[DM-MUG] 35mm slide to digital converter

[Matthew Nuzum]

On Sun, Oct 4, 2009 at 10:02 PM, Bill Smith <bsmith at totacc.com> wrote:
> For some time I have been looking for a slide and negative to digital
> picture converter, but until now I had not seen one compatible with the
> Mac. Just recently I have seen a unit made by VuPoint Solutions that is
> said to be Mac compatible with OSX 10.4. Has anyone had any experience
> with slide/negative to digital converters, and particularly with this
> particular unit? I have seen it in a couple of catalogs and on Amazon,
> with the price ranging from $99.00 to $129.00.

I used to scan lots of slides in. If you have low volume you used to
be able to get an adapter that sat on your flat bed scanner. It looked
like a pyramid and had a mirror on one half of the inside. The slide
sat on the other half. The mirror would reflect the light down through
the slide so that the sensor could scan it in. It worked great but was
not extremely high resolution. Fine for web stuff though.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=nl&dlc=nl&cc=be&docname=bps03306

For higher volume work you can get a dedicated slide and film scanner.
The one we had was by Microtek. It had carriers, one would hold a
strip of 35mm negative, another held four slides. You dropped it into
the scanner and it would scan them in at very high resolution. It was
SCSI based and came with Mac and Windows software.

In the years when the digital world was taking off but digital cameras
hadn't hit mainstream yet there were numerous brands of flatbed
scanners that could scan normal paper and included a slide and
negative drawer or adapter. Epson and Canon made numerous consumer
models.

Here's such a model on Amazon for under $100 that has a favourable
review from macworld:
http://www.amazon.com/Epson-Perfection-Photo-Color-Scanner/dp/B001GBKTGM/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1254752410&sr=1-9

-- 
Matthew Nuzum
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