I don't know much about slide scanners, but I've got a lifetime of 35MM slides.

I've been thinking about renting a slide scanner from a local pro photo shop from $53 to $83 for a long weekend depending on the model.

http://www.tempecamera.com/rental_digital.html

Scroll down to the scanner area and tell me whether one model is worth more than another.

I don't really want to buy one of these since I don't shoot slides anymore, but a while back Costco had one for $99. (Now $139)

They\'ve also got another for $100 more, but like I said, I don't really want to buy.

Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated.

My slides have been in trays and boxes for YEARS, so I guess to speed up the process of scanning, I should spend a weekend dusting and sorting them to pick the best for scanning.

John,

If you're not looking to spend alot, you may also want to look at the HP Photosmart S20. I borrowed my brother-in-law's a while back (and he took it back and sold it on ebay before I was done with it). It does 2400dpi on slides and negatives. I found it to do a pretty nice job.

You can buy them new from B&H for about $170 now, but there are a ton of refurbished ones on ebay that go for under $60. You could buy it, take your time and probably resell it for pretty close to what you paid.

My brother-in-law recently bought a Canon 5000F flatbed that also does slides. It has a feature called F.A.R.E. that is similar to Digital ICE, that removes scratches and such. He says it does a great job. Looks like street price is also about $170.

If you are going to rent from that list, go with the Nikon Coolscan. 2900 dpi should do you plenty fine. You definitely want something with the Digital ICE or FARE system if you are scanning older stuff.

You should probably be able to batch scan 6 slides at a time with that. Just go nuts scanning the quantity of slides, and burn them onto a CD-R. After you return the scanner, you can gradually run them through Photoshop then for the cropping, balancing, and picking out your favorites, etc.

I recently picked up a Canon FS4000US slide/negative film scanner and love it. It scans at 4000 dpi and has the FARE system that Larry noted. Can run from USB or SCSI. So far it blows away the HP 7400C flatbed I was using.

I agree with Rod the Nikon will probably do a good job for you, I don't know how time consuming the Nikon is (I have a Kodak slide scanner) per slide but my Kodak takes about 15 minutes per 3600dpi 2 pass 8 bit scan and ties up my computer at the same time, so what I do is to scan to my lap top, burn them to CD then edit them later on my desk top computer, Nikon does not have a batch scan adapter built in or included but they do make them and sell them separately so you'll want to see if they have one of those too or you'll have to hand feed them each time.

Or the other thing you might considder, buying a used scanner off ebay using it for a few months then reselling it.... might be cheaper than 2 weeks rental if you might need it longer than a week.

On a related note, did you see the rental prices on camera memory? $105 for 3-7 days for a 512mb Compact flash memory card..... I just bought one for $95.00, same thing with Smartmedia and smaller CF card prices.... cheaper to buy them.

Thanks, Larry & Rod...

...Now that I read the specs over again on the rentals, I see the Minolta also does 120 size slides and negs. I used to own a Hasselblad and SWC and if I could find those negs and slides, they might be nice to archive onto CDR or DVD.

But I guess I'll start out with the Nikon.

Yes, Mark... I saw those prices on CF memory. I suspect the rental prices don't get reviewed there much. Maybe they have a more recent model slide scanner too.

As an added note. If whatever scanner you choose has the capabilities (and you have the card/capabilities), run it from SCSI. A heck of alot faster than running from USB. Mark's 15 minute comment at or around 4000dpi is about the same as the speed on my Canon using USB. When I run it from SCSI though, it almost doubles the speed. Could be a factor if you are going to scan tons of slides. Not for sure what the Nikon runs from.

I looked on Nikon's web site last night, it claims 42 seconds per 8 bit scan but it also has a small list of Windows programs that are turned off to get that 42 second time. And thanks for that info on the increased speed with the SCSI Rod, I was unaware of that. I'll have to give that a try.

Hi John,

I own a Nikon LS-2000 and I think Gary Martin owns a Nikon LS-4000. I get 2700 DPI with the 2000 and he gets 4000 DPI with the 4000. There is a batch slide stacker that fits both of these models that batch scans 50 slides at one time. See if you can rent one of these set ups. The nice thing about the batch scanner is you can set it to run during the day or overnight, and do other things while they are scanning. A good 2700 DPI scan on my 2000 takes 5-6 minutes per slide. However, if you are not going to do any enlargements from what you are scanning above 5x7, scanning at 1300 resolution will suit you fine and cut your time in half.

I bought my 2000 for about $450 used on Ebay, and the 4000 goes for about $900-1000 used. The adapter is around $450-500 used. Would be worthwhile to rent, but if you want to buy and then resell the market and resale value is there for those two items.

John, Jen is correct, I've got a Coolscan 4000. Great scanner but unless you're going to generate large prints as I do, about 2700 or so dpi is plenty!

One point that's a must -- DIGITAL ICE or the equivalent. You'll go nuts clearning up scans from older slides without that little bit of technology. If you're working with faded old slides, a scanner with Digital ROC (Restoration of Color) might also be beneficial in terms of saving time in PS later.

The slide feeder is great for batch scanning slides. I've got one of those puppies too and for doing large numbers of scans, you just load up to 50 slides, start it running and go do something else!

Hope that helps some...