Digitisation
I'm currently looking into some hardware than can bulk scan slides. The ones I have in mind are 35mm Kodakchrome, but of course something that can take a range of slides would be good.
The key thing I'm after is unattended operation. I don't want to have to spend twenty minutes loading and unloading silly 12-slide magazines and pushing them through a small scanner. I was looking at:
- the Nikon Coolscan 5000, but it's a bit pricey (nearly £1500) once you include the automatic loader - and that's second-hand. There's no support, as it's discontinuted, and it's also only got 16 bit colour depth - I'd really be hoping for 24 or 36.
- the Reflecta DigitDia 6000, which again is a bit pricey (£1200), but seems quite good. I've not seen many reviews about it however.
- The SlideSnap Pro, which seems a bit untested, and is very specific about the cameras used with it. I suspect it's crushingly expensive and quite easy to break...
The idea is that people (anyone) can bring their personal slide collections along to events and have them digitised for free. The metadata would take longer to organise of course, but that's something that can be done without specialist equipment. This wouldn't be used for 'professional' collections - obviously we can afford to spend a bit of money on those - but for amateur collections, it's a really good way of getting older photos onto Commons, and giving people a 'hook' to come to an event. Just asking around the staff, there are a good few thousand
So, my question is: Does anyone have any experience with slide/negative digitisation, and can recommend something? Put your comments below, or email me at richard.symonds
wikimedia.org.uk
Breakdown
| Name | Price | PPI | Capacity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nikon Coolscan 5000 | £1600 | Example | Example |
| Reflecta DigitDia 6000 | £1200 | Example | Example |
| SlideSnap Pro | £2500 | Example | Example |
| Hasselblad Flextight X5 | £18000 | Example | Example |
| Nikon Coolscan 9000 | £5300 | Example | Example |
| Example | Example | Example | Example |
Comments
Whilst the Slidesnappro is really picky about the camera used, it's a good camera and would be a good thing for WMUK to have, takes HD video, nice pictures, depends on how much the slidescanner costs I guess....Mrjohncummings (talk) 14:34, 10 April 2013 (UTC)