Digitizing 35mm negatives using a macro lens

PinkPony said:

I use my regular enlarger for duplication. The particular model supports removing the enlarger head from the column and screwing a camera there so it becomes a copying stand. On the base plate I have a 5000 kelvin light source where i place my regular negative carriers.

Adjusting the camera to be parallel with the base board is quite simple. I simply lower the camera enough so that I can use a CD cover (pretty square) to see that the lens is parallel with the board. It's very similar to regular darkroom work except much faster. I plan to do some real darkroom work again soon. Winter is coming.

Click to expand...

That sounds much simpler than what I do, I use a line level. You use the CD cover as a reflection? Would a mirror be a good stand in?

Cholentpot said:

What would I search for on ebay for that roll film holder thing? It looks useful.

Click to expand...

I've always seen these devices described as a "roll film stage" so that's what I always call it. But when searching on ebay I'd be using keywords such as: roll, film, duplicating (or) duplicator or even copier. But expect to get a lot of hits for paper with the last. I took a look on eBay just now. Didn't find any like mine. I found a few roll film stages for bellows.

It seems to me that using an enlarger head would be a practical way to go. You can shoot dupes of image formats greater than 35mm too, as long as the head supports that size negative. Or slide.

cooltouch said:

I've always seen these devices described as a "roll film stage" so that's what I always call it. But when searching on ebay I'd be using keywords such as: roll, film, duplicating (or) duplicator or even copier. But expect to get a lot of hits for paper with the last. I took a look on eBay just now. Didn't find any like mime. I found a few roll film stages for bellows.

It seems to me that using an enlarger head would be a practical way to go. You can shoot dupes of image formats greater than 35mm too, as long as the head supports that size negative. Or slide.

Click to expand...

Are you clipping the enlarger head straight onto the camera? I'm not clear on this method. I take a photo of the backlit negative with a macro lens. Is there a method where you connect the camera straight to the enlarger? I have a spare enlarger, if there is something I can do with it, that would be awesome.

You quoted me and my comment that I thought it a good idea, but I have never tried this. Check out PinkPony's post on the previous page.

Cholentpot said:

That sounds much simpler than what I do, I use a line level. You use the CD cover as a reflection? Would a mirror be a good stand in?

Click to expand...

The camera is mounted using the regular enlarger head screw. The screw has the same dimensions as the camara tripod threads. It's a pretty low cost LPL enlarger but it's made to double as a copy stand.. I only have to make adjustments in the left to right direction seen from above (rotating around the screw). I use the CD cover for this (that happens to be fairly square). I let the cover rest on the enlarger board and lower the camera so that it's just above the tip of the lens. I then move the camra so that it's parallel with the CD cover and tighten the screw. Takes about 30 seconds or so and using f5.6 on the camera I have not seen any fuzzy corners in the duplicated image.

Is this Apug or Dpug??

Andrew O'Neill said:

Is this Apug or Dpug??

Click to expand...

How do you get your photos online?

Cholentpot said:

How do you get your photos online?

Click to expand...

+10000000

Cooltouch,

I just got a Canon bellows with Canon slide duplicator which I intend to use on a Canon 5D with Canon lens of course. I'll report how this goes.

I am eyeing an enlarger as well, both for dig!t#llization as well as for making enlargements as Apug wants us to do.

cooltouch said:

Here's a pic of v1.0 of my dupe setup.
Getting to 1:1 required a few additions. The 1.4x teleconverter can be substituted with extension tubes.

Click to expand...

But why did you use a teleconverter in first place?
Because you were lacking extension tubes?

Andrew O'Neill said:

Is this Apug or Dpug??

Click to expand...

+1

Although it might be just as appropriate to ask: "Why is this not in the Hybrid Photo Group": (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

AgX said:

But why did you use a teleconverter in first place?
Because you were lacking extension tubes?

Click to expand...

Mostly because it was handy and it worked.

I have all sorts of Nikon adapters. I just rummaged around in my pile, swapping various pieces out until I found a combination that worked. To be honest, I haven't tried extension tubes yet, but I don't see why they wouldn't work.

flavio81 said:

+10000000

Cooltouch,

I just got a Canon bellows with Canon slide duplicator which I intend to use on a Canon 5D with Canon lens of course. I'll report how this goes.

I am eyeing an enlarger as well, both for dig!t#llization as well as for making enlargements as Apug wants us to do.

Click to expand...

Both the Canon Bellows FL and the (FD) Auto Bellows are excellent pieces of kit, but keep in mind that when you mount either to an EOS camera and an FD lens, magnification levels will be increased because of the extra depth of an EOS body, which acts as an extension tube with FD lenses. This added extension may not affect certain reproduction ratios, but then again it might. I don't know one way or the other since I don't own an FD bellows.

cooltouch said:

Both the Canon Bellows FL and the (FD) Auto Bellows are excellent pieces of kit, but keep in mind that when you mount either to an EOS camera and an FD lens, magnification levels will be increased because of the extra depth of an EOS body, which acts as an extension tube with FD lenses. This added extension may not affect certain reproduction ratios, but then again it might. I don't know one way or the other since I don't own an FD bellows.

Click to expand...

Hi Michael McCooltouch

I'm trying to follow your steps. I bought the Canon Bellows FL with the Slide copier attachment. There is no problem in accounting for the thickness of the FD->EOS (glassless) adapter.

