[calsan]

I have 150 slides from about 20 years ago. Having them scanned professionally would have cost over AU$1000 ($7 each).
I have heard people having success copying slides using a light table, which I don't own and didn't really want to buy. Experiments with a laptop display and iPad, made it clear that those screens didn't work as substitute light tables, as the RGB pixels were easily visible in the resulting image.

I then remembered that my wife owns a Kindle Paperwhite and it doesn't have visible pixels when the screen is showing a white page! This was my breakthrough!

So, having successfully and easily completed a 'scanning' of 150 slides in less than an hour, I wish to share my "Kindle Light Table" technique in that it may help someone else.


Equipment:

• Pentax K3
• 35 Limited macro, although any true 1:1 macro would do - just adjust the tripod to suit the focal length.
• Kindle Paperwhite set to 100% brightness and on a blank page of a book. (or equivalent e-ink reader with a backlight...)
• Table
• Tripod
• 3M removable 'magic' tape.
• Rocket blower.

It took about 30 minutes to finesse everything into a working position, but would be much quicker now I know the correct arrangement (see photos below).

• Camera set to manual focus, confirmed with live view magnification.
• M mode; ISO 100, aperture was f/8 (for sharpness and depth of field, as the slides are a bit wavy in their surface), shutter speed 0.8 seconds. (to underexpose slightly, to avoid burning out highlights, you may wish to use a different value)
• 3 second remote release. (or 2 second timer with shutter button)
• Shoot RAW, obviously, so you can make any desired adjustments later and fix up white balance if necessary. (Best white balance I have found to be daylight fluorescent.)
• Blow the dust off both sides of each slide before scanning with a puff from the Rocket Blower (don't blow them with your mouth!).

Set up the slide so that it's in a corner of the Kindle screen - this means you can quickly position the next slide. Move the camera and kindle around watching the live view of the camera to get the position perfect, then tape the kindle to your table to stop it moving. You could use a clamp, but I used tape as it was my wife's....
When positioning the setup use live view and make sure to get a small amount of the frame in shot, to avoid cropping the slides by mistake.

To remove the slides from the kindle, use a short piece of magic tape to pick up the slide by touching it's frame. Otherwise you bump the kindle's screen and it changes page - probably to a page with text, which you don't want.

Set up and sample result below. The results out resolve the original slides - my camera at the time only had a 35-70 kit lens, so it wasn't the best lens ever - this is visible in the 'scans'. So a professional scanning service would not actually get a better result from the original slides. The K3 delivers approximately 6000x4000 scan of the slide - which is better than 4000dpi.

Having 'scanned' all your files in this way, you may now conveniently view them on your computer. If there are any slides that are really, really important, then you may wish to have a number of them scanned professionally. At least now, you can easily view them all again and make backups! Image of the buildings is a slide scanned this way, and below is 100% pixel level crop.

Best of luck with your scanning project!

Attached Images

View Picture EXIF

File Date

 

View Picture EXIF

File Date

 

View Picture EXIF

File Date

 

View Picture EXIF

File Date

 

---

Last edited by calsan; 08-27-2014 at 06:06 PM. Reason: More info

[Miguel]

Clever!
I usually digitize transparencies using a color enlarger head turned upside down. But your approach is a lot quicker to set up.
Nice one.

M

[calsan]

Thanks Miguel! The hardest part of this process was trying to contain my glee that it worked!!!
Also really happy to have knocked off a job that was festering on my to do list for 20 years.

[Steve.Ledger]

Now that's clever, I like that. Well done

But could you lay some white copy paper over the iPad to diffuse the light and reduce the chance of seeing the display panel pixels?

---

Last edited by Steve.Ledger; 08-07-2014 at 09:01 PM.

[calsan]

I should also point out, the white balance on the kindle's screen appears to be a very, very close match to daylight, so it's ideal for this task.

[wullemaha]

Great!!

Will have to try that soon and post comparisons to that piece of sh** of a scanner that I bought a few months ago...
King Memor Ease - Amazon.com

The quality of this thing is horrible...

I have no Macro lens though, so will try it with one of my other lenses...
Which one would you suggest?

Tamron AF 17-50mm F2.8
Pentax SMC DA 55-300mm F4-5.8
Sigma AF 15/2.8 EX DG FISHEYE
Pentax SMC FA 31 F1.8 Limited
Pentax SMC M-50 F1.4
Pentax SMC FA* 85mm F1.4

[calsan]

Choose the lens that can produce a field of view (or crop) as close to the inside frame of the slide as possible. Probably the 17-50 would get the closest to the slide when zoomed to 50mm? Unfortunately, mostly you have portrait lenses, so they tend not to close focus. The fisheye and the 55-300 can be ruled out. Note that I was at about 1:1.25 (IIRC) with my lens, which is a high magnification.

(35mm film copied by 28mm APS-C sensor = 1.25 to 1, so the required magnification with a dslr is 1:1.25, making APS-C actually better for slide copying than FF, as you have wiggle room with a 1:1 macro lens and aren't working at full magnification.)

---

Last edited by calsan; 08-07-2014 at 10:00 PM.

[calsan]

... there are also proprietary light tables that will work, such as:
Logan Electric 4 x 5" Slim Edge Light Pad 750219 B&H Photo

In summary, the 35 macro does a great job and the kindle may be used as a light table for 'free' if you already own one.
If you don't own one, then it will quickly pay for itself and can be used for reading books once you have scanned your slides, unlike a light table which may end up in your junk box.

[wullemaha]

I do have a kindle, but the results did not turn out nearly as nice as your results, due to the lens selection available.
However, I already ordered some extension tubes to try more macro, and will try the scan again (tubes should arrive this week)

edit: for a person like me, who travels a lot for business and tends to read a 500 page novel in 1~2 weeks, a kindle is a MUST HAVE! Can't carry all those books around with me :-)

[6BQ5]

A camera is one of the best "scanners" money can buy. Good work!

[KevinR]

Great tip on light table. If you have one this is a great solution.

I did some slide scanning with the K-5 and DFA-50 macro a little while ago, and setting up a decent white light table was lots of experimenting. I finally got good results from a desk lamp with CFL globe projecting onto white plastic as a table. The whole thing was a lot Heath-Robinson but got the job done.

[jpzk]

I wonder: do you absolutely need a "Kindle" pad or would some other pad do the trick?

JP

[6BQ5]

I tried using an iPad once but the LCD created a little bit of moire. The Kindle's screen is probably not pixelated at all.

[Alcazar]

Very good. May i suggest you cover the rest of the screen with black cardboard, so that less stray light enters your lens?

[calsan]

edit: for a person like me, who travels a lot for business and tends to read a 500 page novel in 1~2 weeks, a kindle is a MUST HAVE! Can't carry all those books around with me :-)

I'd like to have all my novels scanned into the kindle... Last time I moved house, it was all our books that made moving a nightmare. Take all the books off a shelf and it fills a room.

Very good. May i suggest you cover the rest of the screen with black cardboard, so that less stray light enters your lens?

Probably not a bad idea... an experiment would have to be done to see how much it affects the results. I did go with the lens hood extended - more so than in the photos above, where I actually retracted it a bit so you could see the position of the slide.

I wonder: do you absolutely need a "Kindle" pad or would some other pad do the trick?

ipad & laptop screens - any colour screen or screen with pixels is definitely a no-go. I should have kept the failed experiments with the iPad to post here, because they're pretty bad.

Maybe people could post results below about which readers can be made to work.