Viewing Old Family Film On A Budget In 2020!
So you want to have a large batch of slides and film strips digitized but you only want to pay for your favorites or at the least eliminate the images that are out of focus? Doesn’t everyone still have a carousel projector with a working bulb in their closet? Of course not! Try these 5 cost effective tips to view your originals before sending them off to PhotoBerry for preservation because your film will deteriorate!
Battery Powered Slide Viewer. If you have a medium large collection it might be handy to grab one of these battery powered Slide Viewers. The huge advantage of this even over more professional options is that they enlarge the image on a small screen while shining a light from behind.
There are some great Smartphone Apps available, depending on the size of your screen an iPad or tablet can work even better! Lightbox Free on google play is a great one for android users. For slides these apps are just a simple white screen but for negatives there are even some apps that attempt to invert the colors and make a basic positive. FilmLab is another option for Iphone/Ipad users.
Light box/table. For more serious viewing and organizing of large collections you might want to consider a light box. The mechanics of them are very simple so they are actually not terribly expensive, you should plan to spend no more than $75 for a professional light table. Or for the serious DIY’er build your own wood with some white translucent plexiglass that you can get cut to any custom size
If you are lucky enough find a working Carousel Projector at a yard sale or thrift shop this can be a great option as well. However, the bulbs can be tricky and expensive to find and most projectors that are for sale need a new bulb.
There is always the good old fashioned way of holding the mounted slide or film up to a light or the window. But this can become cumbersome pretty quickly when you have a large amount of photos to go through in one sitting.
