Equipment

I have finally decided to scan my slides so that I can share them more easily. I have a couple of scanners that take forever to scan the slides. I was wondering if any of you had used a slide duplicator, an attachment that allows taking a picture of the slides with a DSLR. What I have found is inconsistent. I have Canon equipment, D5 MK IV and a 7D MK II. I have a Canon 50 mm macro lens with a 52 mm filter attachment. I have found a Nikon ES-1/ES-2 that attaches with a 52 mm filter mounting. I have also found different attachments by Kaiser, Ohnar, Bower, Jessop, and Opteka. Some attach with a T-mount and others with the 52 mm filter threads. As near as I can tell, the only one currently in production is the Nikon, but does it work with a Canon? Has anyone tried this? Is it worth pursuing? Does anyone have one that they are willing to sell?

Thanks all.

I did some of my slides by setting up a light table, and photographing them with a macro lens. That worked reasonably well and was much faster. I also sent off a large number of old prints (1,200) to ScanMyPhotos.com, and was pleased with the result. I know they also do slides.

I have scanned 6-8000 35mm slides with my scanner (Epson V700). It was slow, but not too bad since I could load 12 at a time. My 120 film is much slower and I have switched to DSLR digitization. I am getting much better results from the DSLR than the scanner, and after careful setup, it is much faster. Email/call me if you have any questions, I'm happy to help.

I would give it a try - you probably have everything you need to start. If you have a light table, put the slide on that, mask off the extraneous light, and setup a tripod over it. For 35mm, ideally you want a full frame camera and a 1:1 macro lens. Take care that it is stable and the film is parallel to the sensor (a small mirror is a great way to align it).

If it all looks good, you can see what you want to upgrade to improve the image. You will want to make sure the final setup is stable - this makes a big difference once you get going. I know someone that can regularly digitize 600-800 slides/hour with a solid setup. I'm happy doing 5/min with 6x7 film and much better quality than the V700!