Batch slide scanning speed? - Nikon 5000ED (w SF210) vs Epson V700/V750

[Mark Schretlen]

I have been putting this off for far too long. I am looking at a library of approx 20,000 mounted kodachromes that I wish to catalog digitally. Which would the most time efficient choice - the 5000ED with the 210 slide feeder or an Epson flatbed with a large single pass scanning area?

I am not a novice wrt film scanning and I have older single feed film scanners which still do a great job on individual scans (Sprintscan 35+ and 45) but are not suitable for efficient volume scanning. Whether the newer scanner would/should replace either or both of my current scanners is informative and is a consideration, but it is moot at this point. I know that either scanner would exceed my quality needs for the catalog (1200 pixels in the longest dimension); I do not know which scanner would get the job done in the least amount of time, nor do I know which would be the best with unattended operation.

Your observations and experience regarding batch scanning with these scanners would be appreciated. Or, is there a better alternative?


-- Mark --

 

[Richard G]

No response for hours. We are all contemplating our own archives, and hoping that you won't show us up, and like us, do the right thing, and put it off yet again. I am reminded of the legend of the reward for the invention of chess: more grains of wheat than could be garnered from the whole world. Unless you're in your twenties, it is almost certainly too late to finish this job.

 

[kully]

The Epson V7XX will do 12 slides at a time, if you disable DICE (which I think you should do for Kodachromes anyway) and the other bits and bobs (which I've never found useful) then scan at 2400dpi you're looking at 10 minutes.
To speed things up I recommend you get two more slide holders from Epson, they cost £10 each including P&P in the UK and I presume the cost would be comparable wherever you live. With multiple slide holders you can be loading/unloading whilst the scanner is working - less downtime.

Assuming you get through 60 slides an hour... that is 333 hours 20 minutes for 20,000 slides.

nice.

I have no experience with the SF210 feeder, but when I was looking for a scanner the reports of it jamming (especially with the cardboard mounts) put me off.

Also, get some compressed air ('Dust-Off' is the brand I buy) so you can give the slides and the scanner a quick blast when changing the trays.

Good luck - I did this with my parents and parents-in-law archives... I got to like BBC Radio 4 very much.

 

[kully]

I just thought - for the price of one 5000 + SF510 you could buy at least 5 Epson scanners. If you borrowed five laptops/computers and kept things organised, it would cut down on your overall time massively.

 

[Keith]

Twenty thousand 😱 .... I scanned 400 slides for a friend recently with my V700 and it was 'boredom city!'

Good luck with this! 😀

 

[borrel]

Try this instead: http://abdallah.hiof.no/pb-4/ . The "scan time" is more realistic and the image quality is still acceptable.
- Børre

 

[Jerrold]

All I can say is whatever method you go for, backup frequently and in various ways.
If you'd been scanning for a year and then lost it all, in my experience you'd be a bit peeved 🙁
My vote for the feeder, batches of 50.

 

[Keith]

The problem I'd have with scanning this many slides isn't the three hundred and however many hours Kully has calculated it would take ....

... it would be the fourteen years I would have to spend cloning out imperfections and dust spots afterwards! 😛

 

[sevo]

20,000? For what quality and price point?

As far as the Epson is concerned, it can't batch scan anywhere proportional to that scale, so that can be ruled out. YMMV whether the Nikon will do it in time and with a economic degree of operator attention. Depending on where the figures meet, the 5000ED or outsourcing to some lab with bigger iron may be indicated.

 

[kully]

Keith, I don't have pets and using the compressed air... I rarely have to clone out any dust.

 

[borrel]

The real beauty of digital backup is that a copy can also be held at another, physically separate site in case of fire, burglary or the like. Another, not so obvious, advantage of scanning is that all your metadata about the individual images can be embedded in the files. While some of us may maintain elaborate notebooks with all important information about each picture, I suspect most of us are left to rely on whatever we jotted down on the slide frame or edge of the negative sleeves. Many years later, with memory clogged up with all manner of useless information, Kodak's impressed development date on the slide frame may not be enough. Some of us were even stupid enough to use those greenhouses for bacteria and fungus called glass frames in the foolish conviction that they would actually protect our slides. They were made of plastic and even more difficult to make notes on than paper frames. The real time consumer when digitizing is entering metadata, but it is really worth it. There are lots of good tools and the image programs are becoming better at respecting EXIF and IPTC data making sure it is saved when new versions of images are written. My favorite program is Phil Harvey's EXIFTOOL which will also handle batches of images, create new fields such as scanner and film, geotag and much more. When adding metadata to an image, make sure it is done to the first master file so that that the same information follows all subsequent copies.
- Børre

 

[Keith]

Keith, I don't have pets and using the compressed air... I rarely have to clone out any dust.

