On Feb 29, 2008, at 11:25 AM, mike wilson wrote: > Even at 29c a slide, you don't have to have that many before your > own good scanner with a magazine becomes the most cost-effective > method of digitising. >>
A scanner capable of returning quality commensurate with what I see coming from commercial services would generally cost $450 and up. One with a magazine loading attachment (like the Nikon Super Coolscan V ED with stackloader) is somewhere around $1500. If you are no longer shooting film and have, say, 2000 negatives and slides (60 full rolls of 36 exposure film) worth scanning, sending the whole bunch of them out for scanning is a cost effective way to get them into digital form at the best quality. A $.29 apiece, that's $580 to get the job done, and it doesn't cost you any of your time, nor do you have to learn how to do it, nor do you then have useless and rapidly aging equipment taking up space in your work room. Even at double that number (how many people here have 4000 35mm negatives and slides worth scanning?) it's still less expensive than the Super Coolscan V ED plus either 35mm roll feeder or stack loader. I have two flatbed and two film scanners. I've scanned a lot of film over the past 13 years. Having a pro service do it at a reasonable price is far more cost effective when you consider the cost of the equipment, the cost of your time, and the volume of work you can get done. There's just no comparison in dollars and cents, or productivity. The *only* real reason to have your own scanner, imo, is that you can pick and choose from a historical collection of exposures you've made and make a scan now and then as suits you. I seem to recall one of the big name people in the business starting a mail-in service for pro quality scans that averaged $.36 a frame recently. If I can find the reference, I'll post it. Godfrey "If it isn't digital, it isn't real anymore." -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
