[madbrain]

My father has a large collection of slides (thousands) that I'm considering converting to digital with a machine like this :

SlideSnap | World's Fastest Slide Scanners | Automatically scan batches of slides using a DSLR

It works with any DSLR with a shutter remote cable.

Currently, I have a K-30, but I would not want to use it for this project.

The K-1 + pixel shift would seem like the ideal camera to use for slide conversion.

I was wondering if anyone tried something like this, and what kind of results they had with it.

I currently do not own a K-1, nor the slide machine. I would probably rent all the equipment.

[southlander]

36Mpx plus pixel shift on to I suspect is overkill for an image of a slide. And any decent dslr will have more than enough dynamic range.


I would have thought the K-30 would be fine. The main thing would to use a macro lens which will give you good flat field focus across the whole slide.


Where you would rent one of these projector based systems?


Also what they don't mention with the 30 slide/minute claim is all the prep work beforehand to get slides more or less free of dust and then all the time afterwards cleaning up the image for all the dust you missed.

[lithedreamer]

36Mpx plus pixel shift on to I suspect is overkill for an image of a slide. And any decent dslr will have more than enough dynamic range.


I would have thought the K-30 would be fine. The main thing would to use a macro lens which will give you good flat field focus across the whole slide.


Where you would rent one of these projector based systems?


Also what they don't mention with the 30 slide/minute claim is all the prep work beforehand to get slides more or less free of dust and then all the time afterwards cleaning up the image for all the dust you missed.

My film scanner has ICE removal for colour film, if this scanner does too, that can save a lot of time. I'm in the 'more resolution the better' camp when it comes to archiving film, but there's room to differ.

[Adam]

I'd personally say the K-1 is a great choice. PS, no AA filter, and high sensor resolution / color accuracy is the perfect recipe for good reproductions.

Adam
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[Na Horuk]

Currently, I have a K-30, but I would not want to use it for this project.

Any specific reason its not suitable? Sure, something like K-3 or K-1 or even the new KP would give you higher resolution, but at a higher price point, too.
I agree with the above post that getting a good macro prime would be important. They have even sharpness across the field, allow focusing up to 1:1 magnification, flat field of focus ("normal" lenses have this slightly curved, so its difficult to get a flat frame equally in focus).
If you want a new camera and want to use it for this project, I'd imagine the K-1 would be perfect. PS, high resolution.. But even K-3 or KP would be more than adequate, unless the photos were taken with some sort of super high resolution film.
DFA 50mm or DFA 100mm would fit well. Figure out which one goes with your slide mechanism. Dunno if that automated slide thing you linked to in OP can work with Pixel shift, and I don't know what kind of requirements it has, but it seems fairly good. I think we had some threads about slide scanning before, so you might want to search for other user's methods. Renting is a good idea. Good luck!

[stevebrot]

The K-1 + pixel shift would seem like the ideal camera to use for slide conversion.

36Mpx plus pixel shift on to I suspect is overkill for an image of a slide. And any decent dslr will have more than enough dynamic range.

I tend to agree in regards to dynamic range. Most slide films are fairly contrasty. In regards to resolution, 36mpx is in the same range as the 5000 dpi drum scans (~35mpx) offered by many service bureaus at $25-$45 per scan. The better consumer-grade scanners offer 4000 dpi for a ~21.5 mpx. Both scan types are typically at 16-bit to a broad gamut and both offer reproduction quality that is likely better than the original slide.

Challenges for both automated (SlideSnap, dedicated carousel, and stacker scanners) and manual scanners as well as manual bellows-type slide copiers:

• Flatness of film in most mounts is poor
• Lighting
• Reproduction is only as good as your optics, focus, and alignment
• Kodachrome is problematic regardless of system used
• Dust and scratches are often very common on old slides despite great care in storage
• Many slides have endured color shifts with time

Considering the effort (cost?) to tool up for doing it yourself, it may be worth looking into a service such as ScanCafe. The are priced according to resolution and each slide is hand-scanned using Nikon scanners. FWIW, David Hume Kennerly* uses them for his work and serves as a technical consultant.

