scanner recomendation for slides

I have a couple thousand slides I want to scan.
Once I am done, I will not need to ever scan slides again.

Once I start looking at these slides, I expect I'll decide many of them are
not worth scanning.

What I plan to do is, buy a slide scanner on E-Bay (possibly a Minolta
Dimage), scan my slides, and them sell the scanner on E-Bay.
Hopefully with this plan, I can uses a pretty good scanner at minimal costs.

The computer I'm connecting this to is a new laptop.
I've noticed that many of the used slide scanners use a scsi interface that
will be a hassle to deal with on the laptop.

I'd prefer a USB 2 connection, but if one had a firewire (1394) I supposed I
could pick up a PCMCIA firewire card pretty easily.
(I've actually got an old Adaptec PCMCIA scsi card, but I don't want to deal
with drivers for that ancient card)

I'm looking for suggestions on specific models and what they should cost on
E-Bay.
I'd prefer to spend between $100-250 for the scanner.

Any advice would be appreciated.
regards
ned

p.s. sorry for crossposting, I posted this same message on
alt.comp.periphs.scanners (where it really belongs) but this is a much more
active group.

Ned,
Check he http://www.tom-elliott-photography.com/hp-scanner.html
I know this route is not recommended, however it is cheap - $25 - and worked
very well.
I now have a Microtek 5900 with built in "Offical" transparency 4x5 size.
Works a little better than my original solution. If I need scans for
reproduction - brochures etc then I go to a service bureau and get a PRO
Photo CD scan which are great and cheap and the client pays for the scan.
Have fun,
Tom
"nedley" wrote in message
news:965ld.24465$V41.19752@attbi_s52...
I have a couple thousand slides I want to scan.
Once I am done, I will not need to ever scan slides again.

Once I start looking at these slides, I expect I'll decide many of them
are
not worth scanning.

What I plan to do is, buy a slide scanner on E-Bay (possibly a Minolta
Dimage), scan my slides, and them sell the scanner on E-Bay.
Hopefully with this plan, I can uses a pretty good scanner at minimal
costs.

The computer I'm connecting this to is a new laptop.
I've noticed that many of the used slide scanners use a scsi interface
that
will be a hassle to deal with on the laptop.

I'd prefer a USB 2 connection, but if one had a firewire (1394) I supposed
I
could pick up a PCMCIA firewire card pretty easily.
(I've actually got an old Adaptec PCMCIA scsi card, but I don't want to
deal
with drivers for that ancient card)

I'm looking for suggestions on specific models and what they should cost
on
E-Bay.
I'd prefer to spend between $100-250 for the scanner.

Any advice would be appreciated.
regards
ned

p.s. sorry for crossposting, I posted this same message on
alt.comp.periphs.scanners (where it really belongs) but this is a much
more
active group.

"nedley" wrote in message news:965ld.24465$V41.19752@attbi_s52...
I have a couple thousand slides I want to scan.

There are scanners, I don't know which ones, that have hoppers.
You put a stack of slides in the hopper and it scans them, one after
another, without human intervention.

Once I am done, I will not need to ever scan slides again.

There are service bureaus that will scan them for you, but the
price might be higher than you want to pay. Many years ago I
worked for a company that would do this for prices ranging from
50 cents to $10 per slide. 50 cents for an automated scan, $10
for one that is reviewed and color balanced individually by a
graphics artist.

I would think that, even though labor costs are higher, the scanning
equipment is better and cheaper today, and the output media are
certainly dramatically cheaper than the mag tapes and digital video
discs we were using in the early 1980's.

What I plan to do is, buy a slide scanner on E-Bay (possibly a Minolta
Dimage), scan my slides, and them sell the scanner on E-Bay.
Hopefully with this plan, I can uses a pretty good scanner at minimal costs.

Sounds like a reasonable plan - though the hassle factor could be
a bit high.

The computer I'm connecting this to is a new laptop.
I've noticed that many of the used slide scanners use a scsi interface that
will be a hassle to deal with on the laptop.

USB 2.0 is probably more than fast enough.

Have you got a son or daughter of the right age? What a perfect
project for them. Pay them 10 cents per slide to do your 2000
slides with the requirement that they have to do over any that they
don't do right. They get to make some good money and you keep
it all in the family.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Well, I didn't give you advice on what scanner to get, but you did
say that "any" advice would be appreciated

Alan

"nedley" wrote in message news:965ld.24465$V41.19752@attbi_s52...
I have a couple thousand slides I want to scan.

There are scanners, I don't know which ones, that have hoppers.
You put a stack of slides in the hopper and it scans them, one after
another, without human intervention.

Once I am done, I will not need to ever scan slides again.

