Camera scanning' 35mm negs with a micro 4/3 camera and lens

[brbo]

Why would you fool around with copy stands when you can get something like the Valoi easy35 or Nikon ES-2 that holds the film in the right place without the bulk and expense? Just for dealing with larger formats or another reason?

You already own one?

Speaking of Nikon, Coolscans had attractive colour for colour neg. I would still want a Coolscan if the Nikon software ran on modern computers but, since it doesn’t, half the appeal is gone. However, I notice some Nikon SLRs have a “Negative Digitizer” function that inverts the colours of photos of negatives. Does this give colour as good as the Coolscan software and, if so, is there any way to use Nikon desktop software to do the same thing with image files from non-Nikon cameras?

From what I saw, Nikon DSRLs with that function produce horrible jpgs. Vuescan can invert your camera scans much better (provided they are in .tiff format, but getting .tif files from raws can also be automated). You just change the source in Vuescan from "Scanner" to "File".

 

[Samuel Dilworth]

You already own one?

An excellent reason for sure.

Vuescan can invert your camera scans much better (provided they are in .tiff format, but getting .tif files from raws can also be automated). You just change the source in Vuescan from "Scanner" to "File".

VueScan costs €100, which seems like a fortune for something archaic that can’t touch Nikon Scan colour. But maybe that’s as good as it gets today.

I’m astounded that film scanning remains so difficult.

 

[MattKing]

I doubt that the Nikon Scan software would provide the same quality results if employed outside the extremely controlled environment - light source and light path and optics in particular - of the high end Nikon scanners.
Vuescan is incredibly flexible - it works reasonably well with a vast array of very disparate setups.
If I was infinitely wealthy and therefore willing to design a modern film digitization tool (which would inevitably have to sell for far more than the market would bear in order to break even) then I would seriously consider hiring the Hamricks (Vuescan owners) to help with the software.
As for the rest of your questions, I consider electronic flash to be the best choice for the exposing light source.
However, you will need to consider how to deal with the issues that arise respecting providing light to view and focus with, how to ensure that the light from the flash is sufficiently even and of the appropriate directionality and, depending on the sensor and the firmware and in-camera software, whether it would be beneficial to first filter the light from the flash. That latter concern may mean that it would be best to use different filtration for C-41 negatives, ECN-2 negatives, and transparencies. Possibly B&W as well.

 

[Robert Ley]

Samuel,
I am in the process of digitizing about 50 years worth of color and B&W negatives and more slides than I care to think about. I have been getting what I think is pretty good results for what I want. Check out this website : https://www.negativelabpro.com/ It is a wealth of information and knowledge and years of experience that you can utilize or you can continue on your path of re-inventing the wheel.

If you would like to know specifically how I have been digitizing my images, feel free to PM me.
Cheers,
Robert

 

[benderscameracorner]

1. Why would you fool around with copy stands when you can get something like the Valoi easy35 or Nikon ES-2 that holds the film in the right place without the bulk and expense? Just for dealing with larger formats or another reason?

Yep, to be able to deal with larger and smaller formats. Also if you can get a cheap secondhand copy stand or old/broken enlarger (which is what I use) and have a suitable tripod head you can use, building a setup is quite cheap.

1. What other standalone software options are there? I don’t use Adobe software so Lightroom add-ons are useless to me.

Filmomat Smart Convert is standalone, easy to use and provides good fast results. I prefer Negative Lab Pro simply because it has a bit more control and adjustment, and I'm already in the Lightroom workflow (it's also a smidge cheaper). There's also FilmLab, I haven't used that.

For free options, RawTherapee has quite capable negative inversion abilities, but is a bit more complex to use.

1. I don’t see how the film can be kept flat for camera scanning (but the same problem applied to all film scanners short of the Flextights – a frustrating state of affairs that persisted for two decades with zero market response). Are people focus-stacking to get around this?

Use f8-f11 on your lens for enough DoF. There are plenty of options on the market for holders that help hold the negatives flat, or ones that can be 3D printed. The only time I've even come vaguely close to issues with 35mm in my basic 3D printed holder is with some very curly old Tri-X negatives. For 120 I have a Digitaliza Scanning Mask which works very well at keeping the film flat. For sheet film most people use a piece of ANR glass.

1. I have a half-frame camera. Would this complicate use of the ES-2 or easy35? I already have an Olympus 30 mm f/3.5 macro lens that would support approximately full-frame capture of half-frame negatives, which would be nice to have, but maybe the devices can’t rotate 90 degrees? Maybe you can’t adequately adjust the lens-to-film distance? The Valoi and Nikon documentation is pitiful. You’re left guessing how everything works.

If you're happy to scan in frame pairs then no issue, but if you want maximum resolution/quality from your half frame negs then DSLR/MILC scanning with a macro lens gives you the flexibility to fill as much of the the camera's sensor as possible.

 

[Samuel Dilworth]

MattKing: interesting points about flash filtration especially.

The ES-2 has a diffuser that I’d hope solves illumination evenness problems.

But this might be getting too serious for me. I’m looking at camera scanning as a fast, half-decent way to see what I’ve shot. Important negs would get scanned at a lab, pending any worthwhile home scanning set-up I manage to assemble.

