[frascati]

Humor me a sec. This may be a really absurd question.
Has anyone heard of converting a carousel type 35mm slide projector into a scanner to digitize archives?

I've got thousands and thousands of slides that I'd like to try digitizing. I did look into some of the available scanners. There is probably a machine like I describe for 5000 dollars, but I didn't even bother to go that far into google. All that is within my budget are the manual slide converters that do four at a time, and slowly at that.

I also saw some diy attempts that involve really painstaking mounting individual slides for "scanning" with a digital camera.

My tinkering side is fascinated with the idea of mounting a digital camera in front of the projector (with a much lower wattage bulb of course) and using the automatic mechanism already in hand to rotate the slides into view of the camera. Camera would be fixed and therefore adjusted for exposure and focus. Once set up it would only be a matter of clicking with one hand and clicking with the other, over and over, till I'm done!

[eddie1960]

like using the old slide copy stands but automated, could work sounds like a project for rube goldberg

[ChipB]

How 'bout mounting the camera pointing the same direction as the projector? Show slide on a screen, take a photo of same.

[Lowell Goudge]

once upon a time, Napoleon wanted trees planted on the sides of roads so his armies could walk in the shade. When it was pointed out that this would take years, he responded "then it's best you get started at once"

The same applies to scanning your slides and photos.

It took me about 4-5 years to do all 20,000 frames I shot on film, using a Minolta Dimage II scanner.

I was amazed at 2 things, 1 is the durability of the scanner, and 2 how simple it was to load the thing every 20 minutes while watching TV or what ever.

The point is, now I have everything digital.

[frascati]

Napoleonic apocrypha aside I'm inclined to go for this. I like quixotic references better when such hairbrained scemes are proposed... in fact i get that a lot from friends. I wonder if the Greeks spelled crap cryp? (sorry, just having fun)

...with all respect, and I mean that since I'm a terrible photographer who never took the time to learn as much technique as most of the members here (I'm more prolific than proficient), these are not the answers I expected. In fact, I was most afraid that someone was going to point me to exactly what I wanted to do with a dismissive, "we've all done that.... been there".

So the idea is up for grabs is it? That, despite your scepticism, is pretty encouraging.

I'm not worried about experimenting on my slide projector. Every time I go to goodwill I see a couple of them for five dollars each. This seems eminently doable. An adjustable bracket to hold the camera facing into the projector. Experiment a bit with a high amperage dimmer to get the light level coming from the projector bulb synced up with the camera's auto exposure settings... and start taking digital photos of my slides. Load the slides backwards and I don't even have to make that fix in post-production.

What the hell. I'll do this and report back. Watch this space.

And PLEASE... if you know of any broken trail here, by all means link me to it.

[Lowell Goudge]

Napoleonic apocrypha aside I'm inclined to go for this. I like quixotic references better when such hairbrained scemes are proposed... in fact i get that a lot from friends. I wonder if the Greeks spelled crap cryp? (sorry, just having fun)

...with all respect, and I mean that since I'm a terrible photographer who never took the time to learn as much technique as most of the members here (I'm more prolific than proficient), these are not the answers I expected. In fact, I was most afraid that someone was going to point me to exactly what I wanted to do with a dismissive, "we've all done that.... been there".

So the idea is up for grabs is it? That, despite your scepticism, is pretty encouraging.

I'm not worried about experimenting on my slide projector. Every time I go to goodwill I see a couple of them for five dollars each. This seems eminently doable. An adjustable bracket to hold the camera facing into the projector. Experiment a bit with a high amperage dimmer to get the light level coming from the projector bulb synced up with the camera's auto exposure settings... and start taking digital photos of my slides. Load the slides backwards and I don't even have to make that fix in post-production.

What the hell. I'll do this and report back. Watch this space.

And PLEASE... if you know of any broken trail here, by all means link me to it.

I can see several flaws here, but I have to admit in some ways I like the concept.
Here goes, Mini Concept Design review

1) unless you have bought millions of carriers, it will take almost as much time to load and unload the slides into the carrier for each box,

2) this only does slides, not negatives, I shot both. May not be an issue for you though.

3) you need to consider that you may have shot, over the life of your film career, more photos than the estimated life of a DSLR shutter. consider replacing the shutter or buying a new camera as part of the potential cost here.

4) You will need to have something hold the slides in place, so that fixed focus will work, or have an auto focus period for your lens to refocus each time a slide drops in place.

5) White balance, you will need to have something set here to correct for it, I cant see you post processing all your shots, I would assume you are going to do JPEG?

I saved the best for last

6) Dust is your enemy. I spent quite some time making sure that each time I loaded the carrier the slides (or negatives) were really clean. you will have years of $#!? potentially on your slides. the resulting scans won't be worth anything if they were done with dirty slides.

[frascati]

Thank you for that! Great points to consider, and I did consider as I read them. So far though I"m not too put off.

As I hinted at, I'm not excessively exacting on the technical side. What I'm aiming for is a reasonable, for my tastes, digitization of my old slides.

So...

1) unless you have bought millions of carriers, it will take almost as much time to load and unload the slides into the carrier for each box,

All the slides are already organized into carriers (not millions!!!!)

2) this only does slides, not negatives, I shot both. May not be an issue for you though.

I just want to copy the slides. A lot of this, (more than half) are slides from my father's photography. The negatives are long lost.

