Olympus-OM
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [OM] In Search of Infinite Wisdom

Subject: Re: [OM] In Search of Infinite Wisdom
From: Joey Richards <bigjoe@xxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 10:09:37 -0500
I don't actually own a slide scanner of any sort, but I have some
answers for you anyway... :-)

DaEyeGuy@xxxxxxx wrote:
> I have thousands of slides waiting for my attention from when I lived in 
> Germany (teaching) in the seventies for four years..of course, that was in my 
> "first" Olympus Manic Period.  As i remember it, some of them were quite 
> nice. :=)
> 
> I have now a good quality, 600 x 1200 dpi scanner <please don't groan>
> 
> Stupid Question #1: can I lay my slides face down and get ANYTHING??LOL
> 

Not anything useful.

> Almost As Bad #2: are there generic slide adapters (I don't think Umax has 
> one for my 1200S)
> 

Don't know...  but from what I understand, document scanners are pretty
awful at scanning slides, even with these adapters.  One problem is the
resolution -- you won't get a lot of pixels out of the 1x1.5" slide.
The other, less obvious, but probably more important problem is the
dynamic range of the scanners.  There is a lot of information in a
slide or negative, but most flatbed scanners don't have the ability to
cover anywhere near this dynamic range... so you'll end up with dull,
lifeless scans of bright, sunshiney slides.  Slide scanners are more
optimized for dynamic range and will do a better job.

> Pitiful Question #3: now that you've told me to "get rea'"..where's the 
> cheapest slide scanner i can get that isn't embarrassing?? I'm poor this 
> 

The cheapest I've seen run in the ~$400 department.  I haven't played
with them, but I have given a lot of thought to this.  If you are trying
to save $$, ask yourself how many slides you're going to scan and how
much time you want to spend on this.  If you get a cheap slide scanner
for a few hundred bucks, you still have to sit there and scan all of
your slides.  Then you will have to spend even more time in PhotoShop
correcting the colors and removing the scan artifacts from the cheap
scanner.  You can get a professional scan done for you for $1-3 per
slide if you do a bunch at once.  With these, you package up your
materials and send them off to the lab where someone who scans slides
for a living does the work and send you back the results.  If your
time is valuable (and you don't just want to scan slides yourself
for the fun of it, which some people would enjoy doing), you will
very likely get *much* better results with a much smaller investment
of time and frustration via this route.  Plus, until you've
scanned 1-500 slides, you actually will spend less $$.

Just some thoughts...

joey

< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Sponsored by Tako
Impressum | Datenschutz