converting 35 mm slides to digital images

I have hundreds of 35 mm slides of family and travel which I want to transfer to digital images.

On the rare occasions when I can access a scanner, it is very time consuming.

I have a 35 mm carousel projector, and wonder whether I can photograph each image as I project it onto a white surface.

Has anyone else done this, and are there some factors I need to take into consideration, such as size of projected image, setting of digital camera, etc.?

In article , LeighWillaston wrote:

I have hundreds of 35 mm slides of family and travel which I want to
transfer to digital images.

On the rare occasions when I can access a scanner, it is very time
consuming.

I have a 35 mm carousel projector, and wonder whether I can photograph
each image as I project it onto a white surface.

Has anyone else done this, and are there some factors I need to take
into consideration, such as size of projected image, setting of digital
camera, etc.?

I did this with 8mm movies, except onto video tape. You may need to
compensate for color error. Most are using a tungston lamp, but
might not be too bad. I think you should have good luck. Converting
my slides to digital were not all that impressive. You gain contrast.
Clarity should be decent if you use autofocus on the projector and
use a tripod, and fix your cameras focus.

greg

LeighWillaston offered these thoughts for the group's
consideration of the matter at hand:

I have hundreds of 35 mm slides of family and travel which I
want to transfer to digital images.

On the rare occasions when I can access a scanner, it is very
time consuming.

I have a 35 mm carousel projector, and wonder whether I can
photograph each image as I project it onto a white surface.

Has anyone else done this, and are there some factors I need
to take into consideration, such as size of projected image,
setting of digital camera, etc.?

I have tried this and it does work. Whether the quality is good
enough for you depends on your expecations. Consider that your
camera likely had a very good lens but a slide projector has a
relatively poor lens which is optimized for brightness and a flat
"subject", the slide. As to your questions, not knowing much
about the subjects on your slides or their condition, it is
difficult to say anything meaningful other than, experiment with
a typical set of them and see what works best for you.

Also, investigate local or mail-away slide scanning services.
Ritz Camera does this as does CVS Pharmacy (of all people!), and
I suspect many other places do as well. Prices tend to start at
75 cents/slide and can get to $1.50 or $2.00 in my
investigations. If you decide this is a solution for you,
consider a couple of "gotchas": one is that you'll be sending
away irreplaceable slides, so I would go slowly. The other is
that the scanning service may create digital images that you feel
are too light or too dark, or have a color shift. If you see the
latter in your test scans, tell the service what you want. The
better ones will allow you to specify general alterations to the
general setup they use.

--
HP, aka Jerry

I have hundreds of 35 mm slides of family and travel which I want to
transfer to digital images.

On the rare occasions when I can access a scanner, it is very time
consuming.

I have a 35 mm carousel projector, and wonder whether I can photograph
each image as I project it onto a white surface.

Has anyone else done this, and are there some factors I need to take
into consideration, such as size of projected image, setting of digital
camera, etc.?


This is what I did.
MG

I have hundreds of 35 mm slides of family and travel which I want to
transfer to digital images.

On the rare occasions when I can access a scanner, it is very time
consuming.

I have a 35 mm carousel projector, and wonder whether I can photograph
each image as I project it onto a white surface.

Has anyone else done this, and are there some factors I need to take
into consideration, such as size of projected image, setting of digital
camera, etc.?


This is what I did
http://users.iafrica.com/m/mc/mcollett/brsd/index.htm

MG
(Sorry, forgot URL first time around)

"MG" wrote in message
...
I have hundreds of 35 mm slides of family and travel which I want to
transfer to digital images.

On the rare occasions when I can access a scanner, it is very time
consuming.

I have a 35 mm carousel projector, and wonder whether I can photograph
each image as I project it onto a white surface.

Has anyone else done this, and are there some factors I need to take
into consideration, such as size of projected image, setting of digital
camera, etc.?


This is what I did
http://users.iafrica.com/m/mc/mcollett/brsd/index.htm

MG
(Sorry, forgot URL first time around)

I have more than a thousand 35 MM slides that have been sitting in metal
boxes since the early 1950's. I have tried scanning them, and find they are
not nearly good enough for me to waste the time of trying to edit them into
a presentable digital photo after 50 years. It didn't help that I tried to
take a digital shot when they were projected on a screen. Maybe a camera
shop might do better, but I would have them convert 2 or 3 photos to see the
quality of the resulting digital photo.

RCN

On Jun 1, 4:11 am, LeighWillaston
wrote:
I have hundreds of 35 mm slides of family and travel which I want to
transfer to digital images.

On the rare occasions when I can access a scanner, it is very time
consuming.

I have a 35 mm carousel projector, and wonder whether I can photograph
each image as I project it onto a white surface.

Has anyone else done this, and are there some factors I need to take
into consideration, such as size of projected image, setting of digital
camera, etc.?


