Am i allowed to offer a slide scanning service?

[-=Monty=-]

I recently came back from Germany, and bought myself a Reflecta DigitDia 4000 35mm slide scanner. (850 euro )

It scans whole magazines at a time, so it can just be left overnight, and scan about 100 slides.

Would i be allowed to offer a service to members here to scan their collections to cd/dvd? I would charge about 30 cents or so per slide, compared to local shops charging $1-$3 per slide.

They're at 3800dpi, about the same resolution as a 15MP camera. It also removes dust and scratches with ICE (infrared sensoring)

So would i be allowed to do this?

[Glen]

Monty, will bring this to Gary's attention, seems like a good idea

[-=Monty=-]

Monty, will bring this to Gary's attention, seems like a good idea

Thanks for that, glen!

I'm not trying to make a huge profit here, just trying to pay back some of the cost of the machine. And offer a nice service to members here.

And i think that's a pretty decent price.

[Glen]

Seems fair to me Monty

[byrt_001]

hi

great idea, can you only scan slides and not film?

thanks

christian

[-=Monty=-]

It scans any 35mm film that is in a frame.

Also B&W and negatives.

But yeah, they have to be in a frame.

[Steffen]

Would i be allowed to offer a service to members here to scan their collections to cd/dvd?

I think you just did

I would charge about 30 cents or so per slide, compared to local shops charging $1-$3 per slide.

Hah, the question is, what type of service comes with it? Would you just rattle the magazines through as they're handed to you, or would you spend time on optimising the scan? If you just run them through, 30 cents seems a bit high, but that depends on how much time you waste on burning the disks. Assuming the scanner is only good for just 10000 slides then at €850 ($1400) it'll earn its stay if you charge 14 cents per slide. Plus your time, logistics costs, blanks etc.

If you hand-craft the scans 30 cents will be far too less.

Also, what are you prepared to pay for that priceless slide if your dog chews it up, or something else happens to it? I don't want to discourage you, but going into business has its traps.

Cheers
Steffen.

[obzelite]

I think you just did

beat me too it.

[-=Monty=-]

If there are any offers, I won’t accept them until this is approved.

Anyway, I’d say the price is decent, as there are other companies on the internet, and just general local companies, that offer similar services for a lot more. I'll have a think about the price a bit further later on. Also, keep in mind, that 3800 dpi, with dust and scratch removal, without any extra enhancements takes about 5 minutes per slide. That's around 8 hours for 100, so it's fairly time consuming.

I would say that if one slide is badly damaged, I would not charge for the whole service. And I would of course treat the slides extremely carefully, as I know how valuable they are. We have more than 2000 slides that I will be scanning in with the machine. I have already scanned in close to 500, and there has not been one damaged, or scratched in ANY way, and i've checked every slide, as we have many that are over 30 years old, and many that are extremely valuable to us.

The dust and scratches, and auto exposure are automatically done by the machine. There are also other options like noise reduction, and many other enhancing options.


If there's no one interested, that doesn't bother me, just thought it would be a nice thing to offer.

Just a sample. I will get some others up if needed.




Taken with a plain-old nikon F50 with a 35-50mm lens on 100 iso Fujufilm film.

JPG compression made quality a little lower.

[Steffen]

If there's no one interested, that doesn't bother me, just thought it would be a nice thing to offer.

It sure is. As I said, i don't want to discourage you, sharing expensive equipment (even for a fee) is always a good idea. There are just a few things to consider, to prevent this from ending up in tears.

The time factor is an interesting aspect. I've always lusted for a good slide scanner, but at 5 min per slide this would take over 4 hours per magazine. Haunting...

Strangely, I didn't see this in your original post, it only showed up in the quoted text:

Just a sample. I will get some others up if needed.




Taken with a plain-old nikon F50 with a 35-50mm lens on 100 iso Fujufilm film.

JPG compression made quality a little lower.

Cheers
Steffen.

[gstark]

So would i be allowed to do this?

Yes.

[Glen]

Steffen, will you come and negotiate on the next house I buy, you have just negotiated poor Monty down to 14 cents!!!


Steffen has brought up some good points Monty, also think about how people will get the slides to you (registered post?), etc, then set your own price and see if people use you. If no one does there may be something wrong with your offering, it may be price or could be location, etc. Remember Steffen did not include labour! I am not sure if 30 cents is ok, but please feel free to offer your service at that price if you think it is good value

[Steffen]

I could have said the scanner is good for 100,000 slides (which it quite possibly is), which would have brought down the cost to 1.4 cents per slide. This shows that equipment depreciation isn't really the point here, but the amount of time you have to invest to provide the service. If you have no previous experience covering the complete turn-around, this is a very difficult thing to estimate.

Given that commercial outfits charge in excess of a dollar, as you say, you might be living dangerously on 30 cents. I guess, only experience will tell

Cheers
Steffen.

[Steffen]

 PS: I'd be willing to try the odd magazine for $15, problem is, I have to sort through them first, and my light table is busted... Plus, sorting slides takes a lot of time

Cheers
Steffen.

[-=Monty=-]

If anyone is interested, i'll do $10 for 100 slides (or $5 for 50 for 2 different people) for anyone who takes up this offer first. You can then post your experience for other users. Even if you just send in some crappy old slides, just to see how everything goes.

Anyone after that, i'll do 30 cents for 0-200 slides
And 25 for anything after that.

I wont go lower than that, because it does take a lot of time, and i do have to crop each slide induvidually, and touch them up, if needed.

I think that registered post would be the best option.

I will make a seperate post later today for this.

[Glen]

separate, Monty