3) you need to consider that you may have shot, over the life of your film career, more photos than the estimated life of a DSLR shutter. consider replacing the shutter or buying a new camera as part of the potential cost here.

I anticipate doing this with a mid level Samsung compact digital. Superior imaging by far compared to any of the affordable "slide scanners" available to me and I"m confident that the quality will meet my needs judging by the work I've done with it so far.

4) You will need to have something hold the slides in place, so that fixed focus will work, or have an auto focus period for your lens to refocus each time a slide drops in place.

This is where the autofocus feature should come in real handy. The mechanisms in these slide projectors must be iffy at best since, as I recall, when viewing slides the focus is often adjusted while going from slide to slide to get a sharp image on the screen. Auto focusing on the compact digitals is, I'm pretty sure, going to be able to compensate pretty adequately on the image of an illuminated slide.

5) White balance, you will need to have something set here to correct for it, I cant see you post processing all your shots, I would assume you are going to do JPEG?

Ok, now you've succeded in worrying me. But a balance setting fixed in the digital camera is, once it's set, at the very least, not going to be any better or worse than what is being witnessed on a projector screen at any given moment. I'm happy with that.

6) Dust is your enemy. I spent quite some time making sure that each time I loaded the carrier the slides (or negatives) were really clean. you will have years of $#!? potentially on your slides. the resulting scans won't be worth anything if they were done with dirty slides.

Again.... as long as I've archived the best that I might expect from viewing these images on a screen, displayed through a slide projector, with sufficient precaution and preparation to deal with what dust can be dealt with, I'm a happy man.

[Miguel]

Forget it.
You are not equipped to capture anything without distortion. The slide projector gadget won't work and it's too slow.

I was going to suggest finding an older Omege enlarging head and rail.

Mount the camera on the rail lens mount using a T-to-either K-mount or M42-adapter from the body to an enlarging lens. Or you can use a true macro lens Position head upside down under the camera. You use the color corrected diffused white light and a slide carrier. Lock the camera to the right height and shoot away. It's as production oriented as anything. I used to copy slides this way in the 70s.

That said, for your particular needs I have two suggestions:

1. Use ScanCafe. They are really cheap. Lots of satisfied customers who don't mind sending their precious slides to India.

2. Use Costco. Very cheap per slide cost and the jpegs are acceptable and burned to a DVD.

I have a Minolta IV and I'm not too thrilled with it. I've only scanned a few dozen of my thousands. Too much dust and more importantly too much time. I've got a family to be with.

M

[SOldBear]

Three years ago, I decided to convert all of my films (neg. and slides) to digital. Not having a dedicated film scanner, I tried everything I could think of: projector, slide copier (I have a Pentax bellows & slide copier kit), flatbed scanner,..... Nothing worked to my satisfaction.

I gave up and bought a used Nikon CoolScan 5000 ED. I set it up with a laptop on a small table in the family room, gave my wife and my son a crash course in scanning, and asked them to feed the scanner whenever they walked by and saw the scanner idle.

It took only 6 months to scan 17000 frames.

The best part? I sold the scanner on FleaBay for $500 profit

[markdesmarais]

gave my wife and my son a crash course in scanning,

this is how I've gotten stuff done- scanning and ripping. ;-)

[peterh337]

A few years ago I bought a Nikon ED5000 scanner with the bulk feeder (takes 50 slides) to scan in my ~5000 slides, after the best commercial quote was £2500 for the lot.

The hardware cost 1/2 of that figure, and I later sold it on Ebay for £500.

It took about a week to scan them all, casually refilling the feeder in the evenings.

I scanned them to TIFFs (~80MB each) then rotated any which needed the usual 90 degree rotation (using ACDSEE), then ran a batch process in Photoshop to convert the lot to high quality Jpegs, ~ 5MB size.

The problem with scanning to a less than great quality is that you will want to keep the slides afterwards, which defeats the point of doing it.

[Douglas_of_Sweden]

It has been done and appears to work fine if you do it right.

Carl Hutzler's Blog Camera Scanning Your 35mm Slides

How to Build a Slide Scanner From a Slide Projector | eHow.com

B. A. Bryce - Rapid Slide Digitizer

(and with more details B. A. Bryce - Rapid Slide Digitizer)

I've tried an approach similar to the last of these myself and it works out well. Still need time to make the electronic circuit to run it automatic, but even sitting by the projector and pressing the remote controle of the slide projector and then the remote to the camera and repeat it 80 times per carrier still beats doing it with my scanner.

Some factors of importance:
Remove the projector lens, shoot with a good macro lens (I used the SMC Pentax-DFA 100mm macro) focusing on the slide inside the projector.
Positioning of slides and focusing has not been a problem. I focus manually once for each carrier and shoot at f11. All my slides are in Gepe 3mm glass less frames, so they don't move around as much as the 1mm frames.
Dust is less of a problem than with a scanner. But then my slides have always been stored in Kodak carousel storage carriers, which are as air tight as any carrier can be, so dust haven't been adding much over time. The dust you get can be removed in post processing, just like for scanners.
An additional diffuser somewhere in the slide projector is needed to get as evenly distributed light as possible, but that is a simple and reversible modification. I also discovered when I started that it was a good idea to clean my slide projector from dust and make sure that all lenses inside it was correctly positioned (one had moved out of position).
Unless all your slides are horizontal or vertical you will need to position the camera/lens so that you cover both vertical and horizontal slides

I remember at least two previous threads on this on the forum.