ScanCafe - Photo Scanning, Negative Scanning, Slide Scanning, Video Transfer, Photo Restoration

Addendum: There are different opinions regarding strategy for digitizing slides...

• One holds that the aim is to archive the full collection digitally at high resolution and fidelity with the originals being potentially discarded
• Another suggests proof quality scans for catalog purposes with archival storage of the originals with the intent of pulling the original at a later date for high quality scans or wet prints as needed
• A third strikes the middle ground with all slides being scanned as proofs, with additional high quality scans being done for the best images ASAP as a hedge against degradation with time

My personal approach as been to be lazy since mine are mostly cataloged and I don't have a stacker for my Nikon scanner. I am working my way through and doing high quality scans of the best images as I find the time.


Steve

* Pulitzer Prize winning photographer and official White House photographer for several presidents. Kennerly is also a friend of one of my friends and a very nice guy from all reports.

[bigdavephoto]

First question. where would you rent a scanner like that? I know the camera and lens can be rented but as far as I know, nobody is renting the "projector".


Here is my suggestion. Just do it like I am doing it. I got a Canon pro 9000F mk 2 flatbed scanner and I have scanned around 2900 slides so far. Yes, it is tedious but I am also seeing photos I haven't seen in a long time and some I have never seen at all. The draw back is, I can only scan four at a time but I don't mind that at all. I just put on some music and away I go. Takes about 20 minutes to do a box of 36. I also don't scan every day either.


I have also come across a unique problem while scanning our old slides. My father took a bunch of photos on 120/220 transparency film. Yep medium format slides. The Canon scanner can do 120/220 film if it is un-mounted but a lot of the transparency film is mounted into slide frames and I am unwilling to un-mount them.

[Schraubstock]

If you use a crop sensor camera to scan a 24x36mm slide you won't get the full picture the scan will also be cropped.

Cheers

[arnold]

If you use a crop sensor camera to scan a 24x36mm slide you won't get the full picture the scan will also be cropped.

Cheers

Not sure what you mean. My K5 with a 35mm Macro scans the whole slide.

[madbrain]

36Mpx plus pixel shift on to I suspect is overkill for an image of a slide.

I believe that's inaccurate. Good, well preserved film should contain much more than 36 Mp of resolution. Not sure if this applies to slides, but FYI :

35mm film is 24 x 36mm, or 864 square millimeters.
...
Since the lie factor factor from digital cameras is about two, you'd need a digital camera of about 87 x 2 = 175 MP to see every last detail that makes onto film.

And any decent dslr will have more than enough dynamic range.

I think that would be true for any modern DSLR, certainly the K-30. Not sure how much brightness there is in those slide projectors.

Where you would rent one of these projector based systems?

I emailed the company I listed in my first post a few years ago. They said they had one unit for rent. $400/first week. Quite pricey for a $3400 unit. I most likely shouldn't need it for more than a week, though. Not sure if they will still do it. At this time, the slides are 6000 miles away so I would need to get them shipped here first before contemplating a rental.

Also what they don't mention with the 30 slide/minute claim is all the prep work beforehand to get slides more or less free of dust and then all the time afterwards cleaning up the image for all the dust you missed.

Yeah, I really have no idea about the prep work. Post processing is something that can be done much later, at one's own pace.

---------- Post added 02-13-17 at 12:43 AM ----------

My film scanner has ICE removal for colour film, if this scanner does too, that can save a lot of time. I'm in the 'more resolution the better' camp when it comes to archiving film, but there's room to differ.

The Slidesnap isn't a film scanner, it's a device that will automate the shooting of slides with a DSLR.
I would think that any ICE removal for colour film could be done in software on the computer, as opposed to in-scanner/camera.
Is it really done in hardware on your scanner ? If so, that may be why the scans reportedly take forever with so many slide scanners.
Seems like it would be easier to just shoot the slides in RAW and then apply ICE in the computer subsequently, in batch.
Not sure what format you would target once you go from the camera's RAW and apply digital ICE to preserve the full quality. Some sort of 16-bit TIFF with lossless compression ? Probably huge. Not sure what kind of compression RAW files use to begin with.

