Digitize old negative films (and photo)

[yorick]

Hello,

I found a lot of old photos from film photography (negative + printed pictures) from my family and I would like to digitize them in order to "backup" and reproduce them.

I looked for specific scanners and I found some like:
- Canon CanoScan 9000F Mark II
- Epson Perfection V370 Photo
- Scanner Photo HP Scanjet G4050

They achieve from 4800 to 9600 dpi (from what I learned, it should be sufficient, at least for not-too-big prints). They have special support (and I hope special software) to handle negatives in contrary to standard scanners.

Did anybody try such scanning ? What stuff did you use ? Or did you ask a profesionnal to do it ?
I don't mind spending 200-300 $ for a good scanner as I think it would interess a lot a people around me. If I can avoid scanning with a DSLR such as http://www.petapixel.com/2012/05/18/...s-with-a-dslr/ it would be better

Thank you !

[ahab1372]

Have you considered sending them to a scanning service? I barely find time to shoot, so I wouldn't want to spend so much time scanning



Arnt

[yorick]

Yes, I considered sending them to a scanning service, but if this could be done "easily" at home I would prefer doing so.

[yorick]

Thank you for your response.

I think I'll try scanning my photos as you suggest. Let's see what happens

[Lars]

I am bringing this up again, because we are some friends that wants to digitise diapositive slides. We would like to buy a dedicated 35-mm film scanner, and would like to know if someone has experience with this. Any recommendations for scanners? Since we are 4-5 we can spend a bit more, but never more than 4-500 euros.
Lars

[FastGass]

I have "scanned" film using a DSLR, it actually works quite well as long as you have something to keep the film square to your body, the same distance to your body, flat, something to easily advance the film and evenly lit. There is a plan for such a jig if you Google it and it wasn't hard to make at all. A macro lens would be ideal but a 50mm or longer prime with extension tube will work fine. Try to avoid a zoom (unless it's very sharp) because it will just add softness you don't want.

Or just get a scanner.

John.

[Kayaker72]

I have "scanned" film using a DSLR, it actually works quite well as long as you have something to keep the film square to your body, the same distance to your body, flat, something to easily advance the film and evenly lit. There is a plan for such a jig if you Google it and it wasn't hard to make at all. A macro lens would be ideal but a 50mm or longer prime with extension tube will work fine. Try to avoid a zoom (unless it's very sharp) because it will just add softness you don't want.

Or just get a scanner.

John.

Very similarly, I've started a digitizing project of old family photos. I ended up with a copy stand to keep the prints square, my 5DIII, 100 mm L macro, and two 600 EX RT flashes diffused with umbrellas. A bit more detail is in this thread.

Currently I am only archiving the prints. but I will soon be getting to old slides. The general approach for "taking a picture of a picture" with slides that I've read about is to elevate the slide and get a white background under the slide and then fire the flash onto that white background. That way your image is evenly illuminated from behind. Of course, a constant light source could also work. The key is even illumination.

[Lars]

Thanks for the replies. I will continue to bother you a bit:
I have an old slide duplicator, but that only works with a full size body (which costs more than a scanner). Otherwise, that would be perfect. With a 1.6x you only get the centre of the slide. Also, I have heard that photographing slides will cause an increase in contrast and more loss of dynamic range compared to scanners. Any thoughts here?
Lars

[1Derrick]

Thanks for the replies. I will continue to bother you a bit:
I have an old slide duplicator, but that only works with a full size body (which costs more than a scanner). Otherwise, that would be perfect. With a 1.6x you only get the centre of the slide. Also, I have heard that photographing slides will cause an increase in contrast and more loss of dynamic range compared to scanners. Any thoughts here?
Lars

Hello - I found that shooting two exposures with a slide duplicator (I found a high end table top model for next to nothing) and combining the best (one for highlight detail, the other for shadow detail), gives amazing results (on my Canon 1Ds Mk3 or Mk2). It is more time consuming but worth the effort.

[Lars]

Thanks again for useful tips. Interesting thought about the double exposure. However, I am digitizing somewhere close to 2000 slides, so I need to do it a bit automatic. We have found a scanner with a feeder that looks interesting. It will anyways be more reasonable than a full format camera. For my best shots, I will see if it is possible to scan twice to obtain better dynamic range (if we go for that solution).
@Derrick: Could you give me the name of the manufacturer of the slide duplicator you have?

Lars