I've done that with 8mm movies as well, and have also scanned old
family photo albums with a digital camera (I've also scanned many
years worth of 35mm negatives using a film scanner -- with a good
negative, the results are very good, but it's quite time-consuming).
I think the slide projector method is an excellent idea in that once
you get things set up, it should be many, many times faster than using
a flatbed or dedicated film scanner. Use your lowest ISO setting (and
a tripod if necessary). Obviously make sure both the camera and
projector focus are spot on (preferably put the camera in manual focus
mode, so you don't have the possibility of random focus misses as you
go). And experiment with the white balance (or shoot raw and post-
process). And if you see particular images that are especially worthy
of more careful treatment, make a note of those as you go and then use
a film scanner or scanning service on only those.

Mark

Robert Nabors offered these thoughts for the group's
consideration of the matter at hand:

I have more than a thousand 35 MM slides that have been
sitting in metal boxes since the early 1950's. I have tried
scanning them, and find they are not nearly good enough for me
to waste the time of trying to edit them into a presentable
digital photo after 50 years. It didn't help that I tried to
take a digital shot when they were projected on a screen.
Maybe a camera shop might do better, but I would have them
convert 2 or 3 photos to see the quality of the resulting
digital photo.

I've got an estiamted 5,000+ Kodachrome and Ektachrome slides in
Kodak Carousel trays sitting in my basement. Most are of Europe
taken while on various leaves and passes while I was in West
Germany with the U.S. Army. The rest are vacation pictures until
I gave up 35mm film in favor of home video when my daughter was
small. They are in pretty good shape considering their age,
possibly because they've been stored in the dark so dye fade and
color shift is minimal. But, they're covered with dust. Groan!
I've tried scanning some with a mediocre scanner with mediocre
results. Obviously, I would never attempt to scan nearly the
total. I estimate that the "keepers" are in the range of 700-800,
still a big job to do myself if I ever decide to buy a dedicated
slide/neg scanner and a piece of change for a service bureau to
do.

I'd never given any thought to the simple expedient of showing
them on a white wall and at least trying my Rebel XT on a tripod
with proper adjustment for WB, brightness/contrast, etc.

But, the real reason I am chiming in a 2nd time in this short
thread is to fully support your notion to test drive any way you
or me or the OP decide to attack the problem. In my other reply,
I said to ALWAYS send irreplaceable slides in small batches and
try to keep the batches relatively similar in exposure et al so
that the scanning service can take direction from me.

If I ultimately decide to use a service bureau, I will pay the
price for one that is more "professional", meaning that I can
give direction to for color balance and brightness/contrast, and
one that can try to use Digital Ice on the dust, although I
believe that at least some versions of Kodachrome won't work with
DI.

Again, no matter what method(s) are chosen, test, test, and test
again is the watch word.

--
HP, aka Jerry

MarkW offered these thoughts for the group's consideration of
the matter at hand:

I've done that with 8mm movies as well, and have also scanned
old family photo albums with a digital camera (I've also
scanned many years worth of 35mm negatives using a film
scanner -- with a good negative, the results are very good,
but it's quite time-consuming). I think the slide projector
method is an excellent idea in that once you get things set
up, it should be many, many times faster than using a flatbed
or dedicated film scanner. Use your lowest ISO setting (and
a tripod if necessary). Obviously make sure both the camera
and projector focus are spot on (preferably put the camera in
manual focus mode, so you don't have the possibility of random
focus misses as you go). And experiment with the white
balance (or shoot raw and post- process). And if you see
particular images that are especially worthy of more careful
treatment, make a note of those as you go and then use a film
scanner or scanning service on only those.

Mark, I see no way around the time consuming part. If the number
to be scanned/photographed on a wall is at all large, at the very
least, one would have to go through them one by one and cull out
the keepers and leave the less memorable in the tray. That itself
takes time, especially since I would try to mark them so I could
figure out which position in the tray they came from. I have
toyed with the idea of buying a Nikon Coolscan dedicated scanner,
maybe a 5000 or a newer model if there is one. I'm told these
scan 4 at a time. So, scan time is going to be both tedious and a
PITA, as it tweaking all those old slides that are less than
perfect and giving them a reasonable name.

Your advice is excellent and in keeping with what I'd learned the
last time I investigated both scanners and service bureaus more
than a year ago. I suppose the quantity I have to do and the time
and expense involved are causing me to drag my feet. Maybe I'll
give the projector method a whirl and see if that is good enough
....

--
HP, aka Jerry

"LeighWillaston" wrote in message
...

I have hundreds of 35 mm slides of family and travel which I want to
transfer to digital images.

On the rare occasions when I can access a scanner, it is very time
consuming.

I converted about 2000 negatives using a HP SJ4890.
It takes its time but I did 5 strips of 4 negs at a time (it's a flatbed
with built in A4 transparency adapter).
It was a case of put 5 strips in start it off and go and do something else
(like sleep).
It came with holders for 5 strips of 35mm negatives, 16 mounted slides, and
a cut film one.

Don't do 4800dpi as the files are far too large.
Use a lens brush to remove the dust.