---------- Post added 02-13-17 at 01:04 AM ----------

Any specific reason its not suitable?

Resolution - 16MP is too low for slides.

Sure, something like K-3 or K-1 or even the new KP would give you higher resolution, but at a higher price point, too.

What is this new KP ? I would be renting the K-1 as well as the lens and AC adapter probably.
A one-week rental of the K-1, AC adapter and a D-FA 100mm lens would be a little over $200.

If you want a new camera and want to use it for this project, I'd imagine the K-1 would be perfect. PS, high resolution.. But even K-3 or KP would be more than adequate, unless the photos were taken with some sort of super high resolution film.
DFA 50mm or DFA 100mm would fit well. Figure out which one goes with your slide mechanism. Dunno if that automated slide thing you linked to in OP can work with Pixel shift, and I don't know what kind of requirements it has, but it seems fairly good. I think we had some threads about slide scanning before, so you might want to search for other user's methods. Renting is a good idea. Good luck!

The K-30 fits pretty much all my daily still shooting needs, so I don't really want to purchase a new camera, and certainly not spend $2000 on one. I just want the best results for scanning my family's slides. My father passed away and there won't be anymore slides to scan afterwards. No one else I know is shooting additional film/slides. This is why I want to rent both the slide projector and the camera.

Last january, when my K-30 was lost, I bought a refurb K-30 on ebay for $200. I have several reservations about the K-1 that I don't want to go into in this thread as it would quickly detract from the topic. My ideal next camera unfortunately does not exist, and may never be made by Pentax or anyone else. I am not sure when something suitable will appear without too many compromises, but in the meantime, I'll keep using my K-30. But I believe there are better cameras to use for slides and I may as well rent the best since a rental would be relatively inexpensive, probably much less than it will cost to ship the thousands of slides from France to California.

---------- Post added 02-13-17 at 01:20 AM ----------

Considering the effort (cost?) to tool up for doing it yourself, it may be worth looking into a service such as ScanCafe. The are priced according to resolution and each slide is hand-scanned using Nikon scanners. FWIW, David Hume Kennerly* uses them for his work and serves as a technical consultant.

ScanCafe - Photo Scanning, Negative Scanning, Slide Scanning, Video Transfer, Photo Restoration

Thanks for the pointer. The price looks reasonable. But it looks like they are only offering 10MP quality per slide, ie. 3000 dpi. That seems rather low. When he was alive, I remember my father using slide scanner and manually scanning a few slides at closer to 9600 dpi with his Epson scanner, which she still has, but she doesn't have time to scan at all.

[*]One holds that the aim is to archive the full collection digitally at high resolution and fidelity with the originals being potentially discarded[*]Another suggests proof quality scans for catalog purposes with archival storage of the originals with the intent of pulling the original at a later date for high quality scans or wet prints as needed[*]A third strikes the middle ground with all slides being scanned as proofs, with additional high quality scans being done for the best images ASAP as a hedge against degradation with time

It would probably be the first one in my case.

[pinholecam]

I have done this to 'scan' negatives with my K30 and a F100/2.8 macro.
Its more that adequate in the sharpness aspect of it (it even sees the grains of the film).

The main problem is getting the right colors.
Thats where its more convenient with the scanning software (or 3rd party ones).
Then there's the 'truth' with the colors/tones if one wants to get into that.
Since there is no "K1/K30/etc to Porta/Velvia/etc" profile, one will never quite know if what has been copied with the DSLR was true to the film.

If you can rent the equipment linked and it comes with the proper conversion software, then it seems good.

Other than that, its a fast and good method.
Better than cheaper flatbeds.

