Film and Slide Converter

**gma2rjc** · 12-21-2009, 12:01 AM

Has anyone ever tried using a film and slide converter? It converts your negatives or slides to digital images and puts them on your computer. At least that's what I THINK it does.

Barb

scelestic · 12-21-2009, 07:15 AM

Uhh never heard of one & I have never heard of anyone using one. I use a scanner to scan film and make digital copies & I find that thats how most people do it but ill look into this thing you are talking about.

Edit: Ya just looks like a little scanner just for film which I dont find very useful when I have a scanner with a attachment for film.

Angela · 12-21-2009, 09:20 AM

I've been asking around. I was hoping that someone I know would lend me one so I could do that for my mother-in-law as a gift. I've seen them at Walmart for $80. But for my purposes, that is far too much money.

**gma2rjc** · 12-21-2009, 01:32 PM

My brother-in-law told me he bought one and used it. I never asked him how well it worked.

I'm going to try this one and see how it goes. I still have the receipt, so I can return it if it doesn't do a good job.

Barb

Angela · 12-21-2009, 04:15 PM

You bought one? Can I borrow it when I come over to clean your house?
(haha)
Be sure to follow this up and tell us about how it works!!

**gma2rjc** · 12-21-2009, 10:01 PM

Yep, I got it the day after Thanksgiving on sale. I'm looking forward to trying it. I did take it out of the package. It sat on my craft table unused until last weekend when I put it back in the box. Hopefully I'll be able to try it in January.

The last time I had pictures developed at Sam's Club, I asked the lady who worked in the photo lab if they can put pictures on a CD, if I bring in the negatives. She said they can do it and all it costs is the normal fee for a CD that you would order when you have prints made from your digital camera. I think they charge $2 or $3. That's not too bad. I almost did it, but I was afraid of them misplacing some of the negatives. They're very good at that lab, but I was still worried about it.

I'm sure other photo developing labs do it too. How many negatives does your mother-in-law have? If there are shoe boxes full of them, it might be cheaper to just use a scanner, as previously mentioned. DM said he uses his scanner for his negatives too and it works great.

Barb

Angela · 12-22-2009, 10:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gma2rjc

I'm sure other photo developing labs do it too. How many negatives does your mother-in-law have? If there are shoe boxes full of them, it might be cheaper to just use a scanner, as previously mentioned. DM said he uses his scanner for his negatives too and it works great.
Barb

Actually, it was her slides that I was wanting to convert. It never occurred to me to see if a lab could do it!

I am planning to "steal" her olllllllldddddd home movies to get them put on DVD. I missed the boat on that one when they moved. Now they are all packed away in a storage facility. My Father-in-law is in cahoots with me though. So I will get my hands on them. I have until November to get and convert those for her birthday.

I also intend on the long task of scanning all photographs (both my own and hers) and putting them on disks. For her, that project is much easier to be sneaky with because they leave for six months so if I get my father in law to show me where the photos are, I have allllllll spring/summer to do that. (they live with us) She has a digital frame in a box somewhere that I plan to fill with all her photos. I know she will love it when it is done, but she is sooooooo resistant to technology. We only really got her on the computer in June. She's on it all the time now! (mostly playing Scrabble, but she goes on Facebook and I introduced her to amazon.ca about a month ago)

I was thinking "January? She has to wait until January??" Then I realized that January is not far away at all! Do tell us how this works. We may find that it is cheaper to buy the machine than go to a lab. I have no idea how many slides there are....

**gma2rjc** · 12-22-2009, 01:40 PM

Since you have so many of them to do, first I would learn as much as you can about using a scanner. See how the quality is and how many steps you have to take to scan one negative strip. If you have to go through too many steps for that to work or if it's not the quality you need, then buy the machine.

If I was done with mine, I'd send it to you. That's the bad thing about buying one. Once you've scanned all of your negatives and slides, there's really no need to have it around anymore.

But.... you could sell it on ebay, which makes me think that you could probably BUY one on ebay as well. I can't remember what I paid for mine on sale, but it was well under $100.

If you do, make sure it comes with all the cords and software and both plastic gadgets to put slide the originals through the machine.

Now I'm anxious to get mine back out and try it.

Barb

Jrits · 01-15-2010, 10:58 AM

never tried this - hmmm

soulkissed · 01-16-2010, 08:35 PM

YES! I have one and have used it a lot. Works pretty good, not sure if the images are super great for reprints (and at what size they work best...pretty sure you couldn't go too big though....), but they have turned out well and the process was fast and simple.

One downside is dirt. once there is dirt inside the machine - if you can't blow it out, you may be out of luck (so make sure the slides are fairly clean).

We also have a flatbed scanner that can do slides and negatives - its much slower but the quality might be a bit better....I'm not sure. Also, you can do 3D slides on the flatbed (unable to do them on the other small slide/negative scanner).

I was considering selling my slide/negative scanner (its actually brand new - our first one did end up having dirt inside when we called the company they swapped us for a new one)......but I'm not sure if we're done w/ that kind of scanner yet...and just want to rely on the flatbed (because the little one is MUCH faster!).

Hope that helps! For us - and for what most places charge to scan your slides - it was definitely worth the $$.