There are service bureaus that will scan them for you, but the
price might be higher than you want to pay. Many years ago I
worked for a company that would do this for prices ranging from
50 cents to $10 per slide. 50 cents for an automated scan, $10
for one that is reviewed and color balanced individually by a
graphics artist.

I would think that, even though labor costs are higher, the scanning
equipment is better and cheaper today, and the output media are
certainly dramatically cheaper than the mag tapes and digital video
discs we were using in the early 1980's.

What I plan to do is, buy a slide scanner on E-Bay (possibly a Minolta
Dimage), scan my slides, and them sell the scanner on E-Bay.
Hopefully with this plan, I can uses a pretty good scanner at minimal costs.

Sounds like a reasonable plan - though the hassle factor could be
a bit high.

The computer I'm connecting this to is a new laptop.
I've noticed that many of the used slide scanners use a scsi interface that
will be a hassle to deal with on the laptop.

USB 2.0 is probably more than fast enough.

Have you got a son or daughter of the right age? What a perfect
project for them. Pay them 10 cents per slide to do your 2000
slides with the requirement that they have to do over any that they
don't do right. They get to make some good money and you keep
it all in the family.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Well, I didn't give you advice on what scanner to get, but you did
say that "any" advice would be appreciated

Alan

In article 965ld.24465$V41.19752@attbi_s52, says...
I have a couple thousand slides I want to scan.
Once I am done, I will not need to ever scan slides again.

Once I start looking at these slides, I expect I'll decide many of them are
not worth scanning.

One of the questions I always ask when someone plans to scan in a large
number of slides is why?
Are you planning to archive them and dispose of the originals, or
are you planning to make prints from them, or do you have some sort
of online project in hand?
Scanning slide is very labor intensive, if you don't use a top
quality scanner (4000dpi or greater) you will be limited in the
degree of enlargement you can later produce. In addition the storage
medium you choose for your archive may not be reliable in the long
term. Are you going to put them on CDROM or DVD. A few years ago
Syquest was all the rage and now they are obsolete.

So, in general, if you don't have an immediate need for the digitized
images, I suggest storing your present slide under optimum conditions
of low heat and humidity in the dark. Then when you do need a copy
of a specific image you can digitize it at that time.

--
Robert D Feinman
Landscapes, Cityscapes and Panoramic Photographs
http://robertdfeinman.com
mail:

In article 965ld.24465$V41.19752@attbi_s52, says...
I have a couple thousand slides I want to scan.
Once I am done, I will not need to ever scan slides again.

Once I start looking at these slides, I expect I'll decide many of them are
not worth scanning.

One of the questions I always ask when someone plans to scan in a large
number of slides is why?
Are you planning to archive them and dispose of the originals, or
are you planning to make prints from them, or do you have some sort
of online project in hand?
Scanning slide is very labor intensive, if you don't use a top
quality scanner (4000dpi or greater) you will be limited in the
degree of enlargement you can later produce. In addition the storage
medium you choose for your archive may not be reliable in the long
term. Are you going to put them on CDROM or DVD. A few years ago
Syquest was all the rage and now they are obsolete.

So, in general, if you don't have an immediate need for the digitized
images, I suggest storing your present slide under optimum conditions
of low heat and humidity in the dark. Then when you do need a copy
of a specific image you can digitize it at that time.

--
Robert D Feinman
Landscapes, Cityscapes and Panoramic Photographs
http://robertdfeinman.com
mail:

All good questions.

The reason I am scanning them is because I was asked to by a family member.
Most of these slides are travel slides taken by my grandfather in the
1940-50's.
I'm sure most will be junk, but there may be a few gems in there.

What I'm thinking of is, picking up a DIMAGE SCAN DUAL IV for about $250 and
scanning 4 at a time at medium resolution.
I'll use a laptop and set it up in the living room so I can pump 4 more
through during commercials as I watch tv.

That should make it a pretty painless process (I hope). Then I can look at
them quickly on the laptop later and decide which ones are worth scanning at
hi-res and tweaking with Photoshop or some other tools.

Finally it looks like I can get 230-ish for the scanner on E-Bay and end up
not paying very much at all for the scans (except the hassle).
The reason to do this now is, I've been asked to, and the slides are pretty
old and not getting any better.

I'll probably burn the best to a cd or dvd. I'm aware of issues with media
formats changing. I've got lots of files that I've maintained through
floppy-zip-jazz-cdr and now dvd. In a year or two I'll be copying most of
my dvd's to dual layer blue laser dvd's I image.

ned

"Robert Feinman" wrote in message
...
In article 965ld.24465$V41.19752@attbi_s52, says...
I have a couple thousand slides I want to scan.
Once I am done, I will not need to ever scan slides again.

Once I start looking at these slides, I expect I'll decide many of them
are
not worth scanning.