[Medex]

I use K-1, FA 100 F2.8 macro lens and DIY film holder and DIY LED light source for film negative scanning. The 36x24 mm frame is fully encompassed. I use f8 for the picture.
36 Mpix is enough for film negative. Pixel shift does not produce better sharpness and details. As I know from the post of another guy that uses the same method for film negative reproduction, the real resolution of film is not more than 10 Mpix.
Flat bed scanners are not the best solution for good details ant for good colors you need additional software.
But I reproduce film negatives in rolls, not color slides. That is a bit different thing due to different postprocessing. I you have a roll of film, you can reproduce negatives very quickly. 10 min is enough for 36 negatives.
And with K-1 you can use tethering, import pictures of slides directly to Lightroom ant apply presset that can be created according to your need

[pathdoc]

Not sure what you mean. My K5 with a 35mm Macro scans the whole slide.

Yes, this. It depends both what lens you use and how far you stand the lens off from the slide/neg. I know I need to put a couple of 49mm filters into the path between my DA35/2.8 Limited Macro and the slide copier attachment, but I'll be ordering a couple of glassless rings soon that ought to solve that problem.

[Medex]

I have done this to 'scan' negatives with my K30 and a F100/2.8 macro.
Its more that adequate in the sharpness aspect of it (it even sees the grains of the film).

The main problem is getting the right colors.
Thats where its more convenient with the scanning software (or 3rd party ones).
Then there's the 'truth' with the colors/tones if one wants to get into that.
Since there is no "K1/K30/etc to Porta/Velvia/etc" profile, one will never quite know if what has been copied with the DSLR was true to the film.

If you can rent the equipment linked and it comes with the proper conversion software, then it seems good.

Other than that, its a fast and good method.
Better than cheaper flatbeds.

I have some advices for you, because I also use this method of film negative reproduction.
1. Use LED light source 6000-6500 K (not 2700, 3200 or 4000K - it is not good sources - they produce too much blue color in the inverterd negatives).
2. Use custom WB in your camera. Set it using clear part of film (not exposed). And do not forget to make first picture of that clear slide - it will be good for setting WB in LR. +1eV for exposure.
3. Focus your lens on the grain in the film, use f8 manual aperture, focus in Live view at max magnification. Do not focus at open aperture - there is some focus shift (at least with my FA 100 f2.8).
4. Expose your film negative about +1eV (use histogram on the LCD screen to control exposure). I use Av priority and metering in whole frame.
5. Import pictures to LR.
6. Use DNG profile editor (download from Internet) to create a special Camera Calibration Profile for your K-30. First you should export your DNG file to (e.g.) Desktop, then open it using DNG profile editor. After that go to Color Matrices folder and set Temperature slide to -15 percent (blue region). Export this new profile to the Folder in the Program Files -> Adobe -> AdobeLightroom ->Resources -> CameraProfiles -> Camera -> Pentax k-30. Close DNG profile editor and LR. Reopen LR.
7. Then invert first film negative picture using Curves (if you do not know how to make it, try reading on the Net), apply Pentax K-30 Color profile you created, adjust WB (use non-inverted picture of the Clear negative to measure WB [Temp, Tint], then copy them to the first allready inverted picture), adjust Exposure, Contrast, Blacks, Whites etc, Sharpness and create your own Presset.
8. Apply Presset to all negative pictures. In case you don't like colors, brightness etc., you can adjust them slightly and update the Presset.
I think you have question, why does the Pentax K-30 profile is needed? The answer is more freedom for the Temperature adjustment in postprocessing. If you don't use that Color Profile, in many cases your adjustments are restricted by 2000K temperature. And in many cases pictures are too cold (too blue). BTW, you should know, that after inversion of film negative in LR all adjustment slides (Temp, Tint, Exp, Contrast, Highlight, Shadows, Whites and Blacks) are operated in opposite direction (e.g. Blacks slide corrects whites etc. )
I have tried many Color Profiles, the best results for me is -15 percent Temperature adjustment in DNG profile editor. But you can try -10 percent. More than -15 percent sometimes produses strange red/orange colors after inversion.

[Schraubstock]

Not sure what you mean. My K5 with a 35mm Macro scans the whole slide

Interesting, I have two duplicators (with bellows) neither of which will scan the full picture when mounted on a APSC cam, on the K-1 however they will. Maybe it is a lens issue but I have used every lens I thought were suitable without success.