Scanning slides

[taswegian]

for those who remember what they are: Does anyone know what the various annotations refer to on Kodachrome slides?
Generally Ektachrome do date their slides but Kodachrome ones are hit and miss.
These are paper mounts and say eg 'Jan 8 M7' probably mid 1980's - Defenitely nothing after the 8 - maybe the printer had a bad day .
Others are clear 'Feb82 M6' which makes me wonder about the missing digit.
Kodak had a brief period with white plastic mounts and not a mark in sight which was helpful. Other times on plastic mounts it just had month stamped - no year.

Does the M7, M6? etc indicate naything useful?

Not sure where to post this so gave this area whirl.

[photohiker]

Hi Taswegian,

I'm not sure about those codes, but I do know that Kodak marked the edges of the film itself when it was packaged into the can. Info Site

[taswegian]

thanks photohiker.
Thats interesting site and helpful.
I'm hoping to find something actually relating to the markings on the slides as processed.
Some of the slides are plastic and I would not want to risk the images if I opened them.

[photohiker]

Understand.

The problem mounts are the cardboard ones - there is a risk of damaging the film when removing it. Most of the plastic mounts are easily dismountable. New (plastic) mounts are still procurable, I've probably got some around if I can just remember where

[taswegian]

just out of interest - I gather you have slides and perhaps scan them?
I use an Epson 4870 which suits me.
Took a while to get the hang of it for slides. My first attempts were 350mb files and image quality pretty ordinary.
Now just scanning at 2400 dpi or thereabouts for 1-1.5mb and am satisfied.
I am only wanting a record for viewing on computer.

[photohiker]

Yes, when I bought my first DSLR I decided to move my slides into digital format as well. Bought a Canon FS4000 (I think) slide scanner. It does a good job, but I didn't factor in the boredom

So I rapidly trimmed the stack of slides from 'nice to have' to only the 'must have' - I figure I can take another chance at getting a better shot of the others with the DSLR

[MJD]

I found the following site useful for background information: http://www.scantips.com/

Edit: on the lower left is an interesting link: "Scan thousands of slides with a digital camera". Very interesting solution.