They also stated that money really wasn't an object. First I recommended the Nikon Super Coolscan ED 5000 with the slide auto-feeder SF210. They're a little on the expensive side, but completely worth it. Many slide companies use this for Slide Scanning as well as to Scan Negatives.
It's best to use a scanner that is dedicated to slides and negatives. Most flatbeds these days come with adapters, but I do not recommend them. Typically flatbed scanners have focus problems and a lower scan resolution than the dedicated models. Also, there are some $100 dedicated scanners floating around. I've been severely disappointed with them, since they are not actually scanners, they are just taking a digital photo of the media with a back-light. Also, they are a pain to load, and take way to long to scan a few hundred, let alone a few thousand.
If you need a good scanner, but this is way above your budget, comment and let me know, and I'll see if I can point you in the right direction.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Quick Help on a Scanning Question
"Hi
Could some one give me some advice please.
I've had a Digital Camera for about a year now, a MINOLTA Z2 which I enjoy using but I do miss my AE1 SLR so I'm going to use both because drooling over a lovely DSLR is like drooling over a beautiful women I cannot afford either, so what I want to know is what would be the best quality, to have them develop and printed and scan them myself or have them put on CD I can either scan prints or neg's."
I would recommend purchasing a scanner that is only meant to scan negatives . Flatbeds tend to be a little less accurate with their focus, and the images don't come out nearly as well when you scan negatives with a flatbed. I'm assuming you have a flatbed as 1200 dpi is typically the upper range for consumer flatbeds. I happen to know that DVD Your Memories uses Nikon Coolscan ED 5000s when they scan negatives, as well as slides. If that's above your budget, there are less expensive alternatives with less customizable options. Either way, stay away from the Hammacher-Schlemmer unit, or any other $100 job out there. They are not quality and actually just take a hi-res picture of your slides/negatives.
Could some one give me some advice please.
I've had a Digital Camera for about a year now, a MINOLTA Z2 which I enjoy using but I do miss my AE1 SLR so I'm going to use both because drooling over a lovely DSLR is like drooling over a beautiful women I cannot afford either, so what I want to know is what would be the best quality, to have them develop and printed and scan them myself or have them put on CD I can either scan prints or neg's."
I would recommend purchasing a scanner that is only meant to scan negatives . Flatbeds tend to be a little less accurate with their focus, and the images don't come out nearly as well when you scan negatives with a flatbed. I'm assuming you have a flatbed as 1200 dpi is typically the upper range for consumer flatbeds. I happen to know that DVD Your Memories uses Nikon Coolscan ED 5000s when they scan negatives, as well as slides. If that's above your budget, there are less expensive alternatives with less customizable options. Either way, stay away from the Hammacher-Schlemmer unit, or any other $100 job out there. They are not quality and actually just take a hi-res picture of your slides/negatives.
Problems Storing Vidoes For Viewing on a MacBook Pro
I came across this question today:
"I bought a MacBook Pro a few days ago and am in the process of transferring photos and videos from my previous laptop (Dell Inspiron 1520) and I'm having such a hard time figuring out how to get my videos! These are videos that I took using my Sony Handycam and I don't want to edit them at all. I just want them stored on my computer to watch them and perhaps send them to other people. All the videos I've taken on my digital camera imported to iPhoto just fine, but no such luck with video taken on a camcorder. It starts to import them, then tells me they are not a supported format. If they have to go into iMovie instead of iPhoto that's fine, but can iMovie be used just for storing and viewing or only for creating movies? Any help would be greatly appreciated, I'm very frustrated!"
Here's my advice for her:
Let me try to help.
While you view photos in iPhoto, they are actually stored on the hard drive. The same thing goes for videos- they will not actually be stored by iPhoto or iMovie. With this in mind, you'll want to save those movies somewhere easy to find. Some people just create a new folder on their desktop, others create a file in the Documents area of their hard drive. It's up to you where you'd like to save them.
As far as viewing them, iMovie can do this, but it is definitely more tailored towards editing. Most times you can just double click the mpg file itself, and have it open in QuickTime Player. If it doesn't work, chances are there is a compatibility issue- your Dell had the ability to decode the video, and your Mac does not.
There are several solutions to this problem:
If you purchase QuickTime Pro, it should play the files fine, using the MPEG-2 Playback Component.
Or, download a plug-in to make them play: Perian . -http://perian.org/#download
You could also pay a company to do a Video Transfer/Video Conversion -http://www.dvdyourmemories.com- to convert them over to DVD, which should play on any system, or to any other file format you need.
You should also be able to use iTunes -http://www.itunes.com- to organize your videos once you figure out if they're compatible with QuickTime.
Hope this helps!
"I bought a MacBook Pro a few days ago and am in the process of transferring photos and videos from my previous laptop (Dell Inspiron 1520) and I'm having such a hard time figuring out how to get my videos! These are videos that I took using my Sony Handycam and I don't want to edit them at all. I just want them stored on my computer to watch them and perhaps send them to other people. All the videos I've taken on my digital camera imported to iPhoto just fine, but no such luck with video taken on a camcorder. It starts to import them, then tells me they are not a supported format. If they have to go into iMovie instead of iPhoto that's fine, but can iMovie be used just for storing and viewing or only for creating movies? Any help would be greatly appreciated, I'm very frustrated!"
Here's my advice for her:
Let me try to help.
While you view photos in iPhoto, they are actually stored on the hard drive. The same thing goes for videos- they will not actually be stored by iPhoto or iMovie. With this in mind, you'll want to save those movies somewhere easy to find. Some people just create a new folder on their desktop, others create a file in the Documents area of their hard drive. It's up to you where you'd like to save them.
As far as viewing them, iMovie can do this, but it is definitely more tailored towards editing. Most times you can just double click the mpg file itself, and have it open in QuickTime Player. If it doesn't work, chances are there is a compatibility issue- your Dell had the ability to decode the video, and your Mac does not.
There are several solutions to this problem:
If you purchase QuickTime Pro, it should play the files fine, using the MPEG-2 Playback Component.
Or, download a plug-in to make them play: Perian . -http://perian.org/#download
You could also pay a company to do a Video Transfer/Video Conversion -http://www.dvdyourmemories.com- to convert them over to DVD, which should play on any system, or to any other file format you need.
You should also be able to use iTunes -http://www.itunes.com- to organize your videos once you figure out if they're compatible with QuickTime.
Hope this helps!
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