I have about 2000 slides that I would like to convert to digital format for presentations and generel viewing. Time is not critical but good resolution is important and cost is important. Can you help? thanks Grafton Withers

-- Grafton Withers (gwithers@carolina.rr.com), April 28, 1999

Answers

You could use Kodak's photo CD service. The cost for 2000 is fairly cheap and the resoulution will enable you to have at least an 18MB (raw) file per image.

-- Rob Stirling (rstirling@westcanadian.com), April 29, 1999.

Robs suggestion is a very good one. If you are interested in having your own capability to do the conversion there are a number of good quality specialized slide scanners on the market. At $499 I really like the new HP S20 scanner. The Olympus unit is also good - and a little cheaper (I think the specs for the HP are better though). The older HP SCSI model of their slide scanner isn't quite as good - but there are some good deals on them on eBay right now. Go to www.ebay.com and search for "photosmart". If this is a one-time thing then go with the photo CD service.

Des

-- Dan Desjardins (dan.desjardins@avstarnews.com), April 29, 1999.

Phil Williams just made a gadget to fit onto the Kodak D260/265 cameras that gives them filter threads. Very clever, works well, very cheap: We reviewed it in our DC265 review. He's now working on a slide duplicating gadget that would apparently also fit onto other digicams as well. Resolution will be far less than any sort of slide scanner/ PhotoCD, but it should go lickety-split with a digicam, and 1.5-2.1 megapixels from the current high-end cameras isn't too bad for web, presentations, or general viewing. - If you decide you really need higher res for one or two, you can always go back to the slide again and have it scanned professionally.

Phil's website is: http://www.photosolve.com/ - He doesn't have his slide gadget out yet, but drop him an email, maybe you can beta-test when he's ready...

-- Dave Etchells (detchells@imaging-resource.com), April 29, 1999.

Hi, The HP scanner is quite good and well worth the price. The Nikon LS-2000 is even better but costs about $1600. I would NOT reccomend Ebay! In my own experience, one does NOT get good buys there. Folks artificially bid up prices on their items, at times. I've virtually never seen a good buy. I think people get caught up in the frenzy and excitement of buying at an auction. I can't tell you how often I've seen people paying MORE at Ebay for a used item than they would have to pay at a discount store for the same thing NEW! Regards, Howard

-- Howard (hposner1@swarthmore.edu), April 30, 1999.

My wife and I are frequent buyers adn sellers on Ebay. There are good opritunities for both buying and selling items on Ebay. The one thing you need to watch is if it is an item that is still sold new retail or wholesale you need to know the going price from there first before bidding on Ebay. http://www.pricewatch.com is a good source of prices. I found a place called IC-Direct at http://www.ic-direct.com that has good online prices for digital imaging product an an online inventory check. They have the Olympus ES-10 for $360. I don't know much about this scanner but I am sure there is plenty of information out there to be found. I had a HP scanner (pre-S20) for 1 day and took it back. I didn't like it at all. So if you are going to go HP get the S20!

-- Bob G. (rgreg88721@hotmail.com), April 30, 1999.

Interesting how a conversation on slide scanners turns into one on eBay! Slide scanners work quite well, but for under about $2000, you're talking about scanning one slide at a time, each taking a minute or so. This is so painful, that with 2000, you will soon give up. One solution is to hire a kid on summer break to do it, better is to use Kodak's service.

From experience, I assure you that 18MB is waaaayyy too detailed for any slide needs. My Nikon 950, after JPG compression, yields slides stored on my hard drive with consistently less than 500K at 600x800 resolution, which look photo-sharp on a projector (typical projectors use 600x800 res). So one regular CD-R holds 1300-2000 slides as portable media, and they can all be stored easily on a normal desktop hard drive, and categorized without any other software, just using windows explorer folders.

Do yourself a huge favor, and have Kodak scan in your slides, take the time to organize them, meanwhile convert to digital cameras with USB cardreader. Cost can be a factor initially, but once set up, there are no more costs of producing high-quality slides that are easily arranged into PowerPoint presentations. I do it all the time, and am convinced it's the way to go.

-- charles metzger (cmetzger@earthlink.net), May 02, 1999.