Camera stand for EFH Essential Film Holder / camera scanning

Hey guys.

I use a Sony A7RII and Sigma 105 Macro to camera scan my film. I used a reproduction stand from Kaiser to hold the camera and I tried a few different film holders but I always was really put off by the complexity.

Put the film in, place it on the light board, place the light board on the repro stand (so far easy). Then put the camera on the stand and adjust it perfectly parallel to the base board. Left-right adjustment is not a big problem, but the up-down adjustment never was possible. The arm of the stand will bend a bit under the weight of the camera.

Then you need to find the perfect distance, place the film holder accurately, darken the room to prevent stray light from hitting the lens, take your shot, move to the next frame. The moving to the next frame almost inevitably also moves the film holder a bit, so you need to place it again.

I HATED it.

I bought an EFH (Essential Film Holder) from Andrew Clifforth in the UK and since I also own a 3d printer, I thought about another solution:
#

A base plate that fits perfectly on the EFH. Then distance rings of different sizes. And finally a top in the size of the lens hood. So now the positioning is easy. The distance is fixed and always correct, the camera is always placed perfectly parallel to the film holder in the exactly right position. I still use the stand but only to tie the camera to in case I knock it over.

Here you see a 35 mm frame, fitting perfectly in the camera display:


I use different rings to enlarge the distance to scan 120 film.

If you also own an EFH and have access to a 3d printer, find the design in Thingiverse:


I have made many different ring sizes and top diameters so that it should fit almost every macro lens.

You need to log in at thingiverse first, otherwise the link might not work. If it still does not work, search for "Camera stand for EFH Essential Film Holder for digitalization of negative and slide film"

Under the files there you will also find a file called "description.pdf". Read this to understand how to pick the right tops and extension rings.

That looks very cool! When I get my setup going I’ll give this a try.
Hey, can you tell me what the outside dimensions for the EFH are? I can’t find them anywhere. I’m wondering if I can repurpose the bottom part of the EFH for other odd sizes of film and make my own masks. Thanks

This is awesome, I am just getting setup with EFH. @Thorsten your link doesn't work and I can't find it on thingiverse. Any chance you can point me in the right direction?

Nice work! This looks like a DIY version of the Film Toaster. I wish someone had told me about it before I built my scanning station around Negative Supply components.

Steven Lee said:

Nice work! This looks like a DIY version of the Film Toaster. I wish someone had told me about it before I built my scanning station around Negative Supply components.

Click to expand...

Cool again. I love toast and that design is slick.

Do you focus manually or use autofocus? Does the lens "breath" and how do you deal with the angle of view shift?

@Thorsten , your Thingiverse link is broken. Any chance you could make these files available?

Cool product. I did use the EFH for a while, but was never too thrilled with the film flatness when using it.

I've since moved to taping the edges of 120 film, emulsion side up, to a single piece of ANR glass. I use the same kind of Tesa tape for this that was traditionally used on drum scanners, and it leaves no residue on the film. There is a bit of a knack to taping the film correctly under tension (especially if it is strongly curled) but it is then held perfectly flat and the imaging resolution isn't degraded by having to shoot through a second sheet of glass that would be required in a sandwich. The downside is it is very slow and tedious if you have multiple frames to digitise, but that's the way it goes if you want optimum results.

@GLS Agreed, EFH is what I use for the first pass of images, and I'm working on adjusting my setup with regards to flatness and alignment, there are a few tricks that can improve the results of the EFH. For an extremely detailed landscape on fine grained film that I care about, I'm doing similar to you, alongside image stitching. Focus stitching is another option with the EFH, but I haven't tried that yet. Somewhat defeats the purpose of a quick full-roll digitizer if you have to take lots of extra care.

Maybe I'm mistaken but I see 'the problem' is about scanning a whole roll which becomes tiresome. My take on 'the problem' is somewhat different. Buy an Epson V700 to do your digital contact sheets and choose the ones you want to scan at hi res, bearing in mind you only need to scan the good ones, which for an experienced photographer is still in the average range of three or four images from 36. Any more and editing skills need to be improved. Then on the copy stand rig you only need to scan three or four which is hardly a chore.

250swb said:

Maybe I'm mistaken but I see 'the problem' is about scanning a whole roll which becomes tiresome. My take on 'the problem' is somewhat different. Buy an Epson V700 to do your digital contact sheets and choose the ones you want to scan at hi res, bearing in mind you only need to scan the good ones, which for an experienced photographer is still in the average range of three or four images from 36. Any more and editing skills need to be improved. Then on the copy stand rig you only need to scan three or four which is hardly a chore.

Click to expand...

I'll do you one better: I don't even bother making contact sheet scans. I just evaluate the frames on a light box and choose the ones to digitise from that; B&W or colour negs can be inverted in real time using your phone camera to get a rough idea of what the positives will look like.

Doesn't work so well if you need to see if a shot has fine detail. I have an Epson, it resolves less than 2400dpi while the copystand setup resolves around 4800.

With the naked eye, you can see maybe 300, with a loupe a bit more. But you're getting dust all over your stuff while using a lightbox and loupe.

loccdor said:

Doesn't work so well if you need to see if a shot has fine detail. I have an Epson, it resolves less than 2400dpi while the copystand setup resolves around 4800.

With the naked eye, you can see maybe 300, with a loupe a bit more. But you're getting dust all over your stuff while using a lightbox and loupe.

Click to expand...

I have a 20x loupe for that. The film doesn't get any dust or scratches on it because it goes in an archival clear sleeve right after development.

GLS said:

I'll do you one better: I don't even bother making contact sheet scans. I just evaluate the frames on a light box and choose the ones to digitise from that; B&W or colour negs can be inverted in real time using your phone camera to get a rough idea of what the positives will look like.

Click to expand...

I'm have no idea why you'd consider that 'one better', the failures on a roll of film should be as equal in the editing process as the successes, there for all time, because without seeing the failure you can't tailor success. That is how editing is done by evaluating both.

250swb said:

I'm have no idea why you'd consider that 'one better', the failures on a roll of film should be as equal in the editing process as the successes, there for all time, because without seeing the failure you can't tailor success. That is how editing is done by evaluating both.

Click to expand...

Because I then don't need to waste my time and hard drive space scanning and editing frames that I can see with the naked eye clearly didn't work as intended, and why. If a frame is on the borderline of what I'd consider "up to snuff" then I might still scan it, but almost without exception my initial evaluation remains unchanged.

loccdor said:

@Thorsten , your Thingiverse link is broken. Any chance you could make these files available?

Click to expand...

catnhat said:

This is awesome, I am just getting setup with EFH. @Thorsten your link doesn't work and I can't find it on thingiverse. Any chance you can point me in the right direction?

Click to expand...

Sorry for not looking in here for some time. I moved the files to printables; thingiverse links did not work most of the time.

You‘ll find it here:

Thank you!