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csziggy

(34,119 posts)
5. Taking shots one at a time for thousands of slides and negatives
Mon May 11, 2015, 03:25 PM
May 2015

Would take longer than I have to live! And I would have to invest far more money in a new camera than either of these scanners cost to do as good a job as the Epson Photo scanners would do.My old Nikon D70 just is not up to the job!

I would still need a really good quality flatbed scanner to scan old photos - I tried doing copies with a copy stand (inherited from my father) and two different digital cameras and never got as good a copy as I can with a flatbed. The copy stand was OK for my Dad to use to make copies before scanners were available, but scanning has come a very long way since the 1970s, 8os and 90s!

I brought home two boxes of negatives and slides in March and scanned almost 2000 slides and an unknown number of negatives. I spent maybe 40 hours total - and part of that was working through software problems trying to get my old V500 to stop dropping off the hardware list or not waking up. Another part was working with very curled negatives or with odd sized ones - I don't currently have a holder for 120/620 film and have to scan 4"x5" negatives in two passes then stitch them together.

I've probably scanned close to 10,000 slides, negatives, photos, and old documents. I need the flexibility to do them all and I've found the Epson scanners to work best for me.

The final part is that it is easier for me to put a group of slides into a holder for the flatbed than to handle them one at a time with a holder and a camera. I'm at the age where I am losing dexterity and need less hassle to get the job done.

The advantage of a scanner like the Epson V700 or V800 is that I can put 12 slides or 18 negatives into the scanner, start it and walk away to do something else while it's scanning - that is major for me rather than having to sit and wait for small batches.

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