On 19 Sep 2004, StephenC wrote

John Rumm wrote in message
...
Peter Parry wrote:


Problem with scanners is that they are designed for sheets of
paper and the slide scanning is almost without exception
mediocre. I've

Depends on what you use. Some of the top end film scanners used
for comecial repro are actually flatbed, although we are talking
10,000 quid here ;-)

For the ones that have transparency scanning added as an
afterthought I would however agree, the results ara a bit
disapointing.

tried the 1670 and would suggest it's performance on slides is
very significantly inferior to the results obtained by a 1M
pixel camera with a good lens.

The 1690 Pro does actually give quite acceptable results, but
does lack ICE.

If you want decent results you really need a slide scanner and,
if the slides are old one, with integral Digital ICE

A friend recently bought a Epson Perfection 4870 Photo Scanner,
which has an optical resolution of 4800 X 9600 Dpi. More
importantly it has a DMax of 3.8 which matches and in some cases
exceeeds that of the top end Nikon film scanners. It also has
ICE. This makes a decent job of 35mm originals.

--
Cheers,

John.

Another solution to get slides into digital format is to
re-photograph them, with a suitable back-lighter, with a digital
camera. However, I do not know if such devices are available,
although they were made for pentaxes and similar SLR film cameras.

I had slide-duping tubes like that years ago (Minolta), but never got
very good results -- second-generation images were being produced from
a lens which was inferior to the original, and there was a *lot* of
image loss and distortion.

Logic tells me that whilst digital is probably better, one would
probably be dogged with the same problem: that is, if the lens on the
camera you're using isn't superior to the one which took the original
slide, you're on a losing curve, and you'll probably get better digital
information from a scanner than by using a camera to do the digitising.

Providing the camera has close enough focus, it should be
possible to make one. I recently had some 4 by 3 inch glass plate
negatives done this way, with good results, although this with a
Nikon digital camera. I also have an Epson 1670 scanner, which
came with a 35mm slide and neg. attachment, good for the money -
£80.

I have similar kit -- a Canon 3200F with a slide-scannig lamp in the
lid -- and it works pretty well. The results aren't professional
level, but this field is a "pays money/takes choice" thing: the only
way to get if truly *good* quality slide scans is to use a dedicated
slide scanner (or pay a commercial firm to do it with professional
kit).

--
Cheers,
Harvey