Scanner vs. iPhone for capturing old photographs

[phrehdd]

36? I put on macro lens. Screw on Nikon ES-2. Put one slide in, point at my lamp, focus, set exposure, snap. Then the next and next and next. Putting the slide into the ES-2 holder is a bit faster than the holder for my scanner. But the real difference is the amount of time for a scan versus a shutter snap, which might be say 1/100 of a second. Setting up the scanning rig I had with tripod, light table, etc was more complex. I got somewhat better results with that because my negative hold kept the film a bit flatter, but I can do some of that in post, and I am happy trading that for the speed of the ES-2. I wouldn't bother to tether the camera with only 36.

Post with slides is faster with Lr and Ps rather than with Vuescan and then Lr or Ps, but I guess that depends on what software one has. I just find it easier to work in the same software for all my images, so I probably don't make optimum use of Vuescan anyway.

And they are better than any of the consumer flatbeds I've used. I've tried pixel shift on the transparencies, but it doesn't seem to improve things much. With my full frame I can resolve down to grain at 1:1; that's fine for me. 120 or bigger might be different too; drum scanning or wet mount as you say.

The transparency scanners that used to be more common were pretty good but actually I think it was Nikon's software that was the best feature of those. Quite awesome at scratch and dust fixing.

I'm thinking of just switching to my iPhone for a lot of old family prints since the auto deskewing and such is so good. But I can't find any scanner app that does TIFF or raw, and color correction is more of a pain with the JPEGs. But I just don't need much more resolution on Polaroids and 4x5s.

Load multiple slides into a full carrier and scan vs, mounting and unmounting 36 slides. I don't believe your method is faster but at best not significantly slower. I am not a fan of flatbed scanner use for negatives and transparencies unless they are large film format. Real film scanners were great back when and yes, a well handled camera with a flat field lens (typical of macro lenses), would be great.

 

[MisterSavage]

I use Google Photoscan on my iPhone. I can do a lot of photos quickly. It's "good enough" for me for a lot of the shots except when the photos are really glossy. Obviously not as good as a scanner or professional service.

 

[Allyance]

Self portrait on Extachrome, 1960's. iPhone 12Pro on cheap stand in post #22.

 

[Ubele]

I use Google Photoscan on my iPhone. I can do a lot of photos quickly. It's "good enough" for me for a lot of the shots except when the photos are really glossy. Obviously not as good as a scanner or professional service.

Several years ago, I digitized several hundred old photos with a Canon CanoScan 8800F. I did it a little at a time over the course of several months and cleaned them up using whatever photo editing app I was using at the time (probably Aperture). The results were great. A couple years ago, my wife flew to visit her mom, who had quite a few old photos that my wife wanted copies of. As she couldn't take them home with her, she used Google Photoscan on her iPhone. The results were surprisingly good. For each shot, the app has you hover the lens over each of the four corners, and it automatically takes a shot at each corner. It automatically merges them into one photo and corrects for glare and keystoning if you didn't have the phone completely level. The results were surprisingly good. I cleaned them up with Apple Photos and a couple plugins, and the final versions, while not quite as good as my 8800F scans, are more than acceptable.

 

[MisterSavage]

Several years ago, I digitized several hundred old photos with a Canon CanoScan 8800F. I did it a little at a time over the course of several months and cleaned them up using whatever photo editing app I was using at the time (probably Aperture). The results were great. A couple years ago, my wife flew to visit her mom, who had quite a few old photos that my wife wanted copies of. As she couldn't take them home with her, she used Google Photoscan on her iPhone. The results were surprisingly good. For each shot, the app has you hover the lens over each of the four corners, and it automatically takes a shot at each corner. It automatically merges them into one photo and corrects for glare and keystoning if you didn't have the phone completely level. The results were surprisingly good. I cleaned them up with Apple Photos and a couple plugins, and the final versions, while not quite as good as my 8800F scans, are more than acceptable.

I have an almost overwhelming amount of old photos I want to scan. I need a fast way and for most of the shots it's more than fine. For special photos I really care about I would go the extra mile with digitizing.

 

[suncountry]

I have an almost overwhelming amount of old photos I want to scan. I need a fast way and for most of the shots it's more than fine. For special photos I really care about I would go the extra mile with digitizing.

Look into "shoe box" scanning services. There are places online and we have a local place that does them. You basically fill up a very large shoe box (like a boot box) with pictures. They scan them and send you a DVD or link to them and return the pictures.

 

[USAntigoon]

I just finished making a set up to used with my Canon and the EF 100mm f/2.3 L IS Macro lens to digitize my old color slides...



more pics here : https://flic.kr/s/aHsmWXUqpd