Doing something beautiful
Discussion
Over the years the family and youtube has got to see some of my stop motion video's as it is something I love to do. Through a random conversation at the weekend I am now the proud curator of my late uncles slide collection dating back to the mid-60s through to late 80s/early 90s.
He sadly passed 20 years back through a brain tumour, he was the closest man (other than my dad) to me and I grieved for years as his passing had such a massive impact.
So imagine my delight at now having over 1000 slides to scan in and see pictures of my family no one has seen in decades. Some will be of myself as a child and I cannot wait to get to them.
Each slide was processed by Kodak so they all have their unique numbers but they are all out of order in the reels, so task one will be to sort each reel one at a time and proceed to scan and document. It is hard to guage at the minute to see how long the task will take. There are so many reels, each of which takes approx. 120 slides and I haven't counted the boxes but definitely more than ten.
This will take some time, fortunately I am between contracts so I have time to dedicate. The other members of the family (his kids) don't know I am doing this so it will be a super special surprise for them too.
I will hopefully be able to post one or two pics, or films of the slides once done but will use this to trace my progress.
For Christmas I was bought a slide scanner that can feed slides through but it is a portable unit and, whilst ok, doesn't do the justice these need so just retrieved a trusty old dedicated slide scanner from the loft and trying to get it to work in Windows10.... this is going to take months!
He sadly passed 20 years back through a brain tumour, he was the closest man (other than my dad) to me and I grieved for years as his passing had such a massive impact.
So imagine my delight at now having over 1000 slides to scan in and see pictures of my family no one has seen in decades. Some will be of myself as a child and I cannot wait to get to them.
Each slide was processed by Kodak so they all have their unique numbers but they are all out of order in the reels, so task one will be to sort each reel one at a time and proceed to scan and document. It is hard to guage at the minute to see how long the task will take. There are so many reels, each of which takes approx. 120 slides and I haven't counted the boxes but definitely more than ten.
This will take some time, fortunately I am between contracts so I have time to dedicate. The other members of the family (his kids) don't know I am doing this so it will be a super special surprise for them too.
I will hopefully be able to post one or two pics, or films of the slides once done but will use this to trace my progress.
For Christmas I was bought a slide scanner that can feed slides through but it is a portable unit and, whilst ok, doesn't do the justice these need so just retrieved a trusty old dedicated slide scanner from the loft and trying to get it to work in Windows10.... this is going to take months!
PH XKR said:
so just retrieved a trusty old dedicated slide scanner from the loft and trying to get it to work in Windows10.... this is going to take months!
Consider signing up for a month's free trial of Photoshop CC, which includes Lightroom. The range of adjustment and editing tools you will then have at your disposal plus Lightroom's ability to catalogue the images with keywords etc will be very worthwhile.
used to run a studio but now just do it for fun but thanks for the tip!Quite a number of discussions seem to favour using a digital camera set up for scanning these days.
Like Simpo I started out scanning a decade ago. I used a flatbed scanner and thought the results OK but time consuming.
At one point someone wanted huge file form one of my old 120 film negatives - but only a very small crop from it.
I felt the flatbed might be improved on and had the negative professionally drum scanned - quite a costly exercise.
There was very little difference. Effectively nothing to choose between them.
Meanwhile I have a few hundred slides just sitting waiting to be "scanned". The scanner is sitting in its box on the floor next to me.
It's been there about 5 years, ever since I took it apart to clean under the glass in preparation for the next batch of scanning work. It had been there about 3 years before that. Unused.
I really do intend to by an adapter and use a camera. One day.
Like Simpo I started out scanning a decade ago. I used a flatbed scanner and thought the results OK but time consuming.
At one point someone wanted huge file form one of my old 120 film negatives - but only a very small crop from it.
I felt the flatbed might be improved on and had the negative professionally drum scanned - quite a costly exercise.
There was very little difference. Effectively nothing to choose between them.
Meanwhile I have a few hundred slides just sitting waiting to be "scanned". The scanner is sitting in its box on the floor next to me.
It's been there about 5 years, ever since I took it apart to clean under the glass in preparation for the next batch of scanning work. It had been there about 3 years before that. Unused.
I really do intend to by an adapter and use a camera. One day.
Simpo Two said:
LongQ said:
I really do intend to by an adapter and use a camera. One day.
It's much faster; all you need is a good backlight/lightbox and macro lens. But even then you will be irked by WB and exposure issues, and if the film is in cardboard mounts can be wavy so watch the DOF...In my mind perhaps the biggest gain, compared to other scanning options, will be the ability to see quite quickly whether a particular image is worth bothering with. It is likely that only a small number will have immediate interest of any sort and justify spending time to obtain good results. I can live with that If I don't have to spend hours scanning them in the first place!
