negatives to digital

[amkrn1997]

I was wondering if there is a market out there for a business to transfer negatives to digital format?? I want to transfer my thousands of negatives into a digital form. I was also wondering what the best negative scanner is???

[another view]

There are a lot of labs that will scan film of any size for you, and cost is usually (but not always) proportional to quality. Drum scans are the most expensive, quick scans at a mini-lab (grocery/drug store) being the least expensive. A lot of film shooters have a stockpile of slides and negatives that would be great to have in a digital format, but for me the reason most aren't scanned is a matter of time. I have a scanner, but good results from it take time. I don't send all of it to a good lab because it would cost a fortune...

A friend and I (possibly others too) may at some point buy a higher-end 35mm film scanner like the Nikon Coolscan 5000, and the auto slide feeder. Neither of us shoots film much (if at all) anymore, so it would almost be a on-time thing. We'd split the cost of the equipment, scan all of our stuff, sell it and split the proceeds. This will keep it relatively inexpensive and that scanner is supposed to do a good job on "autopilot" with the slide feeder. Personally, I think this is the best answer for us.

[amkrn1997]

Thanks for you input!!! So you think that there will be a market for that type of business. At least temporarily to help pay for the equipment and then resell it??

[freygr]

I have not seen any market for that type of service. I've done it a few times but at a loss. The older film scanner I have takes a long time. With a slide feeder I would say on a average you be able to scan 120 slides per hour.

[mjs1973]

I do think there is a market for this type of service, but I don't know how big it is. Getting your name out there, and letting people know that you are in the slide scanning business would be the key to making it pay for itself.

I have paid two local places to scan some slides for me. The first place charched 50 cents/slide. The quality was fine for the web, and 4x6 prints, but that was about it. I have also paid a local guy $2/slide at a much higher resolution. For $2 he gives me 55mb files from my 35mm slides. The price can add up in a hurry tho. I had him scan over 50 slides last year, and had him do some prior to that. I still have more of my own that I would like scanned, as well as boxes of photos from my dad, and grandma. For what I have already spent, I could be well on my way to purchasing Nikon Coolscan that AV mentioned. Considering how much I have left to do, it would have been a great investment, and may still be down the road.

Steve, if your looking for another investor in the Coolscan, let me know. If not, let me know when you're ready to sell it.

[another view]

The idea would be to just scan everything and be done with it - Photoshop as needed later. I don't know how many I have, a few thousand maybe, and I'll bet he has more than that. At a few bucks apiece, buying the equipment is the only thing that makes sense in this case. Plus, the resale value is pretty high so it'll only cost us time (however a lot of that...). He has a fast enough computer laying around that we can just set it up to do it's thing and leave it - at least that's the hope. Haven't talked with him about that in a while though.