SLIDE SCANNERS

[AJLA]

What slide scanners are you using?

This is a service we once provided using our old lab.  For the past four years we have not been able to do so and I have looked into it often.

Now the demand is back as people seem to de digging into family history etc.

Clearly the best people to ask are here if I want to know the ups and downs of the equipment actually used in photo shops.

Unfortunately as always cost is an issue too!

Any comments on your equipment would be much appreciated.

[philspectrum]

I think the only choice is the Nikon Coolscan.

There did used to be a Minolta Dimage that was v good and had a semi auto mode.

If you want full auto then Braun do one which apparently has a life of about 5000 scans.

I have not used any, but did look into it.

[nash]

i use EPSON 4490 and PF3650pro good quality scans but very slow.

i`m doing about 200 slides at the moment, very tideous and boring

[Ridge]

If you want full auto then Braun do one which apparently has a life of about 5000 scans

What..? I have that Braun multimag scanner, where do you get that 5000 scans lifetime..?

[AJLA]

Hmm food for thought, I think we also looked into the Braun and Nikon so here we go again with the research.

Is the Epson cosiderably cheaper nash as a result of the speed.  The price might sway me but if it's hat slow i'm not sure.

[AJLA]

Another thing I thought of...

do you offer various scan resolutions and charge differently?

What sort of prices are charged for these these days?

The is a company about 12 miles away that offer this service, he's on an industrial estate offering a 101 different things but does not have the footfall.  A typical price he charges for 35mm,slides and photos to cd is 35p each!!!!! with quantity discounts!!!!

Surely the scan res is slower and therefore faster to produce, I just can't see sitting there producing time consuming high res scans for that amount or less.

[nash]

i scan at .75p  800dpi it takes approx 5 minutes per slide

yes very time consuming, but i offer 5-10 days turnaround, so do do this in my free time

[AJLA]

My god 5 mins! You must have the patience of a saint!

Do you think most people scan at that res nash?

[Big Dave]

Nash,

800 dpi ?  That's barely good enough for a 4x6" print.

Unless you're scanning 4x6" @ 800 dpi.

Another way I've heard is to put the slide on a light box, and take a picture of it with your digital camera, surely a lot faster.

We get a slide (count'em 1) every 2 or 3 months, so it's not an issue to scan 2400dpi and wait 10 minutes on our Epson V500.

But we have a $4 scan charge.  

If we had more demand, we'd lower the price considerably and go the digital camera route.

[tpcrichard]

For our slides we use the epson 4990photo scanner and have done now for 4 years and is gives fantastic results, we have had no complaints at all.

We set the scanner up using the film area guide and set the scanner on film(with film area guide)

48 bit colour,tick the unsharpmask filter box,setting medium,tick the grain reduction box,setting medium.Dpi 2400

Do the preveiw then set the first crop on the first slide then just repeat for the other 20 once this is done hit scan all.Approx 20 mins for the lot.

We then run all though infranveiw and tidy up any cropping that needs to be done

On the older slides colour restoration works well.

Using the film area guide set on postive film allows us to do 20 at a time and if you are doing more say 200 the cropping boxes are still set for each lot of 20 you load in.

Attach photos shows all. Also we use the old neg dust remover for the slides as shown.

[Mr Noritsu]

We offer 4base, 16base and 64base scans, but its all done on the Noritsu 3202. 4 and 16base about 6 per minute. We use an epson 4990 for mounted 2 1/4 slides and anything that the Noritsu wont do. Its adequate for the job, but if we didn't have the Noritu, it would have to be a coolscan.

We are averaging 1000 - 1500 per week.

[Photographis]

Back to the coolscan. This is the problem with a niche market. Noritsu or coolscan. If i was doing 1500 a week, Noritsu.

[Ridge]

I scan with Braun, 2000 DPI, 2-3M jpg, it´s not the fastest, about 150 per day. Price is 0.50€ (43p).

If slides arent mounted i scan with minilab, IMAGUS 1500 gives great results, if there were mounted slide-gate to that scanner mayby it would be faster but you have to be beside scanner all the time.

[AJLA]

Thanks for your opinions guys, I think it's about time I make a move and check out the prices AGAIN!!

I haven't looked at the Braun but I will.

How long does a scan at 2000dpi take Ridge?

[Ridge]

3600dpi (without ICE) takes 90 seconds, i thing it´s little more at 2000dpi with ICE, ICE is a must!!

But you have to do preview, else you cant make manual adjust in slides, that takes time to.

Reflecta scanner would be better?, theres a over priced calibration slide for that scanner, it´s same scanner but mayby autoscan would do better scans.

[Tony.T]

I use a Sony UYS100. We have various film carriers with it, including a magazine for auto slide scanning. Takes about 45secs/slide.

35p a slide is ludicrous. For med res (6mb/slide) we charge 75p ea, that includes any colour etc corrections, for higher res we charge £1.25/slide inc corrections. It's the corrections that take the time, but it makes a much better job for the customer.

As always I am always happy to take these sorts of jobs on at trade rates for any of you.

[Denis]

I use a Braun Multimag slidescan 4000. This is a dedicated automatic slide scanner. You can buy slide cassettes that holds 50 or you can get a carousel that holds 100.Resolutions start at 1800 dpi

( I scan at 2700 dpi) 50 takes approx 1.5 hours. We often leave it on overnight.

The unit cost us around £500 but I know it is more now.

Denis

[AJLA]

Cant seem to fid a guide price for the Sonys although i've googled it I must be staring at it somewhere.

Any ideas or price range?

[nash]

AJLA check with Photomart i remember seeing this in their catalogue

[AJLA]

Unfortunately they no longer do it.

[Tony.T]

May no longer be in production, E-Bay ?

[nwj]

hiya

we use epson 750, load in 12 at a time leave it to it at 3200 dpi then use a few photoshop actions and hey presto 65p each for quantity and takes about 1.5 to 2 hours to scan

nick

[Teds]

I have braun scanner for three years, done well over 10000 slides no problems, ICE is a must. Colour is a little flat so we bauto batch through photoshop afterwards to push up the colour.

[Christina Rose]

Imacon  Flextight 848 ( previously HasselBlad)  one of the  excellent film scanners in the world. its bit slow but in case you want  to print in large format, it gives amazing quality. we are using it  for the past 4 years and really good.

for normal usage we depend frontier scanners. its so fast and gives decent quality.

[Colopt]

I used to use a Microtek scanner which was very good. Had good batch scanning capabilities, you could set up about 16 slides at a time, and than just let it do the scanning. The mounted slides were loaded in a drawer underneath the glass, and it gave very good scans. Not sure if they are still available. Much better than the Epson 2450 I now use.