Pond Boss
Posted By: Bing Recommendation for transferring 35mm slides - 06/05/16 08:12 PM


Does anyone have a recommendation about using a service to convert slides to digital format? My high school reunion committee has asked that I get about 400 .35 mm slides to a DVD so that we can project them at our annual all school reunion. A recommendation of any commercial service that does it (perhaps on the Internet) would be great.
Bing, I used ScanCafe for an old geologist's Alaskan pics one time. Good transfer, and lots of different options available.
Still working on my parents slides. EX-Kodak employees who got film for free... too many dang slides! We are using a little stand alone slide scanner that does fairly well. The tough part is telling when the slide is flipped or not. Probably 200 into it, about 400 to go.

Wishing I wasn't so cheap and used a service.
Posted By: Bing Re: Recommendation for transferring 35mm slides - 06/10/16 08:37 PM
Thanks AL, I shipped the 400 slides off yesterday.
Posted By: Zep Re: Recommendation for transferring 35mm slides - 06/10/16 08:47 PM
Originally Posted By: Bing
Thanks AL, I shipped the 400 slides off yesterday.


Bing...small world...but I was thinking about the exact same thing earlier this week.....I have about 300 slides....did they give you an estimate of how much it will cost?
Mark, Bing can probably answer better since he just did it, but the basic transfer wasn't that expensive. Where they make their money is on enhancements. They can turn a 40 yo faded slide into something special, if you want to spent the $$$. IIRC, you can pick and choose slides you want work done to.
Posted By: Zep Re: Recommendation for transferring 35mm slides - 06/11/16 12:35 AM
Al I am not fond of shipping off the slides that if lost would be irreplaceable...but I talked with a local Dallas guy today and he said his price was "$4 per image"....wow.....it looks like the website you suggest is much much cheaper than that.
Posted By: Bing Re: Recommendation for transferring 35mm slides - 06/11/16 01:07 AM
About $200 with a 50% deposit. I chose ten day turnaround which forced it to a domestic lab, not overseas.

I'll have to wait for checkout when finished to see if I get gouged on enhancements.
I haven't looked more into this, but on the surface it seems like there is some sense to it. An alternative for your slides:
http://www.digmypics.com/GetTheRealTruth.aspx?g=scancafe&gclid=CIv4hPnUk80CFUc2gQodDqIJvA
I bought a PC-coupled slide-scanner roughly 15 years ago for the purpose of archiving many boxes of old 35mm slides (which deteriorate with time and are irreplaceable).
The task took awhile, but was able to finish the job while watching football games or other TV shows that didn't require my undivided attention).
In short, I'm glad that I performed the task myself, since cropping the slides during pre-scan saved a lot of post-scan editing, and because I was able to scan the slides at a higher scale/resolution than most services offer (at least not at their normal fee-rates). Also, the slides never left my possession.
Once I became adept at the process, I was able to scan roughly two slides per minute. Newer scanners would be much faster, at even higher resolutions than what I used way back when.
After the job was finished, I sold the scanner to a friend for a 50% recovery of my initial investment. All in all, well worth it IMO.
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