Hey People about Slide Scanners?

[argo063]

Hey
I got a CanoScan FS 4000us what scans slides well but it very slow eg only 4 at a time and it takes a while.
It has 4000dpi what good quality.
Is there any quicker way of scanning slides these days with the same quality or better ?
i see these flat bed scanners what can do 16 at a time *removed, members with less than 30 days membership and 50 posts cannot post links to commercial sites/products etc*
But would this be less quality then a canoscan ?

Thanks

[ricktas]

you determine scanner ability based on the dpi it can scan, the more dpi, the more detail it can capture, so compare the dpi of your currnt scanner with that of others you are looking at

[ameerat42]

What quality setting are you scanning at? 4000dpi? If so, slo-o-ow. As a rule of thumb, upscaling from scanning a 6x4 print that is 4 times longer than a 35mm slide at, say, 300 dpi, then a slide would need a minimum of 1200dpi. about 2400 dpi would be max I'd use (depending on subject/aim of scan, etc). The lower scan resolution will improve the scan time. But then do you scan in 8-bit or 12- or 16-bit? (Again, depending on your needs.) The higher bit rate will also make the scan time longer.

And when Rick says to do that comparison, make sure you compare the same scan resolution and bit rate.

Generally, even with my $700 scanner you have to wait a while.

[mongo]

Mongo has your scanner and a the full 4000 dpi it will do no better than you are getting depending of computer processor speed to a point - it still has to run the light over the slide at its own pace.

Mongo no longer uses it as his first choice for scanning slides - Mongo has an entirely different, better and much faster way to copy slides into a digital image of high quality. Mongo has mentioned this on AP several times now.

Mongo uses an old slide copier which fitted to the front of your film camera (if you can remember what these were). However, this time, Mongo fits it to the front of his digital camera. It is essentially a bellows with a bayonet mount for your camera on one side, a short range macro lens (say, 55mm) lens on the other side with a slide holder at the lens end. THe slide holder has a white diffuser behind it. You pop a side into the slide holder, point the whole thing towards some diffused sunlight (or have a toned down flash behind it instead), focus and shoot ! then quickly remove that slide from the holder and pop in another on etc. If the slides are in identical slide mounts, after focusing on the first slide there is virtually no need to refocus for sussessive slides. Mongo can get through slides this way at faster than about 1 slide every 6 to 8 seconds. Mongo is definitely faster and more accurate than any slide scanner ! !!

So that is how you scan slides today - you don't, you photograph them straight into your camera at whatever resolution you want including as a RAW file