Slides to Digital via DSLR

[Bruce in Philly]

FWIW,

I just wrote a blog piece on how I transferred my 35mm slide collection to digital using my 5D Mk II. I hope you find this useful.
I don't make any money on any of this, I just like to write and do some projects. This may not be the best way to do it, but for those interested, my blog piece may be of help. Let me know what you think.

By the way, the total cost to me was $0 as I did it with the equipment I already had laying around.

http://travelthroughpictures.com/pho...lides-digital/

Thanx,
Bruce in Philly

[Sean Setters]

Very interesting approach. Thanks for the post.

[ham]

Very good results. I think my work monitor must be a little on the cool side though, as I actually prefer the colours on the original slide images to those that have been corrected.

[Bruce in Philly]

Hi Ham, it is possible my monitor was out when I did this. I have since purchased a ColorMunki and found my monitor was way out. This really ticks me off for a ton of obvious reasons.

One thing I can say for sure about the transfer process was that the color casts varied from roll to roll - what was "accurate" was tough to tell without a calibrated monitor. I don't know why there were color casts but I suspect it was variability in processing and possibly the age of the slides (natural aging but also storage issues). Another disappointing discovery was that my 5D Mk II did not do a good job of selecting white balance and varied from slide to slide. That is why I recommended setting your software to Daylight to standardize the camera because As Shot was variable to say the least. If you set the camera to say Daylight, then your work across that roll was, for the most part, the same.

Thanx
Bruce

[ham]

I've found my 60D struggling to Auto Colour Balance even in normal shooting conditions, I always have to do some work in Lightroom to correct. Might start to set it manually so that I know I can apply changes across chunks rather than having to do them manually.

[Bruce in Philly]

Ham, I started to use a grey card and it really helps. I just shoot my first pic with it somewhere in the frame, then remove it and re-shoot. If the light changes, I re-shoot it. Then is post, I just click the white balance eye dropper on it and viola!

I just received a X-Rite Color Checker and ColorMunki bundle.... as I noted above, I calibrated my monitor with the ColorMunki but have not used the Color Checker.... I suspect it will do the same as a simple grey card but it is supposed to be integrated well with LightRoom, which I use. Will use it this weekend at my niece's wedding. Besides, I like gadgets.

Bruce
www.TravelThroughPictures.com

[ham]

Slightly more difficult when it comes to street photography

But thanks, I have got a grey card, it's just a case of a) taking it with me and b) having time to take a calibration shot.

[Lars]

Just to add some information. I have tried a slide duplicator with bellows, and always got higher contrast (loss in dynamic range) also when duplicating from diapositive to diapositive film. So it is not necessarily the limitations of the digital sensor/screen that cause lower dynamic range. I will eventually try this system to digitalise my old slides. When I have time (not in near future ).

Lars