Does anyone have a digital slide/negative converter?

[VRBeauty]

I'm thinking of getting my father one of these for father's day. My parents have tons of slides from when we were kids, and this might be a good way to make them useable in today's media, and to share them among the 4 kids and their families. My father also used to be a very good photographer, back when I was very young, so it would be nice for him to be able to share his negatives. And finally, it would give him something to do on the computer (his favorite hangout -- might that be hereditary?

) that wouldn't -- er -- bug my mother so much.

So... does anyone out there have one of these? If so, could you let me know what unit you're using, how you like it, what features to look for or avoid, etc? All input would be welcome!

Thanks!

 

[luvthemstrawberries]

I don''t have one but am very interested to see the responses. I have been interested in getting one for a while.

 

[strmrdr]

Get a dedicated slide and negative scanner and not a flat bed.
What a lot of people do is buy them on ebay then sell them when they are done with them back on ebay.

The Nikon is the best one to get if you can find one.
They were recently discontinued.

 

[strmrdr]

out of the lower cost ones this one isn''t bad:
http://www.amazon.com/Plustek-A17-BBM31-C-Opticfilm-7300/dp/B000UVHI9A/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=office-products&qid=1244323070&sr=8-6

Stay away from the $100 new ones they are junk.

 

[strmrdr]

For example this one is junk:
http://www.amazon.com/FILM-35mm-Film-Slide-Scanner/dp/B001RUGOIY/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1244323070&sr=8-5

 

[VRBeauty]

Karl:

Thank you for the suggestions, and for the link!

 

[strmrdr]

out of the flatbeds if he wants to scan 4x6s this one is very good.
Not as good as the dedicated slide and negative scanners for them but decent:
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-CanoScan-Negative-Scanner-2168B002/dp/B000V2QCQI/ref=pd_cp_e_1

 

[VRBeauty]

Is your preference for the dedicated scanner vs. the flatbed based on ease of use, or the quality of the resulting digital product? Also, it looks like the flatbed allows you to scan photos as well as slides or film. Is the resulting image better than you would get from scanning a photo in a regular scanner?

Thanks for all your input, Karl!

 

[strmrdr]

Date: 6/6/2009 5:32:46 PM
Author: VRBeauty
Is your preference for the dedicated scanner vs. the flatbed based on ease of use, or the quality of the resulting digital product? Also, it looks like the flatbed allows you to scan photos as well as slides or film. Is the resulting image better than you would get from scanning a photo in a regular scanner?


Thanks for all your input, Karl!

quality is far superior as is the software and the speed.
scanning a slide or negative in the right scanner always gives superior results(10x-20x) over scanning a print assuming they are in good shape.

ease of use is a wash, once you get a system set up both are easy.

 

[strmrdr]

one tip:
Get him a rocket blower and a camel hair brush for removing dust.
http://www.amazon.com/Giottos-AA1900-Large-Rocket-Blaster/dp/B00017LSPI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=photo&qid=1244324785&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Adorama-Camel-Hair-Cleaning-Brush/dp/B00009R7W8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=photo&qid=1244324851&sr=1-2

Those are a must have no matter what kind of scanning he is doing.

 

[soocool]

What a wonderful present! I currently use my flatbed scanner for photos and they come out great (Dell All In One). I then use Adobe Photoshop to clean up the photos for slideshows, scrapbook albums, etc.

Don't know if you would be interested in getting this also for your dad sometime in the future, but my DH and I got an ION turntable (for 33 and 45 rpm records) so that we can convert those great music albums we collected in the 70s and 80s (before cd) and convert them to mp3 files. I can then either burn these to a cd or download to my mp3 player.