35mm Slides to Digital Format

[saiguy]

DO NOT use thumb drives for photo images. Class 10 SD cards might work. Your talking about 2800 photos.

[Alan Klein]

Scanning slides with a flatbed scannner is faster, but it lacks the dynamic range to get everything out of the dark area's.
The digital camera can do this and you can adjust the exposure (I make 3 exposures -1, 0, +1) to get everything out. Also it has a vey high resolution about 5800ppi for the d850 with a lens that can do the job.
The good thing is also that you never have to scan that slide again because you have all the slide's information.

( and slides change colour after some years- my worst are the ones i framed under glass- Kodachrome is one of the sharpest films , but i mostly used Agfa because i liked the colours best.
With the knowledge i have now i only would have used Kodachrome since you can change colour in photoshop)

Ah, if I only knew then what I know now. 

How much difference is there between scanning at +1 and the shot at 0 offset compared to using a Shadow slider equivalent in post?  In other words, is the data really there in 0.  It's just that you have to pull it out.

[Paul_Roark]

Although I am working with medium format negatives, I found my Canon 100mm L macro adapted to a Sony a7rii (surprisingly) produced digital files that are as good as my old Nikon 8000 scanner's files.  But the process is much slower.   The only reason I am not using my Nikon 8000 is that the USB to SCSI adapters I bought don't work.  (It looks like I'll need to buy a cheap PC box with a SCSI board to have a reasonable probability to using the Nikon scanner.)   

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com

[smthopr]

Although I am working with medium format negatives, I found my Canon 100mm L macro adapted to a Sony a7rii (surprisingly) produced digital files that are as good as my old Nikon 8000 scanner's files.  But the process is much slower.   The only reason I am not using my Nikon 8000 is that the USB to SCSI adapters I bought don't work.  (It looks like I'll need to buy a cheap PC box with a SCSI board to have a reasonable probability to using the Nikon scanner.)   

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com

Hmmm... I still use my Nikon 8000 scanner and... it's a firewire interface, not USB or SCSI.  It works well with my MBP with the thunderbolt/firewire adapter cable and VueScan software.  I haven't tried it with my HP z820 workstation, but that has built in firewire and I'm guessing it would work well there as well.  I think it would be not so expensive to find a used HP z800 with firewire built in and use that to operate the scanner.  Or just any old Mac with thunderbolt and the firewire adapter cable.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

There is fairly comprehensive site about scanning slides using a digital camera:

https://www.scantips.com/es-1b.html

[Kit-V]

Thank you, Slobodan. I will definitely read through it.

Kit

[Paul_Roark]

... I still use my Nikon 8000 scanner and ... it's a firewire interface, ... .  It works well with my MBP with the thunderbolt/firewire adapter cable and VueScan software.  I haven't tried it with my HP z820 workstation, but that has built in firewire and I'm guessing it would work well there as well.  I think it would be not so expensive to find a used HP z800 with firewire built in and use that to operate the scanner.  Or just any old Mac with thunderbolt and the firewire adapter cable.

I use PCs, that may be part of the problem.  I did not find any recommended adapter that could successfully go from USB to Firewire.  To stay in the PC environment I'm familiar with, I bought an inexpensive Lenovo Windows laptop that had a Thunderbolt port.  Then what I found is that I still seemed to two adapters in series to get to Firewire. 

It sounds like it might be worth my time to explore the "MBP" adapter.  I had concluded from my experience that I'd probably be stuck needed to get a cheap Dell PC box with a Firewire board, and that route did not thrill me.  (I do have the VueScan software.)

Thanks for the info.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com

[saiguy]

The MBP firewire to thunderbolt adapter should work. I think the Best Buy stores have them. Used to cost $30.

[Garnick]

Hi Paul,

"I did not find any recommended adapter that could successfully go from USB to Firewire."

Not sure, but I believe this is what you are looking for.  I just did a Google search and this is the first page with quite number adapters.  Here's the link -- https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=firewire+to+usb.  Hope this helps.

Gary

[Paul_Roark]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I suspect the Apple Thunderbolt and Lenovo Windows Thunderbolt are not the same thing.  I may try more of the suggested approaches, but my frustrations at this issue are not the only ones.  See, for example, https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo-Yoga-Series-Notebooks/Is-yoga-900-USB-Type-C-Thunderbolt-3-compatible/td-p/2266371 -- "I have tried several Thunderbolt 3 docks with my yoga 900, and none of them work."

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com

[Garnick]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I suspect the Apple Thunderbolt and Lenovo Windows Thunderbolt are not the same thing.  I may try more of the suggested approaches, but my frustrations at this issue are not the only ones.  See, for example, https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo-Yoga-Series-Notebooks/Is-yoga-900-USB-Type-C-Thunderbolt-3-compatible/td-p/2266371 -- "I have tried several Thunderbolt 3 docks with my yoga 900, and none of them work."

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com

My apologies.  I thought you were looking for an adapter to accommodate USB to Firewire, which is referenced in the link I sent.

[Paul_Roark]

My apologies.  I thought you were looking for an adapter to accommodate USB to Firewire, which is referenced in the link I sent.

No, you're right that what I'd most like is to connect from USB to Firewire.  My main computer is a Microsoft Surface Studio that has only USB ports.  Unfortunately, I failed to find a way to do that successfully in my first efforts.  So I bought a cheap Lenovo that had a Thunderbolt port.  Various posts suggested that Thunderbolt could, via adapters, connect to Firewire.  It didn't work.

There are a few people who seem to have succeeded in connecting to these old but good Nikon scanners via USB and adapters, but it's not simple.  See, for example, https://www.flickr.com/groups/74221125@N00/discuss/72157656937372512/72157679522372041

My efforts were put on hold after I found my Canon 100mm L macro + Sony a7rii (using a Beseler enlarger in my still existing darkroom) could equal my Nikon 8000 scans, but it's more work.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com

 

[Garnick]

I did check the link to the forum you mentioned.  One fellow suggested not to use an adapter.  Apparently he uses a cable - USB to Firewire, which of course is also an adapter.  What can I say?  An adapter is an adapter.  However, he may have a point there, since I imagine the cable version might be a bit more stable, not sure.  Otherwise I don't understand why it would be such a problem using the adapter route.  They are not expensive, so if it doesn't work it's not much of an investment.  I'm on Mac Pro 2012 which only has Firewire 800 ports, so I found an adapter for Firewire 400 (Nikon Scanner) to Firewire 800 (Mac Pro) and it works exactly as expected.  My main issue is with VueScan.  I have scanned some of my old Kodachromes on my Epson V-750 through Silverfast and so far I have not been able to produce as sharp a scan on the Nikon SC 4000 with VueScan.  I'm hoping to find and correct the reason for that issue, because I do believe the Nikon would produce a better scan than the Epson.  Of course Nikon dropped the support for the Nikon scanners many years ago, and even though Silverfast offers a Nikon version as well, it is very pricey.  Guess I'll just have to continue with VueScan and perhaps eventually solve the sharpness issue I am up against.  As far as the Canon route is concerned there seem to be some very positive reasons for trying that if possible.  Nikon offers and adapter for some of there lenses for shooting slides.  Since I shoot Nikon I cannot say if Canon might have such a devise as well, but I think it might be worth the search Paul. 

Otherwise, good luck with your "darkroom" setup as you described it.

Gary