37
votes
What is an efficient way to digitize a family photo collection?
Your DSLR can do it in about 5 seconds each.
You need a tripod, a piece of glass and a decent light.
Try to come up with a way to work at table height. Aim the camera straight down.
Put a flat board ...
- 1,778
30
votes
What is an efficient way to digitize a family photo collection?
For large collections (in the 1000s) outside services can be very expensive. Especially if you: A) want decent quality, B) don't want them shipped to another country for cheaper processing, and/or C) ...
- 301
16
votes
What is an efficient way to digitize a family photo collection?
An alternative...
If you have considered Sherwood Botsford's answer and it seems like a lot of work...well, you are not wrong, especially for larger archives.
Consider finding a service to do this ...
- 12.6k
5
votes
How to digitize film on a budget?
There are many methods to digitize film. Which is best or most economical depends on your specific needs. There's usually a trade-off between image quality and time. Equipment capable of higher bit ...
- 27.1k
5
votes
Accepted
How best to digitally copy glass negatives?
I have not scanned glass negatives, but this is what I would do based on scanning ordinary film.
With the flatbed (with transparency adapter): Emulsion down, lifted off the scanner bed with sheets of ...
- 27.1k
5
votes
Accepted
Is it better to shoot or scan a film negative for Lightroom?
I get reasonably good results photographing negatives with a slide copier attachment and a macro lens (vs using a flatbed scanner). However, if you plan to scan many frames of film, you should ...
- 27.1k
4
votes
Does a filter exist to color-correct color negatives when copying them with a DSLR?
I know this is an old thread, but the issue is amaranthine. I'd just get a Super Chromega dichroic colour head or similar (from an old enlarger) and turn it upside-down to use the diffuser as the ...
- 41
4
votes
Accepted
Best method / hints on digitising a rolled up panoramic photo
My first thought is that humidity is your friend, at least as far as rolled photographs are concerned. One approach is to put the rolled photograph into a closed container with some damp cloth/paper ...
- 6,819
3
votes
Accepted
Color temperature when digitizing slides
Kodak does not specify viewing conditions for their slide films. Fuji specifies ISO standard (D50/5000k) for the transparency viewer (table) used. But that is not a slide projector; they do not ...
- 19.4k
3
votes
Color temperature when digitizing slides
The Kodak Carousel lamp is 3300 thru 3350 K. Slide copy film was balanced for Tungsten A 3200 K. Industry standard for viewing color prints is 5000 K with a color index of 95 or greater.
That being ...
- 39.7k
3
votes
Avoiding blurry edges with slide duplicator + macro lens
Most optics are weak around the edges, including the +10 diopter included with the slide duplicator. The purpose of the diopter is to allow the slide duplicator to work with non-macro lenses. But ...
- 27.1k
3
votes
Is this lens suitable for photographing negatives? Micro Four Thirds camera
If you take picture of negatives, you want something like this, and these often include a (removable) close-up lens, so this would work with about any regular lens. Of course if you use a prime lens ...
- 22k
3
votes
Accepted
Is this lens suitable for photographing negatives? Micro Four Thirds camera
It does not mention a maximum
Most lenses, macro or not, have no maximum working distance - it's referred to as "focus at infinity" or other similar terms. Only ...
- 5,158
3
votes
What are the major differences when digitizing slides/negatives with a DSLR vs. a scanner?
Bit-depth may also differ between a DSLR and a scanner. According to the Internet, a higher-end DSLR will provide 14 bits of information per channel when shooting RAW, while 10 bits per channel is ...
- 315
2
votes
Accepted
Film digitizing adapters for medium format
The standard solution to digitizing medium format is scanning - adapters to A4 (or so...) scanners for 120 film are easier to implement than digitizing adapters.
There is a number of reasons for this;...
- 5,988
2
votes
What are the differences between projector, enlarger, and macro lenses for photographing 35mm slides?
Enlarger lenses and projector lenses are figured to work flat-to-flat. In other words, project an image of a flat negative or transparency onto flat paper or screen. The camera lens is figured to work ...
- 39.7k
2
votes
Do I need a copy stand to digitize negatives with a Sony Mirrorless Camera
No. There are other ways. You can use a tablet or phone, light table, lens adapter, etc. Google 'digitize negatives with digital camera` for options. Among top results you can see one that uses a ...
- 103k
2
votes
Digitizing slides with a camera: still too much noise
Perhaps not a total fix, but some ideas in hopefully a helpful direction.
I doubt the noise is camera noise at 100 or 200 ISO, if you are completely filling the frame of the D5000. My D5500 is newer, ...
- 23.4k
2
votes
Avoiding blurry edges with slide duplicator + macro lens
I'm currently digitally duplicating my large old slides collection with a different, home-brew setting:
Laptop screen as light source (showing a 100% white image).
Slide placed some 40 mm above the ...
- 1,359
1
vote
Missing lines at regular intervals in flatbed scanners. Can it be avoided or solved?
I scanned a long thin kitchen knife run diagonally across the bed of my Epson 4990 as a source of effectively infinite detail at both 4800 and 2400ppi 48-bit color in Vuescan (to generate maximum ...
- 624
1
vote
How to scan photos properly?
Before you trust your photos to a scanner, maybe you should check it, scanners from all-in-one printer/scanners are mostly designed to scan documents, color fidelity may not be their top ...
- 22k
1
vote
Do I need a copy stand to digitize negatives with a Sony Mirrorless Camera
Copy stands are for duplicating prints and documents, not film. While you can use a copy stand with macro lens and light box, using a slide copier is far easier and cheaper.
Except for the film ...
- 27.1k
1
vote
What is an efficient way to digitize a family photo collection?
While I'm sure a proper photo scanner like the ones bucknljake suggests are significantly better in terms of quality, I've archived a bunch of old photos just by putting them in the feeder of one of ...
- 273
1
vote
What is the difference between colour-negative scan vs digitizing services?
Broadly speaking, digitization is conversion from analog to digital by any means. Scanning is a subset of digitization in which an image is captured in sequence, usually pixel-by-pixel or line-by-line....
- 27.1k
1
vote
Film digitizing adapters for medium format
If by "digitizing adapter" you mean a film scanner, then yes, there are a few such scanners that will accept at least some sizes of medium format film. By far the most common are those that will allow ...
- 176k
1
vote
Does a filter exist to color-correct color negatives when copying them with a DSLR?
****Color Neg to Pos without orange mask sampling (Photoshop)****
I use a Nikon ES2 slide copy device and capture negatives with a flash as light source. I struggled to get an easy way of going from ...
- 11
1
vote
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible