The Best Way to Scan Slides
Although many professional photographers have converted to digital cameras due to the advances in technology and digital quality in the last five years, some purists still prefer to shoot with film. These photographers often choose slide film due to the tighter grain structure and sharper detail over regular 35mm film. These slides must then be scanned to convert them to digital form. Photographers can choose between many levels of scanning quality, but experts agree that drum scanners offer the best results.
How Drum Scanning Works
To scan a slide with a drum scanner, place a slide into a drum. The drum rotates the slide while a fixed beam of laser light scans every part of it. A Photo Multiplier Tube (PMT), which is extremely sensitive to light, receives the scanned data. It picks up a much wider range of light than the Charged Couple Devices (CCD) technology used by flatbed scanners, providing a digital image that captures the full range and depth of hues from white to black that are available.
DPI
Drum scanners offer the highest dots per inch (dpi) scanning possible. Higher dpi allows the photographer to create larger prints without a loss of original detail. The most expensive drum scanners offer dpi scanning of 8,000 to 11,000. High end flatbed scanners offer dpi scanning at 5400 and cost about the same as a quality drum scanner.
Cost
If you choose to purchase a drum scanner, expect to pay for the quality. Used drum scanners start at $5,000 (as of January 2010), but this does not include the cost of extra drums, drum mounting stations or software. New drum scanners can range between $16,000 and $70,000. However, drum scanners are made for high volume work. To offset the cost, consider renting it out to other photographers.
Special Considerations
While experts agree that drum scanners provide the highest scanning quality, this does not necessarily mean a drum scanner is your best choice. Invest time into learning the best way to operate your particular drum scanner to achieve the best results. Drum scanners generally can't scan film larger 8 by 10 inches. It's true that CCD based flatbed scanners cannot match the higher dpi that drum scanners offer, but this may not be an issue if you don't plan to produce large prints.
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