A flickr discussion, pointed in an answer to another question, got me excited in scanning old slides & negatives with a tripod, lightbox, macro lens and a DSLR (or with a similar set).
I have rather minimal experience in scanning with a flatbed scanner and non-existent experience with slide or negative scanner. So: what would be missed from a dedicated scanner when digitizing with a DSLR (if one already has the sufficient gear)? What generally are the major drawbacks? Or will a DSLR excel in some aspects?
Resolution is something that my Canon 450D probably wouldn't match to the 4000+ dpi that scanners offer, but that's probably something I could cope with (or is it?).
I'm aware of the possible alternatives mentioned in older questions, but I don't consider them as interesting right now.
Answer
I'm the originator of the flickr discussion, and I'm flattered that it's thought to be worth reviving here :-) I went through the process mainly for archiving purposes. The fear of losing these personal negatives was much more important to me than technical quality. Whatever I did, it had to be fast so that I could do every single one of my negatives. I would say that if you have the space to leave the tripod and camera set up for a day or more, it's a decent solution for large numbers of 35mm colour negatives or transparencies. I'm not sure the resolution is sufficient for medium format colour or even 35mm fine-grained black and white film. I'm also not sure it's ideal if your intention is to display or print the majority of them. While the dslr raw files are flexible and high resolution, producing a decent print from one does take a fair few minutes of post processing. But as I said in the original thread, once setup it's very quick. You can rip through a 36-exp film in a couple of minutes.
tl;dr: Good for archiving large numbers of 35mm colour negs. Not ideal for fine art purposes or ongoing digitisation of new films.
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