35mm slide / negative scanning

[andypspotter]

For quite some time, I have been intending to digitise my father's collection of aircraft slides dating from the 1950s to the 2000s.

Given that I have umpteen thousand slides to scan, and I haven't got a spare £2,500-£5,000 knocking about, getting them done by a professional scanning company is not really an option.

I already have a flatbed scanner with 2400x4800dpi resolution, but haven't got a slide adaptor. I also understand that using a flatbed scanner for this purpose may not be particularly practical for bulk scanning. There are several custom-made products on the market that can scan multiple slides / negatives. These range in cost from £30-£1,500.

Does anyone have any advice and / or recommendations about using flatbed scanners, or the bespoke products?

[tonyh]

Hi Andy
Came across your request whilst scrolling through the threads!
My old Jessops 3500 or something like that , started giving crap results and a pink hue to scans  I got an Epson V550 about 18 months ago. Works well and does 4 slides at a time in a plastic mount.
scans come up on an editing page fairly quickly. 
It will also scan negs in another mount but not tried that yet.
Hope that helps.
Thanks for all you do for the group.
All the best
Tony Hyatt

[tonyh]

PS 
It was about £180

[andypspotter]

Cheers Tony

[BrenMac]

I put all the slides I wanted to "convert" into my projector and projected them on to my screen. As each one appeared I snapped it with my digi camera. THe result wasn't perfect but adequate for my needs.

[andypspotter]

Cheers Bren

[Chris Jeffries]

Andy , I had same problem . I bought a Canon 9000f mk II flatbed scanner after reading various articles . It is not expensive , about two hundred pounds I think . So far I have scanned over eleven thousand negatives , both black and white and colour as well as colour slides ( 35mm) . It does four slides at a time or two six frame strips . Other sizes can be done as well as 35mm . Their softwear permits adjustment to the result . I find that slides always require a plus one adjustment to bring the focus sharp . I am very pleased with results and four slides take around five to eight minuets depending on the resolution (dpi) that you set . Chrisj

[andypspotter]

Cheers Chris

Sounds like something worth considering. That said, my father and my slide / negative collection could take a while to digitise. A labour of love to be undertaken at the 'dead of night' during
the winter months. 😉

Regards

Andy