Fortunately the flatbed does 4 at a time, does wb, backlight correction and colour restoration. Done the first carousel, was weird to see my uncle finally.... Then seeing a picture of my mum in her teens for the first time its striking to see resemblance with my daughter! After that seeing her pregnant with myself, first time for that. Oh and seeing Manchester airport back in the early 70s with a Dan air plane was rather cool.
Well 1 down, 9 to go.
Well 1 down, 9 to go.
PH XKR said:
Fortunately the flatbed does 4 at a time, does wb, backlight correction and colour restoration. Done the first carousel, was weird to see my uncle finally.... Then seeing a picture of my mum in her teens for the first time its striking to see resemblance with my daughter! After that seeing her pregnant with myself, first time for that. Oh and seeing Manchester airport back in the early 70s with a Dan air plane was rather cool.
Well 1 down, 9 to go.
If I recall correctly my flatbed will take 16 slides per run.Well 1 down, 9 to go.
Not quick, however, if going for relatively high resolution.
That said I suppose I should revisit the speed thing now with faster hardware to see what if any difference it would make ot the overall process time. Scan will probably be the same - old style Firewire 400 connection.
For the purpose of the exercise the resolution is being kept reasonable, not excessive. The slides are being scanned at approx. 460% at a good dpi, this produces a good quality image that prints out good and shows nicely on screen. Would be nice to do more than 4 at a time but its not taking that much time and as you said at 16 a time it wont be any quicker, just less scan jobs.
Well, as this thread got me thinking about the slides more seriously I splashed out on a slide copier mount for use with a digital camera.
Good quality metal construction with a socking great lens in the system to provide close focus capabilities with a regular lens.
58mm thread but one can opt for the inclusion of a step up or step down ring to give some options if desired. The recommendation is to use a "kit lens" with something around the 50mm setting being, nominally, ideal. So an 18-55mm that gets no other use should be perfect ...
Except that on the kit EF-S Canon I had in mind the weight of the adapter displaces the lens zoom that is required to get to the frame filling end of the zoom. So a bit more set up kit required on order to use the lens in a vertical orientation to overcome that problem .... but maybe not the issue of weight induced zooming whether mounted pointing up or pointing down.
Still, early days so just push on and see what there is to be discovered.
I ordered a 77mm step down ring so I could try it with my 24-105 lens since that covers the 50-55mm range favoured.
No go. Focus not achievable.
I have a 58mm filter adapter device on my G11 so tried that but again the zoom mechanism on the device is not up to the task and in any case focus cannot be achieved with frame filling zoom.
My S3 IS, ancient as it is, offers macro focus down to 0mm so that might do the job but I need to search the "stores" for a suitable adapter ring as it's not 58mm thread.
Out of interest I tried my 70-300 DO not expecting it to work and it didn't. However despite its much more robust extending zoom barrel (compared to the kit 18-55)the weight of the adapter serious compromised zoom operation and resulted in the zoom lock feature being almost permanently on. That was interesting mainly because normally it never works.
Soooo ... for serious use on a production line basis a careful lens selection will be required.
Back to using the kit lens to see how far one can go even in less than ideal situations.
Firstly lighting is clearing important but it's quite possible to get some sort of result without anything at all fancy.
My initial checks with the first slide that came to hand are with some Ektachrome, Kodachrome and Agfa from the early 80s.
The Agfa is a very contrasty film that seems to have held its colours well though it tends to strong blue and has a very cool look. It seems promising. I'm guessing a little as I was using some rather slow speeds and having to hold the lens as well to overcome the alignment issues. For the Agfa film I have no previous scans to compare to but the results look OK even in less than perfect setup conditions as long as one does not pixel peep to any great extent.
However a few of the slide were images I remember from the scanner work and have examples of them to compare to. The results, in terms of sharpness and resolving the film grain, are pretty similar to the scanner. However that is not saying much for sharpness as the images are surprising unsharp compared to how I remembered them. As indeed they were when I scanned them which was probably 10 years ago. Another decade of fading, etc. may not have helped. Colours are a challenge but can sometimes respond easily and quickly and, indeed, flexibly to suit one's whim. Other frames do not offer the same latitude.
Talking of latitude - the film, in some cases, seems to retain a wider dynamic range that the digital sensor will naturally select so playing with a RAW file version can be interesting. But not always.
The Kodachrome slides have retained the same level of colour density as the Agfas but with a different colour "preference". Those to hand today were all shot indoors with bounced flash and my quick experimental set up is not ideal for what they have to offer but I get the impression that they will demand some special attention anyway.
