Something that may interest people wanting to scan film/slides

[Miaow]

Thought this may interest people


In the junk mail delivered today is a catalogue from Sams Warehouse (that used to be the warehouse down here) - any way they have a 5mp Film Scanner advertised for $69 - says will scan film or mounted slides and is for XP or Vista.

Might pick one up myself

Edited: to add : This sale starts on 3rd Sept - they havent as yet got this catalogue showing on their website is still the old one
http://catalogues.samswarehouse.com.au/portal/

[old dog]

sounds good Cat. I`d love to redo some old photos of mine and especially some of my boys when they were smaller. Might have to sweettalk the ex wife though.

[Redgum]

Sweettalk Graeme? Is that for the photos or the $69?
Scanner sounds really good. Any brand details?

[Miaow]

Graeme, I'm sure you can get permission - seems quite cheap - not sure on how good the brand is....

Edited to add just noticed the sweettalk ex wife - I gather to get the pics...

Redgum - Brand in pic says otek?

Edited to add cant seem to find any details on net - is a pic of one on deals direct site but looks different so not sure is the same one - im sure the catalogue should update tomorrow night on their site

[MarkW]

Cat
Just be prepared to spend a bit of time in PS. Most crappy scanners seem to add a blue to green colour cast to the transparency. Your not supposed to get this with the hi quality read big dollar transparency scanners but at over $1k I just spend the time in PShop.

[Miaow]

Thanks for the info Mark - Yeah for the money spending a bit of time pp may not be too bad a thing when you compare the price of the good ones to this....

[jev]

Better yet: get yourself a copy of some good scanning software like vuescan to get it right from the start. Don't count on this scanner to provide scratch- and dust removal either.

[Krzys]

Really not worth the money....hunt on ebay/classifieds and find a real scanner...

I got a Canoscan 8400f for $100 and Polaroid Sprintscan 4000 for $30.

[MarkW]

As transparencies are really an obsolete technology at least as far as the general ameteur photographer goes, transparency scanners are really a one off use. You scan the slides you have at home then the equipment becomes redundant.

Advantage: - There will be many people who will purchase a good quality (not necessarily high end gear but at least well made with quality parts) scanner and at the end of their scanning will try to sell it. Of course nobody will want this sort of gear so the price will get lower and lower until somebody eventually buys it. If its you, you got it for a good price and has probably had very little use.

Disadvantage: - Now your stuck with redundant gear.

Of course there will always be retailers who see a job lot of crap gear and try to sell it, ie $69 scanners. Maybe they will work well or maybe they will have miniscule sensors giving rubbish results. I don't know that I would be bothered wasting my money on these. I'm yet to see the depth of a transparency (what I see through a loupe and a white table) re-created in a digital image without high end gear. I've tried a number of times to scan my slides with varying success (varied from crap to disgusting). I'll wait until I can find a Nikon CScan 5000 going cheap.

[Miaow]

I just have one box of slides of my mums that I received a couple weeks ago - they are the only slides I want to try and scan so for me getting maybe a not great one cheapish (even if need pp) might be the way to go...

Trev's dad said he could do a few on his scanner but he doesnt really have the time to do a heap of them so thats why when I noticed this thought maybe a good idea

[Redgum]

Or better still use an external service to digitally transfer the piccies from hard copy to digital. Fine for small numbers and I simply charge the client anyway. Probably about $15/$30 each if you know the processor and depending on the outcome required. Cheaper if you do your own Photoshopping.
If it's for your own collection even cheaper scanners will work fine if the resolution is high. Mind you, there are some very expensive scanners with low resolution.
In Brisbane there are a couple of agencies around that do bulk transfers that are inexpensive. Worth a look.

[Miaow]

Cant really afford to get these scanned professionally :/ is a reasonaly sized box so prob about over 100 slides in it - would cost too much - think for $69 I'll pick one up and see how goes

[Miaow]

Well if our local Sams have it tomorrow I'm going to get one of these and will post reuslts

[Redgum]

Great, love to hear how you go.

[Miaow]

Hopefully it will do a reasonable job lol

They have updated the catalogue on the site also show shows the pic of it - is on the inside of the front cover
http://catalogues.samswarehouse.com....two&gotopage=1

Edited to add: if it does have a colour cast how do i go about correcting it in pp?

[Redgum]

Maybe you should read this thread - and others - not happy chappies with Otek.
http://forums.techguy.org/digital-ph...e-scanner.html

[Miaow]

Hmm doesnt sound good on there with the problems they have had but I may as well try it and hope be ok.... Hopefully the store would let it be returned if doesnt work ? might check on that when go down there

[Miaow]

Well luckily they did do refunds if was a problem (made sure i asked when got it) ended up it was very picky on needing USB 2 and as such refused to basically work on here without a heap of usb errors ARGH - ah well its back to the shop now

[Krzys]

Yes...find a real scanner

[Redgum]

Well luckily they did do refunds if was a problem (made sure i asked when got it) ended up it was very picky on needing USB 2 and as such refused to basically work on here without a heap of usb errors ARGH - ah well its back to the shop now

Thanks for doing the leg work. Saves us all a trip.