Aha!
Chances are that you are reading this blog for the pictures. The technical aspects are merely curiosities and my diatribes on photo technique are too much; just get to the picture. After all my photo magazine subscriptions ended, I began reading online. Here is a recent article right up my alley:
1. Covid and all those unscanned slides? Sure! Go ahead and scan your old slides.
2. Software – The Nikon scanner software just disappeared. Vuescan or Silverfast. Silverfast is clunky hard to use. Aha! Right!
Honest! I didn’t do this. My cat jumped into the basket and fit himself into the cramped space. He was perfectly content to nestle in and just stare back at me. Don’t ask me which twin this would be. Whatever I say would be trouble for me. Colleen will correct me and I always listen to her. Always….
Hard to get… two ways
It’s hard to get me a present. By this point in life I am fortunate to be pretty content and, stuff, I got. Colleen tried. She giggled and held her breath till it came. Yes, it’s my first – a front pocket wallet. Who thinks of these things? Colleen! I’m impressed. I have never seen nor thought of one. Hard? I just got done scanning 80k+ thousands of slides. The left screen shows ducks walking in the street. Thanks to Feather – the cat – I am reminded of it. Now, find it. Okay, here’s my logical thinking. Go to the image info – metadata. Get the time this image was shot. Go to my slides scanned and find the scan time (when it was scanned). Voila! Not so hard after all. Ha ha, I’m not going to go looking.
Splat
Curiosity or death wish? Ray is so curious. Anything new? He will poke his head in and try to see what’s going on. Ya gotta love him! Cute? You bet! Am I cat proud? He has been in and out up and down. I fear he will come to harm. Meanwhile, he is still there poking his head in where no cat has gone…. Splat? That is a very heavy cabinet full of drawers.
Contagious? Hey, what’s all the fuss about?
Film
Kodak’s fate was sealed when I got my first digital DSLR Nikon D70. It took a bit but not too long. Film? Slides? Gone. Like VHS tape. Gone. Film and slide scanning has gone through many iterations. There are cheap ways to get the job done. And then there is Nikon scan at 4000dpi. It is good? I guess. It has reached cult status. There are a few mavens who know and repair scanners in need. I was in contact with a couple. Characters? Yes, in the nicest sense there is a community of people out there who scan. I didn’t know how enthusiastic and will probably not know. I’m not on Facebook. I daresay everyone has their own workaround and solution to getting the job done. I have pictured here two scanners and two bulk loaders running day and night to get the task completed. No one in my family will ever care or be able to do this. Fine! Madness! Me. Yeah, I’m nuts.
The doughnut? Entenmann’s chocolate. If you live in NY or thereabouts, this is what you grew up with. My kids loved them. We kept them in the freezer (out of reach). When they could reach, I camouflaged them in a chocolate raspberry box (they hated raspberry). As the father there were ingenious strategies to keep one’s treats. My kids would raid my den for candy when they were desperate. I hid them well too. The doughnut – it happened to be in proximity to the scan photos. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.
Chopsticks
If you are not interested in fllm/slide scanning… ha ha, I don’t care. This drew a giggle from Colleen. Cheese curls will leave orange stain all over your fingers… and on your slides. So, I used chopsticks to eat them. Simple, the fingers never touch the product and the slides stay pristine. In a completely different thought you see a Nikon bulk slide loader SF 210 and SF 200. Subtly different, the cost of the 210 is hundreds $$ more. Of course, it’s better?? Actually, it’s easier to get a used SF200 from the eBay gods. You know the deal? You bid. It’s an auction that goes for a week. And in the last 30 seconds the real bidding starts and someone swoops in and steals the device from you. Did they need it or was it speculation and trade?? The bastards. I’m not into that cutthroat nonsense. I finally did win one and am/was now scanning with a double setup. That was sweet. Half the time for scanning… and, I’m currently still eating cheese curls with those chopsticks. I have spent a lot of time posting on scanning. It occupied my time for quite a long time this year. Who knew?
Lemonade
You know – if you get lemons, you make…. Peering into the picture not many viewers are particularly interested – I daresay, none – to see two Nikon slide scanners. It’s not a good pic. One is lying on its side and the other is upright with a bulk loader, Oh boy! We’re going downhill and losing audience fast! My spiffy loader was making more noise than a blender on “smoothie” setting. It’s ok for a smoothie but for hours on end… even my cat objected. I started with one scanner and one bulk loader. One bulk loader failed – noisy. So I bid on eBay and won another scanner and bulk loader. Bidding is brutal. These things are in demand! I intended to ditch/sell the scanner but…. two scanners scan faster than one. I eventually bid on another bulk loader and won. Now I had two complete scanning systems with two laptops running simultaneously. You can see the new battery box in the background. That battery change meant following 99 steps. Amazing in itself, that darn thing turned on and worked – not quite right, but eventually. I’m pretty pleased. It saved me a lot of time. Hey! I’m retired. But, I was saved a lot of time. I did waste a lot of time getting to be efficient. Alas, I will promptly have forgotten when and if I ever scan again.
Ice
ICE – it was software developed by Nikon to get rid of dust on your slides. Magic! The dust just was removed. Gone! Amazing?! You bet! Do you care? No! You don’t use slide film and you aren’t scanning and dust is dust, but what do you care? I would have to blow away (dust) and clean each slide before scanning. I don’t understand how it works and the dust disappears. But, I can sure appreciate that a daunting task was made easier by software written to make magic happen. And, yes, this was a terribly overexposed image used for illustrative purposes. I don’t understand how it works. I consider myself an end user. It works. Thank you very much.
photobackstory 