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Harrier LLC / SSlides


AJLA

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I have recently been sending some work to Harrier (Top foto as it's known to many of us) and have been actually questioning wether this is worthwhile after paying for the p&p I may even occasionaly lose out or make a pittance.

I now see that they will no longer be offering these services to the independent sector and that Fotoview in London are taking over.

I'm not particularly happy about sending my customers via Royal Mail as ultimately if things go wrong we get the blame. Or sending my customers work even!!!!

On this note I have decided that we once again need to invest in equipment for slide scanning. (which I used to have)

There all of a sudden seems to be a demand for them perhaps the whole town is clearing out the drawers!

Any recommendations without breaking the bank????

Would be great to hear your thoughts and experiences.

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http://www.scandig.com/filmscanner/braun/braun-multimag-slidescan-4000b-mit-silverfast.html

Not as expensive as another I was looking at. Now I have a dilema. The last couple of months we have been struggling to put enough film through our 2611 to keep it up to scratch, and have been considering one of those horrible Pakons.

because of the increase in slide scanning, I need a slide scanner. Life, huh, never simple.

I think I will re-tank the 2611 and hope it makes it 'till the summer (if we have one this year) and go for the slide scanner.

  Do you think they would give us a good deal on 2 machines AJLA? Just a thought.

As for the mustek, I am using an Epson750 at the moment. No comparison.

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As a stand-alone dedicated film-slide scanner, have a look at the PLUSTEK range. A bit on the S-L-O-W side but good value for the $$$$. I purchased mine  at nearly half cost from a  camera retailer who over-ordered on this line a couple of years back thinking it was a good investment.

http://www.plustek.com/product/7200i.asp

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I know what you mean. As I said in a previous post, they are either built for speed or quality. I have a couple of film scanners which I hardly ever use now, mainly because of the resistance to the price. I had a case last week where a customer (who should have known better) wanted the 'ultimate archival' scan. I quoted him £5 per. neg from my Nikon, after he calmed down, he asked for a cheaper option, which I supplied from my flatbed @ .50p for a 9x6@400dpi. hardly the 'ultimate archive', and he wasn't even happy with that. Try and help people out and all you get is moaned at.   Rant over.

If it's not screaming at you Ajla, you ain't poking it hard enough! I would be interested in your conclusions/observations.

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Ajla,

Bishop Stortford Contact details Tel: 01279 651434 Kodak Express.

As far as slide scanning prices are concerned.

We charge £5 for CD £10 DVD then a scanning charge (Variable with amount) 1-10 75p each, 11-50 60p each etc  more than 250 30p each.

This service although infrequent, is still a revenue route.

We get about 2 orders per week (We have had several 200 slides orders) so you never know!

Ching!

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Thanks for that, i'll give them a call in the morn.

Another question... what dpi do those who do them in house scan their slides at?

Our customers were paying 1.99 for each 6x4 print from slide . Crazy !! Although people pay it I do believe we could encourage more slide orders through the door.  

We get the odd large order request through the door of a hundred or so and they run a mile when I quote them £1.00 per image (Harrier price) and they can't understand why they don't get a volume discount.

I would like to offer this service at a competitive price to encourage the larger orders but don't want to shoot myself in the foot and be up all night doing it.

So speed .......quality? hmmm.. Yor thoughts ???

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Nash,Only automatic density/contrast/colour. I find the older slides a little more work, what with the fungi and accumulated dust, but the judicious use off a small vacuum takes care of most of the debris. Some scanner software has a 'colour restoration' setting which, depending on the slide, can give very pleasing results (sometimes not). As allways, the customer  wants something for nothing, but any major work must be charged for, imho.

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Yeah, digital Ice. Tried it a few years ago and all it did was soften the focus. that was several releases ago, so guess its time I tried it again. I do find the flatbed scan softtens the image more than I would like anyway, so adding Digital Ice...... After saying that, scanning to dvd slideshow for television viewing, it doesn't realy matter.

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Hi photocorp, looking into the Plustek 7200 model, now really, if you were to get an order of say 50 slides how long would it take?  

I can see it all in the spec but these are usually perfect conditions.  As youR minilab spec may say 500prints per hour, yes but of the same image and not making any corrections to tweak each different image.

What do you think?

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