Unfortunately I'm fanatical about this ... small unimportant imperfections that can't be seen at 800 x 600 pixels shouldn't really matter ... but I'd still know they were there! 😀

 

[dfoo]

Who cares about time efficiency when the output from the V700 looks like ass. The 5000 ED produces far far better scans, and its almost certainly faster.

 

[Mark Schretlen]

No response for hours. We are all contemplating our own archives, and hoping that you won't show us up, and like us, do the right thing, and put it off yet again.

LOL - That's tempting to do and I've been doing a great job at this so far - why ruin a good thing?

My analogue library is not growing much any more. With digital, I have found that returning to older images has been rewarding as RAW converters have improved so much recently. I find that there are always some gems hidden in the weeds. The only reason I do not return to my film library is that I have not cataloged them and tend not to browse through them. If the images did not make the initial cut, they were just stored away and forgotten.

My intent is not build a high resolution digital archive. I consider the film to be the archive media. All I want to do is have a screen sized jpeg that would represent what is in the film archive and cross reference the roll/slide box number with the digital snapshot along with a few searchable key words.

I am trying not to aim too high here. I know that this could be a time consuming project, hence my question. I could find a place for either scanner long after the catalog project is done (or long after I've given up on it).

-- Mark --

 

[Mark Schretlen]

Thanks kully. This is useful information for me. I had the impression that the Epson V7xx could do more slides in a single pass - perhaps I got this impression from number of negatives per page specs.

From looking at the V500 (I have ruled the V500 out for my purposes), the slide holders appeared to be place-holders rather than mounts. Do you have to load each individual slide in a mount before you place the holder in the V7xx scanner?

 

[Mark Schretlen]

!!! Nice idea. Less hard on the pocketbook too. What kind of "images per hour" were you getting?

 

[Mark Schretlen]

20,000? For what quality and price point?

As I indicated earlier (but I will repeat it, for clarity), my intent is not build a high resolution digital archive. I consider the film to be the archive media. All I want to do is have a screen sized jpeg that would represent what is in the film archive and cross reference the roll/slide box number with the digital snapshot along with a few searchable key words.

I am trying not to aim too high here. I know that this could be a time consuming project, hence my question. I could find a place for either scanner long after the catalog project is done (or long after I've given up on it).

 

[Mark Schretlen]

Who cares about time efficiency when the output from the V700 looks like ass. The 5000 ED produces far far better scans, and its almost certainly faster.

That may be true, but a further consideration of mine is that I also have a large negative library (35mm, 120, and 4x5). I would be willing to sacrifice this for speed of slide scanning. I understand that the SF210 is an improvement over the SF200, but it is not jam-free. Should I be concerned with occasional slide-jamming or is it a deal-breaker for a mega slide scanning job? I have no experience with this.

 

[Mark Schretlen]

With that many slides to scan, you might want to consider "camera scans" with a good dslr. It would be very labor intensive, but would get the job done in the least amount of time and at a better quality than you need. I would suggest getting a copy stand, figure out the best light source for your needs (continuous lighting would be best) and a top macro/copy lens. Build a jig so the slide is automatically aligned when you place it down over your light source. You can go as fast as you can change slides, shoot in raw in case there are any variances in the slides and batch process them after you are done. By taking the technical aspects out of the equation, you could even hire some one young to do it for you faster than you could do it yourself. You could use the camera tethered to your computer and with a program like Lightroom have the files automatically named with the number on the box of slides as they come into the computer. It is very simple to do. I would also set up a footswitch to take the picture so your hands are free to shuffle slides. Doing all of this, I would imagine you could get a box of slides done every couple of minutes. Not bad eh?

Thanks Patrick. Borre also suggested this route. I agree that it may be more labour intensive than the Nikon 5000/SF210 path, but I think I could certainly test this without much expense and I would get a great handle on the "scans per hour" aspect too.

-- Mark --

 

[kully]

Hello Mark,

I would take comments that something looks like "ass" with a pinch of salt. Yes, LS-5000 scans are sharper, but for what you are doing even the V700 is overkill (and for me, it is fine for 12x8 prints too).

I bought a V500 for my father-in-law - as you say, this one is not for you.

The V700/V750 come with trays - the slide film one lets you clip in 12 at a time. Putting in 12 can take over a minute as they don't just drop in, you slide them in under clips. Then you have to take them out as well.

Reading your later comments, I'm wondering whether you might not be better off scanning the slides directly on the glass.

Ok, you wouldn't be able to make nice prints from them, but:

- they'd be OK for your computer screen.
- And you'd be able to fit more on.
- The scanner would only make one pass, instead of scanning each slide and saving it and then the next &c.