Also posted on Photography tab, but often little response there.
A while ago I turned analog 35mm transparencies into digital computer images.
Since that time I’ve changed computers twice, and printers once. Any accessories I had then are long gone. I can no longer remember how to do the transfer. (Keeping in mind best possible resolution). What is the process? Out of several thousand, I’d like to transfer about 60 transparencies and perhaps a similar number of color and black and white negatives. I can always project the slides onto a screen and then take a digital picture of that, but there has to be a better way even if I need to find a transfer house.
1. What is the procedure for a transparency?
2. What equipment is available for me -- relatively inexpensive?
3. How do I find a transfer house? In pro terms, what are they listed as in a locating directory?
The best way to do it would be with a scanner that has a transparency adapter.
I have a "lens" that you put your slide/negative in and point at a light source and then take a picture of it. That's the short, version, in reality, you would want to make sure you got your white balance correct for the slides, and mount the camera on a tripod, etc. I think I got my "lens" at B&H photo. If you Google something like "converting slides to digital images" you can probably find it as well as some tutorials on getting the most out of it. Hope this helps.
I don't know what is available now but you might check on 35mm slide and film scanners.
When I was doing a lot of film photography I bought a Nikon scanner that is made for 35mm negatives and slides. I tried some high-end flatbed scanners with specialized film adapters but I was never happy with the quality. The Nikon has extremely good (Nikon) ED optics and has a precision carrier which made handling and registering the images easy. The scanner was quite high resolution and made excellent digital files. The color was great. The 4000ED is 4000 dpi so I assume the 5000ED and 9000ED models are correspondingly higher resolution.
However, if I remember correctly it was around $1000, something perhaps not worth it for just a few hundred slides. Maybe they are still available and a bunch cheaper now.
As for services, you'd have to find a good one. I remember doing a lot of rescanning, adjusting the parameters to get the exposure to suit me. Although you can certainly adjust the files digitally you can, of course, easily blow the highs or lows or get horrible contrast. It sure was nice to have the scanner on the desk to rescan as needed and to use on a whim.
I assume you don't want to use Walmart or Costco. A quick Google search showed some scanning services that looked good, at least on the internet. For example http://www.whiteglovescanning.com/. I see they use the same Nikon Coolscan hardware, but a different version.
I see the exact Nikon film scanner I have can be had for $500 or so from Amazon:
If you decide to try to find a used one I might be willing to part with mine for less than that but I'd have to make sure everything was OK. It's been stored in the original box for years.
When I did mine I had an HP flatbed scanner with a transparency adapter and that worked very well although all of the tweaking and cleaning took many times longer than the scanning itself. There are quite a few stand-alone USB film scanners available (look at Amazon for examples) with prices from ~$85 and going up from there. There are also regular flatbed scanners which can do transparencies and negatives and if you needed a new scanner for general use then one of them might be a good choice. No idea about transfer services but, given the amount of twiddling and cleaning involved, they would have to be very good.
Back in the dark ages of photography the way to make duplicates of slides was to attach a fixture on the end of a macro lens that held the slide and you would just shoot another on your film of choice and have it developed. Now these once expensive gizmoes are fairly inexpensive on ebay. I found one in like new condition for $35. Some slide duplicators attach to the end of a macro and some are integrated into a lens in which case you may need an adapter. In my case my macro lens has a somewhat small 39mm filter thread so I needed to use a step up ring to be able to attach the slide duplicator.
Will check slide duplicators. The commercial house looks good and reasonable if they're good. It looks cost effective to be worth sending samples to judge.
As an aside. Before asking here I checked my old stomping grounds. In a past life I worked in higher education in a communications department. At the facility there were eight darkrooms for students with no doors in a sort of Greek key maze to keep light tight. All are gone with digital and the school's fear of student accusation of "inappropriate contact". No processing or printing is done there. Another example of actually doing stuff lost. Like much shop work, in a lot of areas how does anyone learn if hands on disappears?