Scanner advice needed

[Ed Blagden]

Hi,

I really don't know if this is the right forum for this question - I'm choosing this one because none of the others quite fit the bill.

I switched to digital a couple of years ago, and I have a legacy collection of about 2000+ 35mm slides.  I would like to digitize these and my ultimate objective is to bring them all into my Lightroom catalogue as maximum resolution and quality images.  I live in Kenya  and as far as I know there is no commercial scanning service available locally, so I'm going to have to think about getting myself a scanner and doing it myself.

Trouble is, I know nothing about scanners or scanning.  So I would be most grateful if someone could give me some pointers as to what machine to get (I have noticed a huge variation in prices), what software I would need to prepare a good quality file which I can bring into Lightroom and manipulate later (ie not JPEGS), plus any other things I should consider.

Kind Regards and thanks



Ed

[situgrrl]

Few options:

If you have a decent DSLR, a macro lens and copy stand is an option some are exploring to good success.
Option 2 - Buy a scanner.  Epson V700/V750 currently about the only game in town under £2k.  I use a V750, using fluid mounting, a passable 12x16 is possible (shot on Tri X or Neopan in a Leica).  Frankly, it's not quite as good as I'd hoped at 35mm though for 6x6 it's great.  A Nikon 9000 is MUCH better and much more expensive.  
Option 3 - scancafe.com

If you buy, I use Silverfast Ai, set to "HDR" mode, invert in photoshop then resave as tiff and edit in LR prior to output.  With positives, this step won't be necessary.

[BrianWoolf]

Best advice, is to get hold of a used Nikon Coolscan V ed 4000dpi scanner. They go in the $400 to $600 on ebay. The best part of it is the 'digital ice' that cleans up the dust and scratches on any 35mm chromes, so make sure the software comes with it. I am not sure if it will run on the latest OS. On the mac I am running OS10.4.11 and it runs fine. It will be slow, like 5 or 10 chromes per evening while watching a ball game. The Nikon software is slow, as well, but you can't do anything about that. On the other hand the quality is excellent.

Brian