Speaking of which:

If I was infinitely wealthy and therefore willing to design a modern film digitization tool (which would inevitably have to sell for far more than the market would bear in order to break even) then I would seriously consider hiring the Hamricks (Vuescan owners) to help with the software.

Point taken on Vuescan.

As for a modern scanner (or other digitisation method), why would it inevitably be far more expensive than the market would bear?

That was sometimes suggested about film cameras, and here we are with $500 Pentax 17s flying off the shelves.

I’m thinking something like the Flextight virtual-drum method of getting the film flat, direct-drive of the drum to eliminate rubber belts, manual focus via live view, cheap but good off-the-shelf optics from China, off-the-shelf CMOS image sensors (bound to be better than even high-end line CCDs of yore and with high-speed readout for multi-pass scanning of film with a large density range), RGB LED illumination (or even strobe at 20 Hz like any cheap Chinese flash can do now?), dirt-cheap Arduino-level electronics controlling everything, simple software that basically spits out DNG Raws. You could run anything processor-intensive remotely on a smartphone using someone else’s APIs. The power of those would allow new opportunities that weren’t available on the last go-around, for instance – off the top of my head – automatic stitching of adjacent passes for larger film formats (or even 35 mm if there would be some benefit).

This naively doesn’t seem terribly expensive, or at any rate hugely cheaper than 20 years ago when Imacon sold its actually very good 343 for £3600 in the UK (not sure of prices elsewhere).

Meanwhile, today there is about zero competition, so whoever does this would have whatever market does exist entirely to themselves. If the market is weaker than expected, well, you would be sure of no new entrants and that your product would be the new hotness for 10+ years.

It’s frustrating that there is so much new interest in film, especially colour negative, and no good way to scan it. I realise I’m not the first person to make this observation.

 

[Samuel Dilworth]

Samuel,
I am in the process of digitizing about 50 years worth of color and B&W negatives and more slides than I care to think about. I have been getting what I think is pretty good results for what I want. Check out this website : https://www.negativelabpro.com/ It is a wealth of information and knowledge and years of experience that you can utilize or you can continue on your path of re-inventing the wheel.

That product needs Lightroom, which I don’t have. But it does look like the website has useful general information about camera scanning, so I appreciate the link. Was reading a bit last night.

If you would like to know specifically how I have been digitizing my images, feel free to PM me.

Perhaps you could share it in the discussion here, if it’s not top secret. If it’s classified, I’d rather not be entrusted with the info anyway! But thank you.

 

[Samuel Dilworth]

Filmomat Smart Convert is standalone, easy to use and provides good fast results. I prefer Negative Lab Pro simply because it has a bit more control and adjustment, and I'm already in the Lightroom workflow (it's also a smidge cheaper). There's also FilmLab, I haven't used that.

Filmomat SmartConvert looks good at first glance. I precisely want a simple UI. I have other software for pushing curves around, retouching, sharpening, colour-space conversion, etc., as needed.

Use f8-f11 on your lens for enough DoF. There are plenty of options on the market for holders that help hold the negatives flat, or ones that can be 3D printed. The only time I've even come vaguely close to issues with 35mm in my basic 3D printed holder is with some very curly old Tri-X negatives. For 120 I have a Digitaliza Scanning Mask which works very well at keeping the film flat. For sheet film most people use a piece of ANR glass.

Interesting. Thanks.

If you're happy to scan in frame pairs then no issue, but if you want maximum resolution/quality from your half frame negs then DSLR/MILC scanning with a macro lens gives you the flexibility to fill as much of the the camera's sensor as possible.

Do you know if you can flip the Nikon ES-2 90 degrees to make a half-frame negative more closely match the landscape orientation of a digital camera sensor?

 

[MattKing]

As for a modern scanner (or other digitisation method), why would it inevitably be far more expensive than the market would bear?

Because of the cost of the film handling mechanisms, the light sources, the optics - particularly the optics - and the combination of sensor, firmware and software, paired carefully with that light source and film handling.
Assuming of course you wanted something as capable and robust as the top line Nikon or Minolta units that were once state of the art.
Most of the products currently in the marketplace are essentially compromises, making use of components and materials that have been re-purposed from other uses.

 

[benderscameracorner]

Do you know if you can flip the Nikon ES-2 90 degrees to make a half-frame negative more closely match the landscape orientation of a digital camera sensor?

I have no experience with it, sorry. But having a quick look at the details, it appears maybe not.
I'm also curious has to how you 'zoom' onto the frame with the adapter fixed onto the front of a prime macro lens?

 

[Samuel Dilworth]

I think the tube can be slid in and out over a small range, although even the two YouTube reviews I watched didn’t bother mentioning or showing this (it’s comical how badly Nikon’s documentation and the reviews show how this ES-2 works).

Between that telescoping tube, the adjustment of using the ‘wrong’ lens (I’d be using Micro Four Thirds or Sony E-mount, not the intended Nikon cameras and lenses), and acceptance of less than perfectly tight framing, I was hoping I’d get away with it. Might be wrong!

Starting to see the appeal of the copy stand approach, though. But I would have to buy one (plus a negative holder and presumably a backlight, since there would be no room for a strobe), and if I do that it would have to be a decent stand – cheap mechanics on things like that frustrate me.