35mm slide holder / scanner

thingiverse

I designed a device that lets me quickly scan thousands of my parents' 35mm slides in no time. First, you place the slide into the small slot on the contraption, put your phone into the back slot, and have it display a white screen at full brightness. There are many free apps available that can do this for you. Then, use your DSLR with a suitable macro lens to copy the slide. I personally use a Panasonic GH5 and a Sigma 105mm macro lens. I set my camera to aperture priority mode at f8, as well as enable HDR mode in the menu to maximize the dynamic range of the image. Next, I manually white balance on the lighted surface of the phone screen. Some film stocks looked better when adjusting the white balance a bit, but this gives you a good starting point. I attached the device to a piece of wood and installed a Manfrotto plate receiver at the other end. The Manfrotto system allows for about 3-4 inches of sliding movement from front to back, making it easier to get the slide into focus at the right distance. I adjusted the height by placing washers between the slide holder and the wood, giving me a setting of 1/4 inch up. Finally, I covered everything with a shoe box lined with black gaff tape to eliminate any stray light that might enter. I'm extremely pleased with the results using this method. It allows me to scan around 8-10 slides per minute. The design was created with Tinkercad and can be easily modified to accept different formats of film slides or negatives. You can even remix it to fit your needs, as I think the phone slot is large enough for most phones. This device was made using Tinkercad. Feel free to edit it online at https://www.tinkercad.com/things/jHZOsaaTYwF