The Best Way is to buy a good film/slide scanner. That will run you
in the $200-300 range for a good one. I bought a Konica/Minolta five
years ago before they exited the business and have been very happy.
One of the other responders suggested you look at DPReview. That
is where I would start looking for good models.
They will scan both 35mm negatives and slides using specialized
film/slide carriers.
A second, faster, way is to get a good camera with a good copy/close-up
lens. You have to be careful on what you use for a light source and then
color balance the shots correctly. I modified an old Spiratone Vario-Duplivar
so it would accept a copy lens and used it with my DSLR.
The old slide duplicators will usually not work as they copy at 1:1 or higher.
To copy a 35mm slide onto (for example) an APS-C chip, which is smaller,
you need a 1:0.75 ratio, which is less than 1:1. It works faster than a scanner
but is not quite as good in my experience.
Shooting off a projected image is probably a second-rate way, at
best.
If you have hundreds of slides or negatives any method will take time.
Another way is to clean them (which you have to do anyway) and
pay someone to scan them in. They usually charge under 30 cents
per slide/negative: http://www.scancafe.com/pricing/scanning
But they may not know how to scan astrophotos. If that is what
you want to convert, I'd send them some test photos before sending
in a lot of pictures.
By the way, you can buy pints/quarts of film cleaner from BHPhotoVideo
and Adorama on line. Unless you've been storing your slides/negatives
in a clean room you'll probably need it, along with a good film dusting brush.
Good luck,
Mark Christensen
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