Converting 35mm negatives to digital images

[bert_is_evil]

I just came across this on the interweb - anyone have any experience with this sort of dodacky? I have a ton of negatives I want to digitise but taking them to a camera shopwould be uneconomic. Anyone know of any alternative devices that serve the same purpose?

http://www.hammacher.com/publish/74083.asp?promo=new_items

[Blackbird]

Thanks for the post as I've got a similar requirement from when I actually used my SLR a lifetime ago and didn't know such things existed for casual users! Appreciate the link as I see there's a way of converting LP's to MP3's too. I have a pile of nostalgia that I'd like to convert!

Cheers:Punk:

Geoff

[bert_is_evil]

Seems it would be a worthwhile investment - camera shop just quoted me $2 per frame :eek5:

[bobsmith]

Depends on how much you want to pay and how much the quality matters. Oh and also how much time you want to spend.

I'm not sure how good the image quality of the item you found would be since it only has a 5 megapixel sensor and scans images at 1829dpi. for more high end machines look at this article. http://www.popphoto.com/digitalscanners/2715/scanning-film-made-easy.html

Of course you could just use a normal high resolution scanner and achieve the same results by using a program (such as photoshop) to invert the scanned image. This will cost a lot less but it will mean that you will have to manually crop each image if you want to store them one by one. Of course if you just wanted to store the images digitally (so that later you can retrieve an image) you could scan as much negatives as you can fit on a single scan and store the whole image as one so that you can retrieve each image at a later date.

[bert_is_evil]

I agree the resolution does seem a bit low. Thanks for the link to the article I'll check it out, I might be a bit lazy to scan and crop them all manually! (also wouldn't you need to have a scanner with a backlight to get a decent image of a negative?)
I colleague just told me about a canon one that's about $400, I think this might be it:
http://www.canon.co.nz/products/home_office/scanners/scanners_low_medium_volume/canoscan8600f.aspx

[Krayy]

Or you could just send them off in a shoebox....

http://hanafins.co.nz/shoebox

I'm going to do this as a Chrissy pressie for the olds as all their older stuff is on slides.

[vifferman]

Something I didn't realise is how much negatives degrade over time. I really liked the picture my in-laws have from our wedding, and eventually found the negative for it (stored in a proper plastic sleeve in a negatives folder). I took it in to Jacobs, and the nice lady told me she reckoned it was faded, so instead of getting a print straight off, I suggested she do a test print. Sure enough, it was faded (colours leached out) but she made three different prints, and one was pretty close to the original, so we got an A4 print framed. :niceone:
I suppose that's not bad for 25 years. The original prints in our wedding album still look good, so I wonder if it's degassing from the plastic sleeves, or just chemical degradation? Some slides I have from nearly 24 years ago still look crisp and full-coloured, but they were stored in slide boxes.

Looking through our wedding photos reminded me what a crap decision we made all those years ago. No - not getting married, but getting amateurs to take the photos. I figured if I bought enough rolls of film, and got a couple of my photographic mates to just snap away, there'd be some good'uns. Sadly, there are very, very few. And some that are well composed and taken are ruined by my best man pulling faces. IN EVERY single photo he's in.
Dick. :spanking: I loved him like a brother, but events since then have proven he was the wrong man for the job.

[Big Dave]

Your Dick is often not the best man to be in charge.

[hospitalfood]

scanners are good as long as they have reasonable resolution, like anything you get what you pay for.
they do take a while, a good one may take 5 mins per frame when you include putting it in the tray, lining it up, pre scan and exposure ajustments, sometimes longer........
a shoe box of negs can take a couple of weeks of your spare time, months if you want to photoshop each image.

[bert_is_evil]

Or you could just send them off in a shoebox....

http://hanafins.co.nz/shoebox

I'm going to do this as a Chrissy pressie for the olds as all their older stuff is on slides.

Could be an option, although I think I might have enough for it to be cheaper to get a scanner (I was planning on doing my olds ones too)

[bert_is_evil]

scanners are good as long as they have reasonable resolution, like anything you get what you pay for.
they do take a while, a good one may take 5 mins per frame when you include putting it in the tray, lining it up, pre scan and exposure ajustments, sometimes longer........
a shoe box of negs can take a couple of weeks of your spare time, months if you want to photoshop each image.

Sounds like a job to save for winter

[riffer]

What's your budget?

You're talking my specialty business here. I manage a company which does this very thing.

[Skunk]

Could be an option, although I think I might have enough for it to be cheaper to get a scanner (I was planning on doing my olds ones too)
If you check Hanafins fine print (ok, the details) negative scanning is only done to TV screen quality unless you ask (and pay) more.

Still seems like a good deal depending on your purpose for the photos. And a very good price.

[bert_is_evil]

What's your budget?

You're talking my specialty business here. I manage a company which does this very thing.

I'm not too sure, I need to check out how many negatives I have to do. I'm guessing at least 60 sets so about 1400 frames...

[BIGBOSSMAN]

The best quality scans are done using a high-end drum scanner: Crosfield/Dainippon etc. Then there's the question of colour correction if required, but you could attempt this using your own equipment (Photoshop etc) if you were game.
The scans will be expensive :argh:

[riffer]

Yeah, BIGBOSSMAN talks sense.

Depending on the quality you want to go for, high end scans are going to set you back a pretty penny.

We typically scan films at 5000pixels long edge, RGB 48bit (archive quality) to TIF format.

[vagrant]

I wish I had known of the shoebox service and how cheap it is. I spent a couple of hours each night for the better part of a month scanning and archiving all my parents photo albums.
Very tedious.

[NighthawkNZ]

Anyone know of any alternative devices that serve the same purpose?

http://www.hammacher.com/publish/74083.asp?promo=new_items

I alot of scanners come with negative and slide attachments... and there are a few purpose made negative scanners on the market. One thing to look for is one that can take all sizes as not all are made equally ;)

[pritch]

I would like to put the best of my parents' slides on CDs for their various grandchildren some of whom never knew all their grandparents.

We have hardware at work, but so far I haven't got that enthusiastic about spending a bunch of Saturdays in the office.

The other hardware in that link for converting vinyl to MP3 etc was of interest too.

Maybe when I retire?

[Zapf]

1st thing, -ve scanners are slow. So be prepare to spend a few mins on each slide.
2nd, the one on that link you posted are quite low quality. Canon / Epson / Kodak make some better ones.
3rd, they will create a big file on your computer. Make sure it is up to the requirements. Good processor (C2D) / 1Gb+ memory / 2~5Mb space per photo depending on format.

[Big Dave]

Always with the inside the box!

Opaque sheet of white perspex (or any evenly translucent material) and place a white (flourescent) light under it. Or two - as long as it's even light.

Place the neg flat on it.

Photograph it in macro mode on a decent digital camera.

Open in photoshop - image menu - invert.

Tweak the levels, give it a sharpen.

Job done.