Customer Reviews

Opteka HD² Slide Copier for Canon PowerShot A640 A630 A620 A610

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I looked for 3 hours for a good scanner online to convert thousands of slides to digital, and was comitted to the task, despite the cumbersome nature of scanner transfer. Once I finally found the perfect scanner, I realized they stopped manufacturing it last year. I eventually stumbled on this product, and decided to give it a try. The transfer is fast, accurate, of good quality, and does not cut off any of the slide. The product is adjustable in both directions and makes slide transfer very efficient.

This product is an excellent value. I copied over a thousand old family 35mm slides with excellent results. There are techniques you must learn to get optimum results, like choosing the right camera settings, finding a good light source and being certain to hold the equipment absolutely still during the exposure. I used aperture priority to get maximum depth of field and used automatic color balance. Since my slides were 35 years old in some cases I used Photoshop to rebalance the color, crop and clean up each digital copy. The results were worth it.

After buying a special adaptor, I was able to copy 35mm strip film as well. I had good success copying B&W negatives, but not much luck with color negatives.

The construction quality of this product is good but not great. The parts move around a little during use. So you have to be careful that nothing moves during the exposure. The product includes a +10 close-up lens and a useful adaptor that you can use for other assessories.

I must have found 2000 slides in my basement one day and the Opteka Slide Copier helped me duplicated them and now have them in my computers. This is a great product and I feel it works better than using a flat bed scanner to copy slides. It's fun reviewing old slides on the computer and now I can throw out the olds slides which I don't need anymore.

The Opteka slide copier lived up to its hype as an easy to use way to duplicate slides. The material and optics are good and the system fool-proof. By copying my first batch of slides I saved enough to pay for it, and I have hundreds of slides more to go. The telefoto and autofocus on my Canon A620 made for perfect copies I then loaded right into my iMac for CD or iDVD duplication. Before buying I called 57th St. Electronics and found I had a 15 day trial period with return privilege. This sealed the deal. It came in less time than promised. A good choice and Amazon made it easy.

The Opteka Digital Duplicator is totally awesome and SO fast and easy to use! I had previously used my CanoScan 4400f to scan old slides from the 60's to present. After scanning the first batch of 4 slides, I realized that the task of scanning over 1000 was monumental. I was fortunate to find the Opteka Duplicator after searching online for ways to get this job done. I ordered from 47th Street Photo (my first time ordering from them and they were great!) and received the scanner and the adaptor needed to attach it to my Canon A630. The adaptor is included at no extra cost.

Screw the adaptor on, screw the Opteka duplicator on, set the camera to auto and manual focus, insert the slide, and press the button. The slides copy to your camera as fast as you can insert them and click! I had copied 24 slides of my daughter's first Christmas (1969) and loaded them into my computer in under 15 minutes (as opposed to 6 minutes to scan 4 slides with the CanoScan 4400f !) I had anticipated a long tedious job, but with the Opteka Digital Duplicator I can get my slides into my computer with ease.

I am thrilled to be able to save and share my years of slides. Having this done professionally would have been cost prohibitive, so at roughly $50. this was a bargain. I can't imagine that this product is not more heavily advertised or widely known. Spread the word!

I researched a number of products and even purchased and tried one from ebay with marginal results. I "lucked" onto a review of the Opteka by someone who praised it above all others he had tried so I decided that, for the price it was worth a try.
I was immpressed with the quickness of the standard delivery service and the quality of the product and the way it easily fitted to my Canon Powershot A640 camera, which I love for its hinged viewfinder feature as much as its other features.
With this attachment on the camera and the color slide inserted it is a simple matter to zoom even half frame positives to fill the viewfinder.
I then selected a F5 aperture, used the shutter speed mode, pointed the unit at a light source (bright window or filtered desk lamp) and with the desk lamp simply moved the camera closer or further away, until the picture in the viewfinder was at just the right brightness, and clicked the shots.
The photos looked as if I had just taken the actual pictures straight from the scenes and people. Even on slow shutterspeeds with dark photos it is easy to do and you do not need to use a tripod as everything is attached to the camera.
I do not believe you could find a better or easier way to do this job.

We bought this after using a standalone slide converter. Even though you have to load the slides yourself one at a time, it is still twice as fast as the standalone we had been using. The picture quality is excellent, too. One other great thing is that you can adjust the lighting simply by moving closer to your light source after setting focus and exposure.

When ordering I had selected the wrong Canon camera; all that was needed was a different adapter and they sent one right away, not even waiting for me to return the original.