$60 may seem expensive for a slide holder, but the job it does is about priceless. This macro lens will be optically superior to a 10x diopter close up filter on a regular zoom lens. Adding an extension (between the lens and ES-1) lets it work on a cropped sensor DSLR.
#CONVERT SLIDES TO DIGITAL USING CAMERA FULL#
The ES-1 is an empty tube, a slide holder which contains no glass lens, and is designed to hold the slide in front of a 1:1 macro lens (designed for 55 mm focal length on a full frame body). To work on a DX camera (1.5x crop), the setup as shown also requires an extra 20 mm extension tube between lens and ES-1 (shown, but not included). The ES-1 fits a 52 mm lens filter thread, or a suitable adapter there. It was one thing to sit down one evening with one roll of slides, but it's something entirely different to be facing a few thousand old slides. But the camera is fast, and great for slides. And some film scanners offer an infrared dust and scratch cleaning feature (often named Digital ICE or FARE) that the camera cannot do, which is extremely useful, but it adds even more time (and may be unsuitable for silver-based Kodachrome slides). The digital camera (with a macro lens) can copy slides very well (and fast), but a real film scanner can be better for color negatives (with the film holders, and better quality for removal of the orange mask, on another page). The Nikon 5000 film scanner did have its SF-210 Auto Slide Feeder accessory ($450) for overnight runs of 50 slides, if it doesn't jam.
You may do well to average 10 slides per hour overall, so thousands of slides may take many months, and it's a good bet that you may never finish. Film scanners are very good, but are also very slow.