Slide scanner for my old dad

jon ryan

jon ryan

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Hi all,

My old man has around umpty-million 35mm slides. He has a basic ability with computers. What I'm after is a basic scanner that he can plug in, feed slides into, save them as digitals, and display them on his computer screen. In other words, the closest to a fully automatic scanner there is.

Suggestion, please?
 
Hi Jon,

As you will find if you search through the various scanner threads this is a pretty wide subject.

When you you say 'umpty million' is it his intention to scan them all or edit them first then scan 100-200?

How computer literate is your dad?

Is it just slides or has he got negs to scan as well?

Does he just want to view on a computer/digi photo frame or will he want to print/frame any?

What's his budget?

Is he likely to ever shoot more film?

If it's just slides and he wants it to be as automatic as possible then I would suggest the Nikon Coolscan 4000 (about £390ish on ebay) plus the auto slide feeder SF-210, still available new at about £300ish or the next generation Coolscan 5000, a couple have just sold on ebay for about £1800 including slide feeder.

Now the good thing about the Nikon scanners is that if he buys carefully he will be able to scan the slides and then stick it back on ebay with little or no financial loss. In actual fact it seems that the price of 2nd-hand scanners has actually gone up in the last 2/3 years.

He should be aware that scanning can be a very laborious and tedious job and if he has a small amount of slides it may be preferable to send them of to a scanning company and do something more rewarding with his spare time.
 
RaglanSurf said:
Hi Jon,

As you will find if you search through the various scanner threads this is a pretty wide subject.

When you you say 'umpty million' is it his intention to scan them all or edit them first then scan 100-200?

How computer literate is your dad?

Is it just slides or has he got negs to scan as well?

Does he just want to view on a computer/digi photo frame or will he want to print/frame any?

What's his budget?

Is he likely to ever shoot more film?

If it's just slides and he wants it to be as automatic as possible then I would suggest the Nikon Coolscan 4000 (about £390ish on ebay) plus the auto slide feeder SF-210, still available new at about £300ish or the next generation Coolscan 5000, a couple have just sold on ebay for about £1800 including slide feeder.

Now the good thing about the Nikon scanners is that if he buys carefully he will be able to scan the slides and then stick it back on ebay with little or no financial loss. In actual fact it seems that the price of 2nd-hand scanners has actually gone up in the last 2/3 years.

He should be aware that scanning can be a very laborious and tedious job and if he has a small amount of slides it may be preferable to send them of to a scanning company and do something more rewarding with his spare time.
Click to expand...

Hi Nick,

He doesn't need anything that sophisticated. :) I was thinking more of something along the lines of this. Any experience/knowledge of these and their ilk?

Budget doesn't really matter, but his computer knowledge is not great and he isn't interested enough to want to spend much. As for time, he has little else (he's in his eighties). As long as the quality of reproduction is likely to be more-or-less OK on a screen, that will do. He probably has some negs squirrelled away somewhere, but it's mostly slides. He was a damn good snapper, so the slide quality is pretty high. I can do anything that need a bit of tweaking in PS or whatever.
 
Does he want a standalone type of thing?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Veho-VFS-00...nner/dp/B00365E1NS/ref=pd_sim_sbs_computers_1

The one above isn't that great but there are others. The Agfa one is supposedly a bit better if you can find one.

There's also the Ion ones. Think some also just save to SD card. There also seems to be one model which only does slides and you just stack them into a small hopper.

Just noticed you've spotted the same thing :)

If you could find something like this http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...PS3650_PowerSlide_3650_3600dpi_Automated.html that will do 50 in a go then he'd be laughing!
 
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or, at the lower end of the scale - if he just wants the shots in a format where he can see them on the computer / telly and has £30 in the budget, Aldi are selling something fundamentally low-rent and low-quality - but WILL make the shots more visible than holding a slide up to the light...
 
I concur with the cheap scanner I they are only for tv/computer viewing. They would probably print fine at 6x4 too but not much beyond that. They are easy to use and will just output jpegs without need for too much adjustment. Or send them away for a pro job! ;)
 
I got an Aldi one last time they had them for a good friend, it's nothing special but she was well chuffed when I set it up for and showed her how to use it.

The quality is okay for her, she just wanted to have some pictures to remember the good old days.
 
Sorry Jon, I was going by your request for something "automated", and I think the Nikon set-up is about as automated as they get in terms of consumer scanners.

But understand that it may be a little advanced and expensive for your Dad.

I don't have any experience of any of the ones you linked to, but I'm sure they'll probably do the job for your Dad, I think all those are pretty similar, basically a webcam mounted in a box with a light to illuminate the slide.
As well as Aldi's they turn up in Maplins and they are available on Amazon.

The one thing I would recommend is to try and pick up an Epson V500, great quality scanner and thoroughly recommended by folk on here that have them.
 
Thanks, all. Scanning isn't an area I know much about, so all suggestions have helped. I reckon the Smartfix or something similar will probably do the trick.

Cheers!
 
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