Scanning Mounted Slides

[ornate_wrasse]

I currently have two rolls of transparency film (Velvia 50) that were developed and mounted using the prepaid mailers that I bought at B&H when I was in New York earlier this month. I had no idea that the transparencies would be sent back mounted when I sent the film in to be developed. It turns out that some of one roll and nearly all of a second roll turned out well enough that I'd love to share with others. That means they need to be scanned. When I asked at Pro Photo Supply here in Portland, I was told that the cost to scan the mounted slides would be either $1.00, $2.00 or $3.00 per slide. To me, that is too much to pay to scan them Unfortunately, I have lent my scanner to a photographer friend and there is no chance of getting it back in the near future.

Does anyone know of a cost effective way to scan these transparencies without spending beaucoup bucks?

Thanks for your suggestions.

Ellen

 

[Asim]

I do not have a slide scanner and I have digitized my slides in a couple of ways.
1. You can use a macro lens or a macro setting on your digital camera and take the photo of the slide by putting it up against natural light
2. You can project the slide and take a photo of the picture on the wall... you'd be surprised how good the results are. They are at least good enough to post on a website.

These two options are potentially free (as long as you have the equipment). As for sending them somewhere to scan, that is something someone else can help you with.

good luck

 

[tunalegs]

If you have a DSLR you can use a slide duplicator which will give results good enough for posting on the web, but won't be as good as a scan for printing.

A lot of the more common, cheaper, slide duplicators that you find all over ebay will not work with anything other than full frame sensors since they were made to be used on 35mm cameras. The best kind let you use your own macro lenses to make the copy.

 

[ornate_wrasse]

The good news is that I have two macro lenses as well as a DSLR with a full frame sensor (D700). I have both the 60mm Nikkor and the 105mm Nikkor macro lenses and I'm guessing one of them will do the job.

Many thanks for the suggestions!

Ellen

 

[Phil_F_NM]

Ellen,
I'm doing the same thing with 6x6 film.
Here is the thread:
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=138376

The two issues to ensure are that the film is parallel to the film/sensor plane of the camera and there is no stray light coming in. You'll also need a diffuse white light source. The old transparency copy attachments for 35mm SLRs will work perfectly with your slides. I have to make my copy attachment because there aren't any such things for 6x6 negatives to 35mm.

If you have a good clean light table, you can copy your slides directly on that but you'll have to make a tube to fit over the end of the lens to make sure your subject and film planes are perfectly parallel.

Phil Forrest

 

[ornate_wrasse]

If you have a good clean light table, you can copy your slides directly on that but you'll have to make a tube to fit over the end of the lens to make sure your subject and film planes are perfectly parallel.

Hi Phil,

Thanks for the helpful information, especially the part about the need to keep subject and film planes parallel.

I do have a good clean light table, Yay 🙂

As far as the tube goes, I still have to figure that out. I do have my old extension tubes that I used when shooting underwater with my Nikonos V, but I doubt that they will work. When I get back home (I'm in Denver now), I'll have to check out the possibilities for doing this.

Interesting that we are both trying to do the same thing but with different size film 🙂

Ellen