I use RAW because it allows a much better range of post-processing corrections to the older images, where there can be degradation of colour and contrast changes (particularly in old colour film and photos). I set white balance before hand to match the slide illuminator, and usually pre-focus rather than using auto-focus (it speeds up cycle time). With this setup you can digitise images more or less as quickly as you can change the slide, paper photo or negative - with transparecies I can cycle these in about 5 seconds. More recently I bought a secondhand copy stand (Jessops model CS-920S) to use instead of the tripod, which is an improvement in terms of ease in setting up. I used to set this up on a tripod, pointing down towards a flat panel slide illuminator, on which I placed the negs or transparencies in a home made 'holder'. I use either my old Canon D30 (for low resolution) or my Canon 5D, with the Canon 100mm close-up lens and the remote release.

In the end I found the quickest (and cheapest) method was to use my cameras. More modern scanners are likely to have improved in speed and quality, but are expensive. However, although I used this to transfer many hundreds of images, I had 40 years of negs and transparencies I wanted to digitise, even if most of them were only for indexing purposes. This was also very slow (about 30secs per scan, excluding the time to load each neg), but gave good results. I've also used a dedicated film scanner (Canoscan 2710), which could handle a strip of six negs or single transparencies. Most will only handle a single item at a time. This gives reasonable results but is painfully slow for anything other than small quantities. I've used flatbed scanners with negative or transparency features, most recently an Epson 2850 photo.

Over the years I've tried several methods.

Best 35mm film to digital converter