Long time readers of my newsletter may remember that every autumn I talk about my upcoming winter projects, which seem to have been going on for at least a dozen winters. One of these projects has been to go through my old slides (nearly two four-drawer filing cabinets worth of slides) and drastically reduce their number.
Well it’s not even winter yet and I’ve actually gone and done it. Mostly. So far I have four heavy Santa Claus toy bag sized garbage bags full of slides. To be fair, most of the bulk and weight comes from the plastic slide sheets, but still: four big garbage bags full!!
I first went through all the slides that have not been entered into my slide database and pulled out a few that I thought were keepers and then I mercilessly tossed the rest.
And oh, it was fun. All those old pictures, some I hadn’t even seen for 15 or 20 years, making their way to the trash. It felt liberating. And a little embarrassing to see what I’ve been keeping all these years.
My next step is to go through all the slides that are in the database. These were initially the images I thought good enough to keep. Many of them are. Many will be joining their brethren in the trash.
Back in slide film days, we would need to take multiple originals so that we’d have several copies of images to use for presentations, submissions, printing, and just in case. I would regularly fire at least three frames of the exact same composition and exposure. And if I thought it was a great shot, maybe six or even eight. (Needless to say, I wasn’t bracketing exposures; that would just get too expensive.)
But because we’re in the digital age, I no longer need eight copies of my favorite shots. I only need to keep one or two. And if I get around to scanning everything (yes, another winter’s project) I can get rid of the remaining slides as well.
But for now, if I can get rid of those two four-drawer cabinets and free up some space in my office I’ll count that as a major victory!
I know you are saving the scanning part for a future project, but any thoughts as to what type of hardware you might use to get the slides into your digital world? I have a ton of slides and 35mm negatives that I have been wanting to add to my digital world, but have no experience with the scanning hardware to see what makes the most sense from a money, value and final quality perspective. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
BTW – Are slides recycleable? 🙂
I’ve got a Nikon LS-5000 slide scanner (which I can get to work with Windows 10, so yay!) and I’ll just scan as needed. Or I’ll get a bug up my butt and attach the bulk scanning attachment and just go for it.
But if I didn’t have a scanner, I’d probably use a service like Scan Cafe. That would probably end up being cheaper and easier than buying a film scanner.
As far as I know, slides are not recyclable.
I used ScanCafe several years ago for 400 slides at their standard resolution and found the results OK, but less than I had hoped for. The turn-around time is now shorter with the opening of their California-based lab.
Next time I will pay the small extra cost to have the scanning done at their highest resolution.
As a second thought, I am considering using one of the higher end Epson flatbed scanners. Does anyone have experience with these and the results? I see that they now offer a fluid-based option for highest quality scanning, but know nothing about it.
I don’t have any experience with scanning slides on a flat bed. I’d check with some of the photo forums
Epson USED to make a realy decent slide scanner,.
I wouls not try to use flatbed scanner,both for resolution an they are designed for reflective media,not tranpatan(sies)
I’ve got a Nikon LS-5000 slide/film scanner that does a great job (4000 dpi). Even have the slide feeder for batch scanning.