My grandpa needs a new hobby and he has picked scanning in the 1000's and 1000's of slides and negatives that he has hanging around. Anyone have any experience with dedicated slide and negative scanners... This is the one that he mentioned to my uncle http://www.hammacher.com/publish/74083.asp?promo=slide...but something about it just is not working for me.... Anyone have any thoughts suggestions ect... Please do share. I really want to get him something reliable. And there will be at least 20 people going in on the gift so we can spend a little extra if needed.

Grandpa thanks you all for the help

__________________


Help I've fallen behind and I can't catch up!

Past the 1/2 way point

As it so happens Jess I just presented a workshop to my local Photo club on that very subject lol. Im sorry - but if its a serious hobby then that particular scanner would be useless - you would be better off buying a scanner with a slide/negative scanner built in than that convertor.
Nikon, Epson, Canon all make dedicated film scanners - the Minolta Di were considere dthe best but went out of business.
Check the sites above and see what is in your price range

__________________
see my gallery here My Gallery!
Need help with your program? Check out the new Tutorials!

Well aren't i just asking the right person then.... Thanks for the info i will pass it on to my mom.

__________________


Help I've fallen behind and I can't catch up!

Past the 1/2 way point

yeah, I don't think I'd trust Hammacher Schlemmer for something like that. They have some fun products, but are the place I'd go to find some cool/unique gift for someone who has everything, not to make a serious purchase among the many, many scanners that are out on the market.

__________________
My blog

Agree... if you want some serious results from that many photos/slides, you need a truly dedicated scanner. Note, these are expensive (~$950 ) such as the Nikon Coolscan 5000.. keep in mind they are pro level and do it rather quickly.

The cheaper method is to just buy a cheap scannner like the Canoscan 9500 or so for around $100... then you will rely on software to get the photos into the system. Note.. this will be a slow way of doing things... you'll want to scan at 600dpi minimum and possibly bump up to 1200dpi. Each slide could take up to 20 minutes to scan at higher resolution and then you still may need to post process any scratches.

The 3rd option, just send them out to someone. Places online charge around $100 for a box of 200 photos to scan for you.. just be sure the resotion returned is at least 600dpi.

Good Luck with this new hobby... its not really a fun process!

It's an Epson Perfection 4860. It's not the fastest and not top of the line but it does a pretty good job with my negatives. Since there are so many of you going in on it, I would definitely go higher up than I did for mine, but I think you can get a nice one for around $600 and of course you can go up to $1000. I guess it just depends on how much you think he'll get into it. I wish my mother in law had kept all of her negatives! She scrapbooked all her old pictures and tossed the negs! My SIL and I had a fit when we found out! I think that's a GREAT gift for a grampa!

As far as scanning, you need to scan WAY above 600dpi. More like 2000 or 3000, depending on how high quality you want your prints. Especially since, once everyone sees all the old pictures, they may want enlargements of family photos, the old house, etc. You just never know. I got those numbers from online photography forums. I scan at 2800dpi and save them as TIFFs.

__________________
perkidawn
Happy 2008! My goals for the year:
*Count my points (WW)
*Do 5 layouts a week
*Plan menus for dinners and stick with them

Being a Mom is the greatest calling God has given me.
Stop by my Blog!

Good advice above.. just keep in mind 2 things.. most cheaper scanners will report very high scanning resolutions they can produce.. but the scanner maxes out around 1200 or so... trying to use a non-pro scanner to get results at 2400dpi or higher is just wasting time and filesize. If you use a pro model.. especially one designed just for negatives, then yes, go as high as you can "afford"... a negative scanned at 2400dpi will be about 24 MB and could take about 10 minutes to scan... just some food for thought!

Thank you for all the info everyone... you have been very helpfull.

__________________


Help I've fallen behind and I can't catch up!

Past the 1/2 way point