Converting your 35mm slides to digital format

August 3, 2007 - I've been getting e-mails from people asking if their particular equipment configuration will effectively convert slides. I am of little use when it comes to configurations other than what I use. I'm not a photographer which should be encouraging to those of you who know something about cameras and light. When Jim Six described how he converted slides I was merely inspired by the idea and cobbled together the set-up shown below. The bottom line on converting slides using this method is that you will need to experiment with what you have. There is no cost to shooting digital photos so set things up and start taking photos. Make adjustments as you go along to achieve better results.

If you are connected to the internet by a modem it might take a little while for the images to load.
I intentionally left them as big files to show you the resolution of the images I converted.

This idea came from a posting Jim Six placed on the Railroad Modeler Yahoo Newsgroup where he described his method for converting 35mm slides to digital format. He also posted an example of a 35mm slide he converted and the resolution was stunning. Having boxes of slides I'd like to post to the web I knew I had to give it a try. Within minutes I was converting my slide collection.

Why convert the slides this way you ask? If you already own a digital camera it is cheaper then buying a slide scanner and faster than using a flatbed scanner with the slide attachment. My experience with flatbed scanners is that they are slow. I can convert slides to digital format as fast as I can change slides and snap the photo. That's usually about every 6 seconds. And I do not not need to purchase another piece of single use hardware like a slide scanner. I can also convert a dozen or so slides then remove the camera from the tripod and take some normal photos with the camera and download everything at once. If you are doing professional photography or want the maximum dpi from your conversions you might want to invest in a slide scanner. We publish our slides to railroad websites. This method of conversion will be more than ideal for most people.

All you need is a tripod, digital camera, and a slide light box. Jim Six said he has been converting slides without a tripod and his examples were very nice so a tripod is not absolutely necessary. For me a tripod works well and allows me to convert slides very quickly and uniformly.

I invert the elevator pole on my tripod so that the camera can be mounted close to the light box. The photo on the left shows the tripods elevator pole in the normal position. The photo on the right shows the elevator pole inverted so that the camera can be mounted close to the light box. Some tripods have the option to invert the pole. The tripod pictured above is one my father gave to me. It's a Fairfax Elevator. I don't think it is manufactured any more but you might be able to find one on eBay or at a camera shop that sells used equipment.

This is the slide light box I use. It is made by Photoco. Model 837 is molded on the back but when I did a recent search on "Photoco 837" nothing came up. It looks like the Photoco P9000 4"x5" light box is the same model. List price is about $21.95 but you can find it for a few dollars less online. As of 7-24-04 when I last updated this page these links are where you could find this light box online. I have no experience with either company so I cannot endorse either one but this should help you locate a light box suitable for converting slides to digital. Update March 12, 2007 The links to the retailers I had here no longer had the light box available so I removed the links. It looks like this light box has been discontinued.

I use a Cannon Power Shot G2 4.0 mega pixel camera with the photo size set to the highest resolution.

After mounting the camera to the tripod I position the camera a few inches directly above the light box. My camera has the benefit of an LCD screen so I can see what the photo will look like without looking into a viewfinder on the camera. Once the image in the LCD screen is like the before photos shown below I snap the photo.

I recently added guides to my light box that allow me to quickly change slides and have them aligned straight. I used a couple of tongue depressors that I taped with masking tape to the light box along the bottom and right hand edge. Now every photo is straight and in the same location.

Once I have filled the memory card I import the photos into my computer and crop them in Photoshop Elements (the software that came with the camera). After cropping I set the horizontal width to be 600 pixels. This gives the photos a uniform look when they are used in a website. In Photoshop you can also set the quality of the image which directly effects the size of the file.

The bottom line on this method of conversion is that it is fast, cheap (if you already own a reasonably good digital camera), perfectly suited for web publishing, and does not require a new piece of hardware, i.e. a scanner.

I encourage you to give this method a try and see for yourself how easy this is.

Randy Bachmann

This is the photo taken with the digital camera.
Note how much more than the slide image is in the photo.

Then the photo is cropped in Photoshop Elements and saved.

Before cropping

After cropping

More examples of 35mm slides converted to digital format using the method described above.

Return to the Modeler's Choice homepage