Monthly Archives: January 2010

Archiveing Sluder & Neas slide collections

Over Christmas holiday I acquired the slide collection of my grandfather Harry Neas, my mothers father, and my mother Laura Sluder. I have thousands if not tens of thousands of slides to catalog. It is giving me a completely different feelings and thoughts on photography and how people document there lives pre-digital age. I highly doubt anyone under 40 has had to sit through a slide show of family photos projected on a silver screen in the living room. The images where a shared event with family and friends re-living experiences called back by the visual aids of photographs. Now images are splashed on Face Book or Flicker for the world to see.

I have gotten some very useful insight to digitizing for archiving purposes from Ken Allen of Ken Allen Studios in New Yard and Washington DC. I was using a flatbed scanner but was unhappy with the results. I switched to camera mounted slide duplicator the is on a Canon 5D MKII. This allows me to use my standard work flow that I would use for commercial shoot. At the recommendation of Ken I am currently using a Canon 580ex flash as my light source. I have a simple cable between camera body and flash unit. The advantage of the flash unit is the a more constant light quality over the color spectrum.