I'm searching for a quality slide scanner to convert some color 35 mm slides into JPEG format. My dad had hundreds of slides from his visit to Japan in the 50's and I really want to transfer them and post them on YouTube.
I tried buying a slide projector and pointing the thing at a white board, but the quality wasn't so hot. It was like the lights were too light and the darks were too dark. (What's the name for that phenomenon, btw?)
What decent quality slide scanners are available?
I'd advise taking it to a good lab to get done.
Most consumer devices that can scan slides under $2000 are not going to be very good. In particular, flatbed scanners with slide scanning adaptors are going to be terrible.
Slides have very dense blacks. You need very sensitive sensors and a fairly bright scanning light to be able to reproduce detail in them. These don't exist in cheap hardware.
This is not so much the case with negative scanning, which is a lot more forgiving.
I would start by reading some reviews like this one: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/photography/buying-guide/film-scanners
The well known manufacturers like Nikon does not make them anymore. So the market has only now not so known brands or flatbed scanners.
Oh. Another option is to use a digital camera and a macro lens.
If these are Kodachrome slides you'll need the Nikon 9000 Coolscan. No longer made but available on EBay.
The IR surface scanning system (which is what removes scratches) in the 9000 is completely different than the others you mention and was specifically designed for Kodachrome. You can't use the dust and scratch removal features on the other scanners without noticeable image degrading. The ROC (restore old color) feature has been improved as well.
A search of reputable photo sites will reveal the details. This is one example from https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3213530:
However, for Kodachrome, one should distinguish between:
the "regular" version for Digital ICE
and the "Professional" Version of digital ICE (which is available only on few scanners; for example it is available for the NIKON Coolscan D9000; but according to my information it is not available for the NIKON Coolscan D5000).
While both the "regular" and the "professional" versions of Digital ICE work for Kodachrome slides, the "regular" version of DIGITAL ICE very often intereprets for Kodachrome slides small subject-details as scratches or dust and removes them or blurs them. This becomes apparent when viewing small details of the scan results at a 100% magnification (for example when viewing small details of architectral photos at a 100% magnification).
