12-05-2006, 06:19 AM
I have a different perspective after going through this decision making process and doing some scanning. IMHO you should rethink what you're doing and what the cost in time and tears will be. A film scanner will be incredibly arduous and slow. Oh yeah, don't forget the huge amount of time to clean every negative, then crop, rotate, color correct and enhance all those shots. Multiply that by "thousands" of negatives and you (or your mom) will be in for a very long and unpleasant task. Not only that, but your results will probably not be that great. The viable alternatives are to use the professionals (by far the best solution) or use a high rez flatbed scanner.
As far as the pros are concerned, I think this service http://www.digmypics.com/OE/Pricing.aspx has the best combo of price and product, though Costco is cheaper if you don't want to pay that kind of money. It's pretty certain that either will provide you with a lot better product than you can do by yourself. If cost is an issue, it would be cheaper for you (or mom) to get a temporary minimum wage job or sell stuff on ebay for the hours it would take to do the scanning (and you'd come out way ahead $-wise too).
A high rez flatbed scanner (Epsons seem to have by far the best bang for the buck) can produce almost as good a negative/slide scans as a dedicated film scanner and can do a whole slew (12/4) of negs/slides at once. Check out this review: http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/interac...page_1.htm . This successor to this scanner can be had for only $310 refurbed. http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/consu...Cookie=yes&oid=63060806 .
Even with all that, I highly recommend that you do what I did. Come up a priority list for your photos, then buy a cheapie light table and loupe, and sort through all your negs to "high grade" the ones that you really want to reproduce. I found that only about 5% of my slides were really worth scanning. To archive the ones you don't scan, take them to the bank and put in a safe deposit box.
My three cents!
As far as the pros are concerned, I think this service http://www.digmypics.com/OE/Pricing.aspx has the best combo of price and product, though Costco is cheaper if you don't want to pay that kind of money. It's pretty certain that either will provide you with a lot better product than you can do by yourself. If cost is an issue, it would be cheaper for you (or mom) to get a temporary minimum wage job or sell stuff on ebay for the hours it would take to do the scanning (and you'd come out way ahead $-wise too).
A high rez flatbed scanner (Epsons seem to have by far the best bang for the buck) can produce almost as good a negative/slide scans as a dedicated film scanner and can do a whole slew (12/4) of negs/slides at once. Check out this review: http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/interac...page_1.htm . This successor to this scanner can be had for only $310 refurbed. http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/consu...Cookie=yes&oid=63060806 .
Even with all that, I highly recommend that you do what I did. Come up a priority list for your photos, then buy a cheapie light table and loupe, and sort through all your negs to "high grade" the ones that you really want to reproduce. I found that only about 5% of my slides were really worth scanning. To archive the ones you don't scan, take them to the bank and put in a safe deposit box.
My three cents!