Scanning slides

[Anthony Darby]

Can anyone solve this? I have boxes of two and a quarter inch square (6cm²) mounted slides that date back to the 1950s and am looking for a way of transferring them to the computer. Most scanners can do the job using a mount, but these mounts tend to be for 35mm slides, which I also have. There are slide/film scanners and lens mouned jobs, but similar problems here. I don't want to project and photograph (no projector for the larger slides).

[Maggi Young]

Anthony, I believe Ian's home -made slide scanning device could be adapted to your need for the scanning of 6cm slides.... see the bulb log where he mentioned it.... I'll try to find which it was, or pix to illustrate....give me a little time......

It's in Bulb Log 44 of 2008 : http://www.srgc.org.uk/bulblog/log2008/291008/log.html

Boss says it can be used to scan any sort of slide.....

[Anthony Darby]

Thanks Maggi. I'll have a look at it.

[gote]

The easy way is to take photos of them. I use one of those back light boxes you use for viewing slides side by side. I have built a kind of stand  that takes the camera and a close up lens with a simple frame that makes sure they are always in the same place when I change them. I use a fairly long focal length since that gives less distortion and less loss of light at the edges. However this usually means that the close up lens is necessary since many zoom lenses do not focus close in tele position.
You can easily arrange this temporarily using a good tripod and taping a square angle to the light box. If the square and tripod are stable you do not need to focus each individually just shoot ahead.
Good Luck
Göte
PS this is much faster than most scanners.
PPS
Contat me if anything is unclear.
 

[gote]

Post script
Ian's device is in principle the same as mine only smaller and using a macro lens something I do no own. However, I prefer a vertical setup because I can just lay down the slide and forget about holding it in place but this presupposes that the slide viewer is available.
Cheers
Göte