To archive or what?

[Flash in the pan]

My question to the Forum refers to what to do with my Mums extensive boxes of slides.
My Mum has been an avid and very good photographer for over 50 years. She has been a lifelong member of Doncaster and Ringwood Camera Clubs and a few years ago began the Phillip Island Club. Mum is still shooting away but I would like to know what are the options in storage. Destruction is not an option as there are some beautiful images.
What have other forum members done?
Scan and archive seems like a good idea, but very time consuming. There must be thousands of images.
It would be great to hear some thoughts, thanks

[gstark]

Scan and archive would be the go, I would suggest.

It would be a shame to just leave these images to the whims of the ambient weather conditions. COnsider the scanning process as more than merely archiving: it is also a form of insurance, helping to ensure the long term preservation - conservation, even - of the images in question.

Yes, it would be time consuming, but I suspect well worth the efforts as a major project. I'd probably suggest the acquisition of an Epson V700 along with a couple of 1TB drives for this. The V700 can probably be sold with not too much financial loss at the end of the task.

Perhaps, after scanning, the best of the images could be donated to a local museum or library - or the Museum of Australia, in Canberra - where the management of the images is a routine task? Your mum would still have access to the images through the scanned versions, as well as to the originals through the recipient beneficiary.

Is your mum still shooting film, or has she regressed to digital?

[photograham]

I have around 4,000 slides taken by my father (who passed away in July) and these are generally only of an average standard. However, these will be scanned (I am going to buy the V700) and share copies of the people shots with my siblings.

And I also have the slide collection, some dating back to at least 1956, and these probalby number some 10,000. I'm also going to scan all of these, and use as an archive of places and heppenings. There are family members here also who will enjoy the final results, especially after I do the clean up work on them.

I know it will take time, a lot of time, but I anticipate being around for a while yet.

So my suggestion is to scan, and think of what to do with all of the family shots and who to share them with afterwards.

[photohiker]

Good question.

This depends a bit on the intended use of the images.

I did a lot of research on this about a year after buying my first DSLR. I knew I would not be shooting much more film... I spent about $1000 on a good scanner, and I started scanning my slides. It took a while to get up to speed and happy with the scanning software and results. The scanner had a neat IR dust removal system that worked quite well. So far so good. This was the honeymoon period with new gear to enjoy and processes to learn.

After a short while, (less than 500 slides) I was bored out of my brain. I was climbing the walls with ennui. I started to get very critical with what I scanned, and a couple of days later, I quietly packed the whole shooting match up and quietly placed it at the bottom of the cupboard.

So, bearing that experience in mind, my advice is:

* Unless you have very few slides to scan, or the patience of Job, do not underestimate the sheer, screaming drudgery of scanning slides 'en masse'

* Do get very critical about what get's scanned before you start.

* Do shop around for scanning services, and compare the cost of buying the scanner with having the scans done professionally. If you prune your "in pile", you may just find it's a whole lot cheaper and better to pass the scan operation to someone who does it for a living. (I have no idea where they get such people from, but they deserve a medal)

The happy ending to my scanner story is that I have been able to place it on permanent loan to someone who has some great images that need scanning and who is in no rush to complete the task like I was.

Michael

[Marvin]

I actually took photos of a projected slide image with my G2 several years ago. They came out quite well and it didn't take very long. I could even get some detail back in that wasn't visible in the slides (although I have no idea how that worked!). I would have a better setup now but I was happy at the time.

[Flash in the pan]

Thanks all for your thoughts. I think I will get Mum to fine tune the images then see how much it will cost to get them scanned. Mum is definitely old school. Still shoots film and I bought her a zoom about 10 years ago. Till then she only had a 55mm on a Leicaflex, but as we all know it's not the camera or the lens ..... Her pics are 90% land/seascape.

thanks again all

[Matt. K]

As Gary suggested...buy a good quality scanner and scan the images at high resolution. This will take about 3 months as an ongoing project .When finished sell the scanner (maybe via this forum) and as it will have 6 - 9 months warranty left on it then you should only lose about $150 over your purchase price. The Epson V700 is very desirable and you will have no trouble selling it.

[Killakoala]

I am doing something similar as an ongoing project. I am scanning my Grandfathers slides. Some of his images are still being used on postcards of Southsea (Portsmouth) Castle (and environs) that he took when he worked there many years ago.

Although time consuming, it is rewarding so I would recommend this action.

[ABG]

I'm looking at embarking on a similar exercise. A quick question for those in the know - how much difference in quality and speed of scan is there between the V700 and the V500?

Thanks

[who]

And a related question - what is a scanner like the Nikon Super Coolscan 5000 like to use -- obviously the price is high (say $1900ish) - if one had quite a few slides & negatives to scan?

I'm looking there as a mate was talking about a K-M Elite 5400 that his parents were using to scan which was the same type of gear (sounds almost the same in fact) and they sounded happy with it.

And how well do 35mm negatives scan anyway?


And on a related note, I know of someone who was using a macro lens to photograph slides mounted on a light box with quite good results, just would be probably a bit slow for me.

[ATJ]

And on a related note, I know of someone who was using a macro lens to photograph slides mounted on a light box with quite good results, just would be probably a bit slow for me.

Just remember that if you are using a DX camera, you'll need to be able to go larger than 1:1 as you will want the 36x24mm subject on a 24x16mm sensor.

[moz]

I'd probably suggest the acquisition of an Epson V700 along with a couple of 1TB drives for this. The V700 can probably be sold with not too much financial loss at the end of the task.

Suggesting that a better option would be buying a second hand scanner, further reducing the financial impact.

Having done a few hundred slides of my own I am completely convinced that tedium will get you, probably sooner rather than later. It actually doesn't matter how good the images are, scanning them is still a pain. I ended up putting the last few hundred through a fairly mediocre commercial service because I just couldn't face doing it myself.