Slide scanners

I have some old slides I'd like to scan into digital images. Does anyone have recommendations regarding which scanner to use? Other advice?

How many slides you got?
A service like ScanCafé might be a good option.

I have a few hundred but I've been to talking to friends and together we have a few thousand. We're thinking the most economical aproach will be to buy a good scanner, pass it around, and then sell it to recover most of our costs.

Have bought recently the Epson Perfection V700 Photo flat scanner that so far does a good job of batch scanning 12 slides at a time, using the Epson Software. I tried the Silverscan Software included in the package, however it is, to me too complicated and a bit obscure. Epson software detects the slides in the flat holder, so it scans at fairly high res.
I really like the batch capability to deal with my backlog, and built-in dust and scratch detection. Comes with different holders for various film sizes, and is a flat bed scanner for Doc's.
You also get Photoshop elements 8 and ABBYY.
Frank

I have a Nikon CoolScan 4000. It's obsolescent; there are later, better models, I believe. It is very good, but pretty slow. If you turn on the quite good in-machine post-processing, it is tediously slow.

This issue has come up a couple of times; you might want to look in the archives. But the consensus seems to be for the kinds of numbers you are discussing, use a service.

I also have a Nikon LS-4000 which has been a great scanner for 35mm. If you can find one used in good condition and much cheaper than the LS-5000, I'd get it. The LS-5000 is no longer in production and the going rate for these things on the common auction site is absurd. That said, I would think you could turn around and make your money back, at least most of it. You'll get excellent results from one of these machines. But they are slower to scan on than a flatbed. But the results are also MUCH better than a consumer flatbed too. If money were no issue, then a pro flatbed like a Screen, Creo or Kodak would be a great way to get both the speed and the high resolving capability, but there is a whole lot more to those scanners.

If you're set on purchasing a scanner, I find the Microtek units work very well and are glassless scanners, meaning no glass between scanning element and the slides. They come with (3) main holders. 1ea.- 35mm holder holds (12) slides, 1ea.- 120 MF holder holds (4) slides, and 1ea.- 4x5 holder that holds (2) slides, at once. It comes with Microtek ScanWizard Pro software as well as Silverfast Ai software too.
If you decide not to purchase, the scanning services idea is an excellent one as well.

A dedicated slide scanner such as those from Nikon will give results superior to a prosumer flat bed scanner for 35mm film. The flatbeds mentiond above simply do not have a high enough native resolution for the small format film.

Given the number of slides you want to archive, a service such as ScanCafe should be seriously considered, imho.

--P

I bought an epson 4990 a few years ago and it does a descent job of scanning slides. Pat Sampson just recently bought the V700 for $150 for scanning flowers. I have done the same. If you are interested in using the scanner for other things than just slides, you can see Pat's or my image in the flora gallery.

I'll agree with Preston above. I have used a Nikon Coolscan 4000, 8000, and currently have a 9000. I currently scan 35mm and medium format on the Coolscan 9000. I have also used an Epson 4990 and now have an Epson V700 for scanning 4 X 5. The Coolscan scanners not only give better native resolution as Preston mentioned but also have a much better Dmax (dynamic range). If you scan any film that is contrasty such as Velvia the Dmax of the flatbed scanners aren't nearly as good at capturing both shadow and highlight detail as are the Coolscan scanners. I have scanned most of my film images (around 25,000) in the last three years and there is definitely a difference.