adapters called, where can you get them?



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A non-scanner method of digitizing old slides
Authored by: foresmac on May 08, '06 07:59:51PM

It's called a slide copier, and you should be able to get one at any decent-sized camera specialty store. I think they are around $100 with a T-mount adapter to fit your camera.



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A non-scanner method of digitizing old slides
Authored by: senthilwhale on May 08, '06 05:53:43PM

Using adapters on the lens and shooting slides is probably the simplest and quickest method and also achieving qualitity close to using a scanner.



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A non-scanner method of digitizing old slides
Authored by: whytoi on May 08, '06 09:12:42PM

Have to say this is a rather poor solution. The additional step of projecting the slides would significantly degrade the image through more glass (projector lens), projection screen, contrast loss, resolution degradation... Just not good.

If one really have to pinch salt, it's much better to directly photograph the slide through a window or a flash backlight setup.



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A non-scanner method of digitizing old slides
Authored by: jt777 on May 09, '06 12:32:28AM

I should mention one other thing besides the slide adapter. If you really need good quality from slides and don't want to spend money or time on doing it yourself, call a local pro photo/color lab and see if they can help. A lot of them offer some kind of slide scanning to CD-ROM service. I check every few years and it seems to run about USD$1.00 to $2.00 for a 3 megapixel scan. Sometimes they offer better prices in certain quantities. You can also pay more to get higher resolution scans. It's been a little while since I checked, though.

As for slide adapters, there is the Nikon ES-1 for a specific F-mount lens, the ES-E28 for coolpix cameras, and also the Canon FP-100 which looks great.

I haven't used any of them personally. Do you research. Some require extra gear, like a specific lens and extension tube, etc.



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A non-scanner method of digitizing old slides
Authored by: Anonymous on May 09, '06 07:26:33AM

Some people following this thread may already know of the discussion of this topic over on Macintouch, but just in case you don't here's the link:

http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/scanners/topic4229.html

JP



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A non-scanner method of digitizing old slides
Authored by: bakalite on May 09, '06 07:49:09AM

A few months ago I went the scanner route. I went to a store where I frequently buy high ticket items, bought the scanner and returned it 10 days later. It takes a lot less room to do that then to set up a whole thing in your living room. I scanned slides, negatives, and pictures, and it was a bear, but all my old stuff is now digitized which means it actually gets looked at on the plasma in the living room, as opposed to just sitting in a dusty old box somewhere.

The advantage of doing it with the scanner is that if you have a dedicated setup you can do other work at the same time. Most of the time is spent removing and inserting negatives, and blowing away dust. The biggest expense is compressed gas to do that, which, btw, you should make shure to keep out of reach of small children, and explain to teenagers that it can kill them if they inhale it. (do a google search if you don't believe me).

The process is setup, 5mn, the computer does it's thing (20 -45 mn in my case) and tear down 5 mn. Then setup again. You can be pretty productive during that time if you have something that lends itself to that kind of timeframe. This is typically for about 20 frames of negatives, which usually means that you can cram an entire roll into it if you are willing to do a little cutting.

I'll be gone for a while, so replies may be a little late in coming.



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Returning scanner after use
Authored by: dkulp on May 09, '06 08:36:01AM

Call me old fashioned, but returning a slide scanner after using it to archive all your slide sounds unethical to me.



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Returning scanner after use
Authored by: frgough on May 09, '06 11:06:14AM

It's a form of stealing.



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A non-scanner method of digitizing old slides
Authored by: skipole on May 09, '06 02:34:31PM

I hope you don't need to use any toilet paper soon.

---
Working on Macs in a PC environment is like putting on fireworks for the blind. Any noise scares everyone and no one see the brilliance of your work.



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A non-scanner method of digitizing old slides
Authored by: shavenyak on May 10, '06 07:41:40AM

I also use my digital camera to digitize my daughter's artwork from preschool. Not only is it faster than using a scanner, but also I don't have to worry about glitter or other creative stuff scratching the scanner glass.



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