Handheld Picture Slide Projectors

[chrissa1]

After the death of my older sister in June last year, my brother-in-law has found a box of photo slides going back to my childhood.

I’ve looked on eBay and found a few handheld projectors. Some are battery powered and some just use the daylight reflected in a mirror.

Does anybody have an idea which are the best, and how much do you think it would cost to get them put on a disc? There are about 120 of them. TIA.

[Buenchico]

Are they 35mm slides or a different format? (Lots of companies can 35mm transfer slides to other media but other formats, such as slides on 120 film, can be trickier).

[chrissa1]

They’re 35mm slides, Chris.

[Buenchico]

Thanks.

Opt for a battery-powered slide-viewer.

Scanning slides to computer files can be quite a tricky task as it's easy to end up with a pronounced colour cast. I've got three separate scanners capable of the job and, irrespective of which one I use, there's usually quite a bit of fiddling around in Photoshop (or similar) required to end up with a decent-quality image.

If you're geting it done commercially it can work out quite expensive because of the time that's needed to fiddle around with each picture in order to obtain the best result. However some firms can get reasonable images simply through the use of automated processes (reducing the cost) but they're unlikely to be as good as what a top-class photo lab can manage.

Pixave has a good reputation for quality though and might be worth considering if you're not in a hurry. (Orders are currently taking around two months for them to complete):
http://www.pixave.co.uk/slide-scanning-service/prices

[chrissa1]

As ever. Thanks, Chris.