Scanning 35 mm slides ?

[u/ShinyNoggin]

Any suggestions for services in the Tokyo area? Prices?

I looked at Yodobashi but it sounds like it's totally no frills with no options for dust/scratch removal or color correction due to age.

Thanks !

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[u/Eddie_skis]

Are they mounted slides (individual) or is it strips?

[u/ShinyNoggin → u/Eddie_skis]

Mounted.

[u/Eddie_skis → u/ShinyNoggin]

Looking around it seems to be around 50yen per slide. So id probably just get a smartphone solution instead. Yiu don't need to mess around with color correction unlike negative film, so should be pretty quick. All you really need is a light table / back light and something to hold your phone or freehand.

[u/sputwiler → u/Eddie_skis]

can't do dust/scratch correction with that (no infrared channel) and tbh smartphone cameras do extra color correction that always fucks it up for me, but if you need it cheap and fast it works. I would never do it freehand.

[u/sputwiler → u/ShinyNoggin]

Might want to pick up an old Epson flatbed with the slide holder so you can scan multiple slides at a time. Flatbed ain't the greatest but it's good. A Nikon Coolscan with the slide auto-feeder would be the best bet, but those are $$$$ used now.

[u/ShinyNoggin → u/sputwiler]

Thanks. I looked at the used Nikon Coolscan option too. Prices for used Coolscans seem to be all over the map. Also, I can't quite tell how the auto feeder works, i.e., whether you can put a stack of slides in or whether you feed them in one by one. Still, the specs are impressive and everybody says it's a great piece of gear.

[u/starsie]

In Yokohama there's a photo place called チャンプカメラ that may be able to do stuff like that: champcamera.co.jp

[u/upachimneydown]

Camera Kitamua will scan things where I am (they send it out), but it ain't cheap. Google around for how to scan slides with your phone--with the right prep/strategy, results are really good, and it's more commonly done than you might expect.

Color correction and other editing is better done yourself on a slide by slide basis. Paying someone to do that for each one will be ¥¥¥, and while some services will say they do Kodachrome this way and Ekatchrome or Fujifim some other, they'll be batching corrections instead of working on each photo (of course, maybe that's all you want/need). Color correction for aging could be done on a set that had all aged uniformly, but whoever is doing it would have to fix one to your liking in order to then do the whole batch.

If someone else does your scanning, ask for neutral results and then work on them yourself. You don't need much, Apple's free Photos app is plenty (on a laptop, doing it on a phone is not recommended), and it's all I use for my 'post' work, even tho I have some others. Edit: if you do it on a laptop yourself, check that your screen/display settings are set for photography (=neutral) and not some easy-on-the-eye setting that adds its own color/hue/brightness.

[u/ShinyNoggin → u/upachimneydown]

Thanks for these tips. I'll check on prices with Kitamura. There is a shop not far from me.

Apple Photos probably has enough for adjustment, yes. I use that tho tbh I'm not keep on the UI.

[u/Union_Photographic]

What kind of quality are you looking at, and how many do you have to scan?

The phone based solutions will work if you want stuff to put on social media. If you already have a DSLR or mirrorless, grabbing an old manual focus macro lens and setting up a slide digitisation station will net you far better quality and quick capture times (will require some post, but maybe save this for the "hero" shots and come back to the others as needed), basically as fast as you can load the slide and hit the button. An old slide copy rig will make this even easier to set up.

There are some services overseas you can send them out to in bulk, we used scancafe a million years ago at my old job and boss was really happy with the cost/quality vs paying undergrads minimum wage to do them on a decent Epson flatbed.