Slide Scanner

[Deleted]

I know this isn't railway related, but I've got the opportunity to buy a scanner which comes complete with an adaptor for copying slides / negatives. I can't afford a dedicated film scanner. Can anyone tell me if these are any good for copying 35mm slides?

Thanks very much,

/Dave

[piccadillypilot]

It depends on where the light source for the slide/neg is coming from. If it's a separate light then they're usually OK. As with everything, the higher the price the better the quality - usually.

If the light source is the scanner's primary lamp deflected through a couple of mirrors and back to the scanner head then I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole.

[Deleted]

I have a Canon 5200F scanner, bought about a year ago (so it's probably obsolete now). It came with holders for film negatives and 35mm slides, and has a separate light source for these in the flatbed cover.

Working from 35mm colour negatives, it gives a better result than scanning a colour print from the same neg.

I think it cost me around $300 Australian, which is about 100 quid.

[Deleted]

This is the only description I have:

Microtek Phantom 636 36 bit 600x1200 dpi optical colour scanner, boxed, in good condition with lightlid 35 35mm slide & filmstrip scanning adapter also boxed

thanks for your help folks

[piccadillypilot]

Some reported issues you might want to be aware of:-
www.buzzsoft.com/engsupport/Inverted%20Images.html

www.sane-project.org/old-archive/1999-11/0062.html

It appears to be a SCSI interface, can your computer handle such a beast?

I've made a number searches for the scanner but can find virtually no info apart from www.dooyoo.co.uk/scanner/microtek-phantom-636-cx/

I can't find it listed on Microtek's web site either, so personally I would be reluctant to go for that one.

There are some very good flatbed scanners with slide/neg facility. As with everything it depends on how much you want to spend.

[Deleted]

Thanks very much for the research PP, I think that I will give it a miss. I will keep looking on eBay.

Thanks again,

Dave

[Dmitri]

david5032 said:

600x1200 dpi

Way too little for film. 1600 is better, but still questionable... I'd suggest 2400 dpi for - Epson 2450 or similar if you want multi-purpose flatbed scanner.

[piccadillypilot]

david5032 said:

Thanks very much for the research PP, I think that I will give it a miss. I will keep looking on eBay.

Unless it is labelled as being brand new I wouldn't get a scanner or other computer equipment through Ebay for the simple reason that it will be technologically old (even if it's only a year or so) and may well be no longer supported by the manufacturer.

If it were a machine with no moving parts it would be less important but a scanner relies on the moving head. I had a scanner that was giving me excellent results from both 35mm and 6x6cm material. The drive mechanism gave up after a couple of years and I had a serious struggle finding a suitable replacement.

If you only want to work with 35mm then you have a greater range of choices, but I would still hesitate to buy one secondhand.

[chris]

Would dabs do this sort of thing?

[piccadillypilot]

chris said:

Would dabs do this sort of thing?

I believe so, however my preference is to by from a local shop. Try and find one that is geared more to supplying business customers. The staff are more likely to have a serious understanding of the equipment rather than the low level of knowledge found in some multiple chain outlets (no names etc).

The advantage is, that if something does go wrong they're more likely to be willing to help. I bought the components for a new computer from one such place. It didn't work - at all.

I took the machine in and one of their technicians looked at it but couldn't find anything wrong. Someone else did a search on the internet and found a site which said that the particular combination of motherboard, graphics card and transformer I had wouldn't work together. Change the graphics card and everything was OK. All done at no cost to me.

I also bought two scanners from them. One of them has a software bug. I couldn't get a sensible answer from the manufacturer so the shop took it back and sent it off while I bought a replacement from a different manufacturer.