My co-worker purchased a digital SLR with a good macro lens and extension tube for slide scanning. He has it set up with a diffuse white light below, then the slide, and then the camera mounted above pointing down. Locking the auto focus and exposure, he can easily do 8 slides a minute. The slide image fills the camera frame, and with his 6Mpixel camera (Pentax K110D) he's getting the equivalent of 2600dpi. With a 10Mpixel sensor, one would get nearly 3,400dpi. We can clearly see the grain with his 6Mpixel camera, though, so there's not much reason to go further than that. I assume if one had to image better slide film the grain would be finer, perhaps requiring the 4000dpi. Quite frankly, though, the film scanner costs more for less overall utility in my estimation. At 2.5 minutes per slide, you'll spend over 41 hours doing the work. If your time is worth $5 per hour, then you're spending an additional $210 to do the work, on top of the cost of the slide scanner. One should be able to find a service to do that near that cost - I see one service that charges 24 cents per slide, so right around $240 for your 1000 images. So many ways to do the same thing... -Adam On 5/15/07, Carl Denk wrote: > A few years ago, I had (7) 400' reels of 16 mm. silent color/and b&w > film transfered to DVD with complimentary sounds dubbed in for about > $250 USD. The process was to project onto a screen 2 or 3 foot wide and > used a good quality camcorder to capture the images. Looks good on 42" > TV screen. If someone is interested in the service located in Northern > Ohio, contact me privately and I'll put the contact together. > > As a separate issue, I have about (1000) 35mm. slides to convert to > digital. I bought a Microtek scanmaker I700 scanner that does 4000 dpi. > and has both 35 mm slide and film strip holders. The scanner is very > slow and would probably take 20 minute to do 8 slides. I would like to > obtain an extra set of the slide holders so I could be loading one > while the other is scanning. The scanner is slow even with normal > copying compared to the 2 HP scanners that I can't find good XP drivers > for. I also have 4" x 5" (6 x 9 cm) and 6 x 17 cm film holders for the > scanner that I never will have a use for. I'll ship (USA only) free to > someone that can put them to use. :) > > Lee Jones wrote: > >> What I want to do is a device to transfer traditional 8mm film to > >> digital media. As you know, the film has very high "resolution" > >> and to be somewhat "future-safe" I want to do it with as high > >> resolution as possible. > >> > > > > > >> I'm looking for a resolution at 2048x1024 or higher. > >> > > > > I think you're asking too much from 8mm movie film. I don't recall > > the actual size of a frame of 8mm, but as I believe 8mm refers to > > the width of the stock. So the frame has to be smaller than that. > > > > Film has a resolving power topping out about 50 line pairs per mm > > under good conditions. Some films can do up to 100 lpmm under > > optimum conditions with an excellent lens and no camera shake. > > That means, top end, you need about 200 pixels per mm resolution. > > With an 8mm wide film frame and and aspect ratio of 4:3, you are > > going to get less than 1600x1200 pixels of _usable data_ from > > each frame of 8mm movie film. > > > > High end film scanners resolve 4000 pixels per inch (PPI) or about > > 157 pixels per mm. And that resolution is more than adequate because > > they resolve the film grains. Personally, I think that 2700-2900 PPI > > (106-114 pixels per mm) was an optimum "sweet spot" in film scanning. > > I'm doing a long term project to convert my 35mm using a 2900 PPI > > scanner. It's quicker than my 4000 PPI scanner and "looks better" > > for normal size prints or projected images. > > > > Again, assuming an 8mm wide frame and 4:3 aspect ratio, I think > > that 1200x900 pixels is all that an 8mm film frame has to offer. > > And probably slightly lower resolution than that would be fine. > > Recall than when viewing it, even greatly enlarged, you only have > > a fraction of a second to see each individual image. > > > > Before going farther, maybe you should beg or borrow or buy time > > on a film scanner. Scan some of your 8mm film frames at various > > resolutions and see exactly how they look. I'm willing to scan > > it for you, but you being in Sweden prevents doing it quickly. > > If you are willing to mail me a short length of film (via post), > > I will scan it and email you back the resulting images. Now you > > have me curious. :-) (If you are interested, contact me off-list > > for mailing information.) > > > > > >> My idea is to do it fram by frame, and then asseble all the frames > >> in a computer. First i was thinking of using a digital camera but > >> the optics creates a problem since i basically want to do a > >> "contact-copy" of the film, i.e. project the image directly on ccd > >> > > > > If you have a Canon interchangable lens digital SLR, get (buy or rent) > > a Canon MP-E 65mm Macro Photo lens. It's optimized for doing macro > > work from 1:1 to 5:1 image scale (yes, that last is an image that is > > 5 times the size of the original object). New, they's US$800. You > > can easily fill a DSLR frame with an 8mm film frame (properly backlit). > > > > I expect that Nikon makes a similar lens, but I know & use Canon. > > > > Then hook the camera to your computer via firewire or USB, use the > > supplied software to run the camera in tethered mode, and capture > > all of the 8mm film you have. > > > > Then you can spend your time building hardware and programming a PIC > > to automatically advance the 8mm movie film, frame by frame, under > > coordinated control of the image capture computer. :-) > > > > > > In another message, you mention having a "couple of km" of 8mm film. > > Let's do "back of the envelope" math. 2kM is 2,000M is 2,000,000mm > > of film. If each frame is 6mm tall, you are looking at 1/3 million > > images. If each image is 3MB (1200x900 pixels at 8 bits/pixel with > > 3 color channels, stored as TIFF), then you are looking at 1 terrabyte > > of storage for this project. That's a couple 750MB disk drives or > > 250 full single layer DVDs. And way over 300,000 image files. > > > > It may be pedestrian, but I think you may be underestimating the > > raw effort needed to manage that many images or that much storage. > > And I doubt most video editing programs would do well with it, even > > if it were broken up into multiple projects (one per 8mm film reel). > > > > Lee Jones > > > > > -- > http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Moving in southeast Michigan? Buy my house: http://ubasics.com/house/ Interested in electronics? Check out the projects at http://ubasics.com Building your own house? Check out http://ubasics.com/home/ -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist