slide scanning service?

[zhoufang]

I'm planning to buy the minolta Scan Elite 5400, arguably the best consumer film scanner on the market now.
CP E-quote is $1.7K+
Thinking of the possibility of offering some scanning service for slides (since neg scanning is already quite affordable) to earn back some money.
Can you tell me whether the price and service below look attractive to you?
any opinion will be greatly appreciated.

$10/roll
2000dpi (about 2000x3000px) 8bit Tiff or
2800dpi (about 2800x42oopx) 8bit Jpeg or
4000dpi (about 4000x6000px) 8bit Jpeg

add $4/roll for applying ICE (hardware dust and scratch removal)
add $4/roll for 2000dpi (about 2000x3000px) 16bit Tiff (2CDR/roll)

$3/frame
5400dpi (5232 x 7800 pixels) 16 bit Tiff with ICE (233MB/frame)

no sharping applied (so you will not see so much grain)
color balance and other editing will be minimally done left untouched.
multi-sampling (for dense film) and Grain Dissolver(for grain of high ISO film) will be applied FOC when I think there's such a need.
collection at MRT station.
minimum $20 required

[zhoufang]

anyone can give some comments?

[amateur_photographer]

FYI with PSS membership, i got a price of $2.5 per roll, 4base scanning at some fuji labs

[zhoufang]

Thank you, that's very useful information and is new to me.
I assume that this price is when you process and scan together.
May I know does that include slides? or is it for negative only?
(my reasoning: printing neg on frontier machine need to do a scan anyway, so it does not add much to the cost by burning a cd, but most ppl only process slide, so to scan the operator have to insert the slide to the machine as an extra effort)

[meng]

For cheap scans, I'll go to some shops offering negative scanning at $3/roll for 4base scans.
For higher resolution ones, I'll look around for anyone offering cheap scans, but your stated price is definitely not attractive to me. No offends.

[Kho King]

not exactly sure of the resolution, but Fuji Frontier machine scans 2 rolls at RM8 in JB. Yes, 2 rolls @ RM8, including one CD. Btw, this is negative, and can send in seperately meaning seperate from the normal develop and print.

[Wryer]

Hi zhoufang and all,

Firstly, thank you for providing the service. It would be great if it works out. I'll be the first to be your customer.

Lets not compare JB or anywhere else, i i believe the price of normal scanning service is around ($10-15 for slides?) can someone fill the gap?

For the shops, the price is justified by rental fees and some even send in up to Fuji HQ so as to get it scanned, that explains the high cost. (feel free to correct me) Furthermore, the shop is there, which can act as a little collateral security to the consumers.

So $14 (including ICE) for your scanning is a little high. Since yours is a personalised service, i believe lowering the price will do you good. Say..$8-$10? I really don't know about the price you wish to set. I belive you would want to cover your scanner price and make some profits rite?

Let me have a little suggestion, why don't you attend the SEED sessions plus additional meeting up at MRT stations, for quick and ez transactions? As for the min $20..Any way to remove that? i believe not many wants to shoot roll after roll without developing them in a short time.

Lastly, i thank you for the service! I believe the demand for high quality scanning at a affordable rates will draw a reasonable crowd.

Regards

[zhoufang]

Thank you for all your suggestions. I will take them into consideration.

One main cost/trouble for me is the collection and returing. I do not have a premium location shop that is open through out the day, thus it will be very troublesome for both me and my customer to make two meeting for each service. Thus it get uneconomical to do one roll at a time.

attending SEED section is possible, provided I have a few customer/SEED.

Cost of scanning with ICE on the scale of /roll is difficult to lower down cos it take more than 5min per frame to scan unless I lower the resolution to 1350ppi(which generate 2MP file that is similiar to typical Frontier scan)

I will try to make the quality of service (TIFF, 16bit, unsharped, high resolution) as the main attraction since by just cutting cost will be very difficult to compete with the commercial productivity of Digital Lab machines.

I will be more than happy if the profit from the service in 1 year can cover 1/3 the cost of the scanner.

Originally Posted by Wryer Hi zhoufang and all, Firstly, thank you for providing the service. It would be great if it works out. I'll be the first to be your customer. Lets not compare JB or anywhere else, i i believe the price of normal scanning service is around ($10-15 for slides?) can someone fill the gap? For the shops, the price is justified by rental fees and some even send in up to Fuji HQ so as to get it scanned, that explains the high cost. (feel free to correct me) Furthermore, the shop is there, which can act as a little collateral security to the consumers. So $14 (including ICE) for your scanning is a little high. Since yours is a personalised service, i believe lowering the price will do you good. Say..$8-$10? I really don't know about the price you wish to set. I belive you would want to cover your scanner price and make some profits rite? Let me have a little suggestion, why don't you attend the SEED sessions plus additional meeting up at MRT stations, for quick and ez transactions? As for the min $20..Any way to remove that? i believe not many wants to shoot roll after roll without developing them in a short time. Lastly, i thank you for the service! I believe the demand for high quality scanning at a affordable rates will draw a reasonable crowd. Regards

[rueyloon]

since you don't have the scanner at hand, I think you may have under estimated the time required to do the scans, 10 bucks for 1 roll is very cheap, I suspect you may need at least 1 hours to do that.

I have the CSIV and it takes me about 2.5 hours to scan 1 roll......

[zhoufang]

Originally Posted by rueyloon since you don't have the scanner at hand, I think you may have under estimated the time required to do the scans, 10 bucks for 1 roll is very cheap, I suspect you may need at least 1 hours to do that. I have the CSIV and it takes me about 2.5 hours to scan 1 roll......

Yes, from the timing other users reported I expected to spent about 1hr/roll.