Earlier this year after putting together my retro mobile office wish list and slowly working toward acquiring all these old pieces to complete it, I landed a Minolta Dimage F2400 slide and negative film scanner for about $40. Unfortunately, long gone are any slides and film I may have had when I was younger. Thankfully, eBay had quite a few large lots of slides for $15 or so that I could test some scans.
Below are some of the results that vary widely based on quality of the slide and other factors I can't determine due to their age, what camera was used, etc. In the end, it's fun to use and I hope to help some friends and extended family scan their old slides and film memories in using this setup. Regardless, there is something interesting and fun about scanning in a bunch of slides spanning 50+ years from people I'll never know. If anyone here has negative film (I haven't been able to test that yet) and would like me to scan them in for them, I'd be happy to do so. Just drop me a PM.
Here is a picture of the G3 connected to Minolta F2400 slide scanner: (if it's not apparent, I used the Apple QuickTake 200 for this pic
)
I'll start off with the first image I scanned that can barely be seen on the Powerbook screen above. I'm not sure of the location but the slide is dated September 1972 - 49 years ago and a few months to be exact:
Not a great image but not bad for one pushing 50 years I guess. On the PowerBook it was kind of hard to notice that someone was sitting on the rock and then someone is standing down there to the left:
Blurry when zoomed in to full scan resolution but I gather it has more to do with the camera used to take the picture plus distance taken and not the scanner itself.
We'll go even further back in time to June of 1966 - it's another location unknown but still a cool shot - one I imagine to be quite breathtaking (maybe literally due to altitude) in person. 55 years back in time - let's go!
Here is (presumably) a couple going out on a boat ride - there is no year date other than May 24th, no location though one could guess it's mid to late 80s. There are a pair of binoculars to the left there. Maybe something else stands out to someone that would better identify the likely year time frame.
Who knew that vintage computing could be not only so much fun but unusually affordable for what it all is. I didn't say time machine but it's pretty close...
This one is probably one of the worst slides most likely due to lighting and the dark shaded area but wanted to include it as well. August 1981... just shortly before I was Earthed. I'm guessing this was in Daytona Beach, FL due to the give away Sun Viking branding - check out those bathing suits, trunks, flip flops and gold watch:
Let's go back to 1986!
Honolulu, Hawaii. October specifically. I'm not sure if the camera used to take these pictures is just that much better or if the slides were better kept but the images look a lot better than the majority of others - Enjoy your stay at the Sheraton Waikiki!
I love the amount of detail this was able to achieve. Is that someone standing in the window?
Well, you can see their view from one of the upper floors (kind of) but the camera appears to be focused on something much more interesting to the photographer at this point in time - also the same month and year (October 1986):
Let's end this post on the oldest slide I own (I believe) and that's 1959 - The Swiss Alps! Sadly the slide must have seen better days but still captures the awe....
Before I landed the Kanga, I was using the PowerBook 1400c to scan slides. It kept popping up with low memory errors (only has 56MB) and would occasionally not even scan. Thankfully that's not an issue at all now with 160MB of RAM to my disposal. However, the only real downside is the scanner is kind of slow. I'm guessing it takes about 3 minutes to scan a slide at full resolution start to finish. Probably will time it someday when I eventually get around to making a video.
I've got quite a few more nice scans I'd like to share so there will be more in another post.
To be continued...
Below are some of the results that vary widely based on quality of the slide and other factors I can't determine due to their age, what camera was used, etc. In the end, it's fun to use and I hope to help some friends and extended family scan their old slides and film memories in using this setup. Regardless, there is something interesting and fun about scanning in a bunch of slides spanning 50+ years from people I'll never know. If anyone here has negative film (I haven't been able to test that yet) and would like me to scan them in for them, I'd be happy to do so. Just drop me a PM.
Here is a picture of the G3 connected to Minolta F2400 slide scanner: (if it's not apparent, I used the Apple QuickTake 200 for this pic
)I'll start off with the first image I scanned that can barely be seen on the Powerbook screen above. I'm not sure of the location but the slide is dated September 1972 - 49 years ago and a few months to be exact:
Not a great image but not bad for one pushing 50 years I guess. On the PowerBook it was kind of hard to notice that someone was sitting on the rock and then someone is standing down there to the left:
Blurry when zoomed in to full scan resolution but I gather it has more to do with the camera used to take the picture plus distance taken and not the scanner itself.
We'll go even further back in time to June of 1966 - it's another location unknown but still a cool shot - one I imagine to be quite breathtaking (maybe literally due to altitude) in person. 55 years back in time - let's go!
Here is (presumably) a couple going out on a boat ride - there is no year date other than May 24th, no location though one could guess it's mid to late 80s. There are a pair of binoculars to the left there. Maybe something else stands out to someone that would better identify the likely year time frame.
Who knew that vintage computing could be not only so much fun but unusually affordable for what it all is. I didn't say time machine but it's pretty close...
This one is probably one of the worst slides most likely due to lighting and the dark shaded area but wanted to include it as well. August 1981... just shortly before I was Earthed. I'm guessing this was in Daytona Beach, FL due to the give away Sun Viking branding - check out those bathing suits, trunks, flip flops and gold watch:
Let's go back to 1986!
Honolulu, Hawaii. October specifically. I'm not sure if the camera used to take these pictures is just that much better or if the slides were better kept but the images look a lot better than the majority of others - Enjoy your stay at the Sheraton Waikiki!
I love the amount of detail this was able to achieve. Is that someone standing in the window?
Well, you can see their view from one of the upper floors (kind of) but the camera appears to be focused on something much more interesting to the photographer at this point in time - also the same month and year (October 1986):
Let's end this post on the oldest slide I own (I believe) and that's 1959 - The Swiss Alps! Sadly the slide must have seen better days but still captures the awe....
Before I landed the Kanga, I was using the PowerBook 1400c to scan slides. It kept popping up with low memory errors (only has 56MB) and would occasionally not even scan. Thankfully that's not an issue at all now with 160MB of RAM to my disposal. However, the only real downside is the scanner is kind of slow. I'm guessing it takes about 3 minutes to scan a slide at full resolution start to finish. Probably will time it someday when I eventually get around to making a video.
I've got quite a few more nice scans I'd like to share so there will be more in another post.
To be continued...
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