Help in converting 35mm slides to digital (1 Viewer)

[timeshadowed]

Hi

I just recently bought a cheap digital camera (40 dollars USA) and want to convert my thousands of 35mm and 126 slides to digital cd's. What is the cheapest way to do this since I do not have a scanner and I am on a very tight budget. I live in the USA.

Can I do this using the cheap digital camera that I have? - no attachments came with it except the USB transfer cord to the computer - Windows XP.

I've read about a light box but tried it with a slide sorter and it did not work. What light box works well? And will that method even work with a cheap camera with no attachments?

Thanks for helping.

 

[Mono]

If you have thousands of slides to do the best way is to send them off to get them done commercially. Doing it yourself with a digital camera and a lightbox and the inevitable post processing of each slide will take hundreds of hours of dull repetition.

 

[timeshadowed]

OK, it is going to take lots of time to do it myself, I know that. I'm just wanting to explore all of my options at this point, since I do not have a lot of extra money right now.

So if I were to get it done somewhere, where is the best place to go? I'm not too keen on the idea of having them shipped off to somewhere and possibly being lost in shipment either. So what stores chains do this and don't cost tons of money?

Thanks for any ideas,

 

[JohnZ]

There are a lot of fairly cheap scanners at the moment especially in the States ! I would advise you to look in at ebay and sort one out ?

 

[RAH]

As mentioned by others, there are plenty of cheap scanners available. Surely you have some Best Buy or Staples stores in your area. If not, buying online is very easy and reliable. Amazon.com has an Epson V300 scanner for $139 which will do 4 slides at a time. Many others do the same thing.

Don't even think about trying to do it with that "cheap" camera. Even with an expensive camera, it is very difficult to copy slides. The focus is the main difficulty, as is the lighting, although the lighting problem is solved with a light table, if you have one. Anyway, forget it. Even if you got it to work, you'll get very poor results from a poor camera, and a scanner would do MUCH better than even a good camera. If you were only doing a few, I'd say try the camera, but what's the point of spending hours and hours and getting poor results?

 

[tjsimonsen]

If you have thousands of slides to do the best way is to send them off to get them done commercially. Doing it yourself with a digital camera and a lightbox and the inevitable post processing of each slide will take hundreds of hours of dull repetition.

If you have thousands of slides you want done commercially, it will ruin you! At least if you want good quality. This is not a budget solution (but I doubt that there is one).

Thomas