Slide scanning: 35mm plus 120/220

Limited choices. Any experience, advice?

[jimbeetle]

I've just agreed to what is going to be a huge project, scanning many, many slides (somewhere over 3K, maybe closer to or even over 5K -- plus prints and possibly some negatives) for a family organizing the 80+ years worth of photos taken by their late pater familias.

The slides are a mix of 35mm and 120 formats. The 35mm slides alone wouldn't have posed much a problem, there are quite a few film scanners at reasonable prices (for the volume) that would handle the job. The glitch arises with the 120/220 slides, the field is narrowed to a relative handful of expensive machines (though I guess, with the volume, still reasonable).

From what I've gleaned so far the Nikon Coolscan 9000 ED is the only one that states that, with an adaptor, mounted 120 slides can be scanned. So that's at least one question I know I must ask when I visit my local super digital photo dealer to compare units.

What other questions should I keep in mind? Resolution and color depth, of course: Are there any must have numbers I should look for so people can make reasonable quality 8 x 10 or 11 x 14 prints? Other things to look for?

Any help or advice to keep me from tripping over my own feet will be much appreciated.

Just to let you know where I'm coming from, it took me awhile to realize that multi-format meant "35mm and 120/220," not "paper, slide and film."

[chiron]

I had a similar problem with some 2"x3" or so negatives from the 1920-40's and found that Epson's $400~ Perfection scanner - there were a couple that would have worked - did a really nice job, was surprised at the quality of the receiving program in terms of scratch reduction and etc - having been in PS and Jasc for...ever...? I was quite satisfied with the end results. I wish I could remember the precise model that had the widest transparency tray...