Using Live View and manual focus still proved to be tricky when trying to judge whether a good focus had been achieved. The camera screen does not really have the resolution required for absolute assessment. I think my expectation that working tethered will be advisable is likely to prove correct. The point of focus was really rather specific and easily lost with any movement. Add that to hand operated and some other compromises in handling and it may be unfair to be too critical of the focus achieved. In any case the better results of the test were clearly showing film grain. In which case perceived sharpness will be a compromise anyway.
Oh well, there's always B&W and some added arty grain to experiment with!
Good quality metal construction with a socking great lens in the system to provide close focus capabilities with a regular lens.
58mm thread but one can opt for the inclusion of a step up or step down ring to give some options if desired. The recommendation is to use a "kit lens" with something around the 50mm setting being, nominally, ideal. So an 18-55mm that gets no other use should be perfect ...
Except that on the kit EF-S Canon I had in mind the weight of the adapter displaces the lens zoom that is required to get to the frame filling end of the zoom. So a bit more set up kit required on order to use the lens in a vertical orientation to overcome that problem .... but maybe not the issue of weight induced zooming whether mounted pointing up or pointing down.
Still, early days so just push on and see what there is to be discovered.
I ordered a 77mm step down ring so I could try it with my 24-105 lens since that covers the 50-55mm range favoured.
No go. Focus not achievable.
I have a 58mm filter adapter device on my G11 so tried that but again the zoom mechanism on the device is not up to the task and in any case focus cannot be achieved with frame filling zoom.
My S3 IS, ancient as it is, offers macro focus down to 0mm so that might do the job but I need to search the "stores" for a suitable adapter ring as it's not 58mm thread.
Out of interest I tried my 70-300 DO not expecting it to work and it didn't. However despite its much more robust extending zoom barrel (compared to the kit 18-55)the weight of the adapter serious compromised zoom operation and resulted in the zoom lock feature being almost permanently on. That was interesting mainly because normally it never works.
Soooo ... for serious use on a production line basis a careful lens selection will be required.
Back to using the kit lens to see how far one can go even in less than ideal situations.
Firstly lighting is clearing important but it's quite possible to get some sort of result without anything at all fancy.
My initial checks with the first slide that came to hand are with some Ektachrome, Kodachrome and Agfa from the early 80s.
The Agfa is a very contrasty film that seems to have held its colours well though it tends to strong blue and has a very cool look. It seems promising. I'm guessing a little as I was using some rather slow speeds and having to hold the lens as well to overcome the alignment issues. For the Agfa film I have no previous scans to compare to but the results look OK even in less than perfect setup conditions as long as one does not pixel peep to any great extent.
However a few of the slide were images I remember from the scanner work and have examples of them to compare to. The results, in terms of sharpness and resolving the film grain, are pretty similar to the scanner. However that is not saying much for sharpness as the images are surprising unsharp compared to how I remembered them. As indeed they were when I scanned them which was probably 10 years ago. Another decade of fading, etc. may not have helped. Colours are a challenge but can sometimes respond easily and quickly and, indeed, flexibly to suit one's whim. Other frames do not offer the same latitude.
Talking of latitude - the film, in some cases, seems to retain a wider dynamic range that the digital sensor will naturally select so playing with a RAW file version can be interesting. But not always.
The Kodachrome slides have retained the same level of colour density as the Agfas but with a different colour "preference". Those to hand today were all shot indoors with bounced flash and my quick experimental set up is not ideal for what they have to offer but I get the impression that they will demand some special attention anyway.
Using Live View and manual focus still proved to be tricky when trying to judge whether a good focus had been achieved. The camera screen does not really have the resolution required for absolute assessment. I think my expectation that working tethered will be advisable is likely to prove correct. The point of focus was really rather specific and easily lost with any movement. Add that to hand operated and some other compromises in handling and it may be unfair to be too critical of the focus achieved. In any case the better results of the test were clearly showing film grain. In which case perceived sharpness will be a compromise anyway.
Oh well, there's always B&W and some added arty grain to experiment with!
fortunately all these slides are Kodachrome so it is consistent tone. I've not done any for over a week as I have been ill but her 70th birthday is soon and its put the impetus on to continue. I calculate approximately 20 hours of copying, curating and then sorting before I put them into a nice film.
4 cassettes completed, been a bit under the weather so lacked motivation but now powering through and should be able to complete 2 per day. 400 slides scanned in, epic to see my mum as a child. Seeing the scary resemblance to my own daughter. Pictures I'd never seen. The last cassett was a slog as it was holiday photos but now getting interesting. Oldest cousin born, 1st year, 2nd year, then my other cousin born. 400 down, 700 to go.
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