One of the questions I always ask when someone plans to scan in a large
number of slides is why?
Are you planning to archive them and dispose of the originals, or
are you planning to make prints from them, or do you have some sort
of online project in hand?
Scanning slide is very labor intensive, if you don't use a top
quality scanner (4000dpi or greater) you will be limited in the
degree of enlargement you can later produce. In addition the storage
medium you choose for your archive may not be reliable in the long
term. Are you going to put them on CDROM or DVD. A few years ago
Syquest was all the rage and now they are obsolete.

So, in general, if you don't have an immediate need for the digitized
images, I suggest storing your present slide under optimum conditions
of low heat and humidity in the dark. Then when you do need a copy
of a specific image you can digitize it at that time.

--
Robert D Feinman
Landscapes, Cityscapes and Panoramic Photographs
http://robertdfeinman.com
mail:

All good questions.

The reason I am scanning them is because I was asked to by a family member.
Most of these slides are travel slides taken by my grandfather in the
1940-50's.
I'm sure most will be junk, but there may be a few gems in there.

What I'm thinking of is, picking up a DIMAGE SCAN DUAL IV for about $250 and
scanning 4 at a time at medium resolution.
I'll use a laptop and set it up in the living room so I can pump 4 more
through during commercials as I watch tv.

That should make it a pretty painless process (I hope). Then I can look at
them quickly on the laptop later and decide which ones are worth scanning at
hi-res and tweaking with Photoshop or some other tools.

Finally it looks like I can get 230-ish for the scanner on E-Bay and end up
not paying very much at all for the scans (except the hassle).
The reason to do this now is, I've been asked to, and the slides are pretty
old and not getting any better.

I'll probably burn the best to a cd or dvd. I'm aware of issues with media
formats changing. I've got lots of files that I've maintained through
floppy-zip-jazz-cdr and now dvd. In a year or two I'll be copying most of
my dvd's to dual layer blue laser dvd's I image.

ned

"Robert Feinman" wrote in message
...
In article 965ld.24465$V41.19752@attbi_s52, says...
I have a couple thousand slides I want to scan.
Once I am done, I will not need to ever scan slides again.

Once I start looking at these slides, I expect I'll decide many of them
are
not worth scanning.

One of the questions I always ask when someone plans to scan in a large
number of slides is why?
Are you planning to archive them and dispose of the originals, or
are you planning to make prints from them, or do you have some sort
of online project in hand?
Scanning slide is very labor intensive, if you don't use a top
quality scanner (4000dpi or greater) you will be limited in the
degree of enlargement you can later produce. In addition the storage
medium you choose for your archive may not be reliable in the long
term. Are you going to put them on CDROM or DVD. A few years ago
Syquest was all the rage and now they are obsolete.

So, in general, if you don't have an immediate need for the digitized
images, I suggest storing your present slide under optimum conditions
of low heat and humidity in the dark. Then when you do need a copy
of a specific image you can digitize it at that time.

--
Robert D Feinman
Landscapes, Cityscapes and Panoramic Photographs
http://robertdfeinman.com
mail:

In article aUwld.29117$V41.18056@attbi_s52, says...
The reason I am scanning them is because I was asked to by a family member.
Most of these slides are travel slides taken by my grandfather in the
1940-50's.
I'm sure most will be junk, but there may be a few gems in there.

What I'm thinking of is, picking up a DIMAGE SCAN DUAL IV for about $250 and
scanning 4 at a time at medium resolution.
I'll use a laptop and set it up in the living room so I can pump 4 more
through during commercials as I watch tv.

That should make it a pretty painless process (I hope). Then I can look at
them quickly on the laptop later and decide which ones are worth scanning at
hi-res and tweaking with Photoshop or some other tools.

you will dislike your grandfather and the family member who suggested
this project by the time you have finished!

I often find scanning my own images to be a PITA, family images more so.

but if you are strongly motivated you will be fine and you will end up
with a useful scanner and skills.

In article aUwld.29117$V41.18056@attbi_s52, says...
The reason I am scanning them is because I was asked to by a family member.
Most of these slides are travel slides taken by my grandfather in the
1940-50's.
I'm sure most will be junk, but there may be a few gems in there.

What I'm thinking of is, picking up a DIMAGE SCAN DUAL IV for about $250 and
scanning 4 at a time at medium resolution.
I'll use a laptop and set it up in the living room so I can pump 4 more
through during commercials as I watch tv.

That should make it a pretty painless process (I hope). Then I can look at
them quickly on the laptop later and decide which ones are worth scanning at
hi-res and tweaking with Photoshop or some other tools.

you will dislike your grandfather and the family member who suggested
this project by the time you have finished!

I often find scanning my own images to be a PITA, family images more so.

but if you are strongly motivated you will be fine and you will end up
with a useful scanner and skills.