However, the alignment of the slide copier relative to the lens is off. I see that it mounts on a flimsy metal piece held by three screws. Canon has dissapointed me for the first time. I will try to align it (tighten it) as best as I can.

For this i'm using the FD 50/1.8 since i don't own a macro lens. A problem i'm having is that the corners does not seem to focus correctly, i still need to see if this is due to misalignment of the slide copier position, or if this is due to aberration on the FD lens.

So it seems the problem is imperfect alignment of the negative relative to the imaging $en$or. I'm stopping down to f8, perhaps i need to stop down to f16? I think i've seen some calculations that show that f16 still does not diminsh too much the resolution on a 12 MegaPixxxel $en$or.

At f/16 you may encounter some softness because of the diffraction limit of your lens. It's hard to say without testing it. But in my experences from testing a lot of lenses, I usually see softness beginning at f/16.

Of course, aliognment is critical. I'm not familiar with the way the bellows FL's copier stage works, but I would do everything I could to ensure that the rig's stage is parallel to the film plane, or else images will never be sharp all over.

Also, keep in mind that one of the differences between a macro lens and a regular lens like your 50/1.8 is a macro lens is designed to be a "flat field" optic. Optimized for things like copying things on a flat surface, for example making copies of photos using a copy stand. A "normal" lens like your 50/1.8 is actually designed with a certain amount of field curvature. This can result in soft corners when trrying to take photos of flat objects -- like slides and/or negatives. My advice? Pick up a clean used Canon Fd 50mm f/3.5 macro. They sell for pretty cheap on eBay these days, and the Canon 50 macro is an excellent optic, plenty good for general photography in addition to macro subjects.

I previously used an Epson V700 for 35mm scanning but soon found the scans too soft for anything larger than 5x7. I printed an 11x14 with the image taking up an 8x10 area and the details started to fall apart. There was no bite.

Enter my Pentax K01 with a defunct Sigma 50mm macro and a crap load of hoods attaching to hoods attaching to filters attaching to step-up rings. I use a flash, an LED light, an old film holder (from an enlarger). I then stretch my shoulder muscles for the intense shooting session, shoot the images in DNG mode and put it all through VueScan.

Wish I had an image.... will post it up soon.

For professional work, I tend to just let the lab take care of it.

flavio81 said:

I understand this is APUG but I don't know why this topic is not discussed here.

Click to expand...

Excellent point. Especially for those of us who shoot slides, there is no photochemical printing process that is still available. In addition, as others have pointed out, the only way to share an image on the web (including this site!) is to d!&!+!ze it. So this is very much a topic for APUG.

This thread has brought up a lively, interesting and informative discussion of a type that is increasingly rare here at APUG. I responded to a similar post on another thread, but because this topic is so important the information bears repeating here.

First, scanners are a mixed bag. Even professionally scanned slides can come out looking terrible; this is especially egregious as the original is directly viewable as a reference. I've had a Canonscan 9950F for years and the best I can say about it is that it totally sucks. The scans that came out of it were literally painful to look at and after years of trying everything in the book to get something half ways decent I gave up. Other scanners have produced better result but they are all finicky and very, very slow.

Enter the slide copier. I use my OM slide copier with a micro four-thirds "camera" and a Zuiko 50F3.5 macro lens with the appropriate adapters. The macro lens has a 1/2 life size magnification and the crop factor of the "camera" is 2, so you get a perfect 1 to 1 copy of the slide. The slide duplicator is made to take strip negatives as well, and I believe it is big enough for 6x6. The light source is the same light table used for viewing slides, propped up against the back of the slide copier. As this is good enough for viewing slides, it is good enough for the copy. Besides, the "camera" is set to auto white balance so color temperature is not an issue. The "camera" is set to maximum quality .jpeg, the lens is set to f8, the focus is done with the copier rack via the zoom on the live view, and the shutter speed is set manually according to the meter. Once everything is setup, the only variation from shot to shot may be a slight adjustment in exposure.

Using this setup I can dupe slides in seconds. A whole roll takes a matter of minutes, versus the hours it took with a scanner. After post processing and viewing on a top quality, OLED monitor the results are as good as any scan and approach the quality of the original slide. Of course, there are shortcomings inherent to the d!&!+@l technology. Highlights get blown out, even when there is clear detail on the original slide (see the hat band in cooltouch's shot). Colors are not as rich, but the originals are on Kodak VS and Provia so it is doubtful that any technology will ever be able to reproduce those beautiful colors. Fine detail gets garbled with the pattern interference of the pixel matrix. Finally, of course, the subtle tonality is lost. But these are all inherent limitations of the technology, not the workflow, setup or equipment. On the flip side of these shortcomings I end up with a very good copy of the slide that can be shared via the web or printed. It is the best of both worlds.

I use a similar setup. However, I make an exposure without a slide in the slot (so the only thing in the frame is the out of focus diffuser) each time I process a batch of slides and set my white balance on it. If the slide needs color correction (most don't), I do that in LR/PS.

Since this thread is still escaping moderator censure, I will contribute another analog-digital borderline post.

For those considering digitalization of past work, but not yet tied to hardware, I would recommend using a bellows plus an enlarging lens. The advantage (apart from the flat field of the lens) , is that you can select crops from the original. Something which cannot be done directly by a slide copyer and which is limited by using extension rings.

p.

ph said:

The advantage (apart from the flat field of the lens), is that you can select crops from the original. Something which cannot be done directly by a slide copy and which is limited by using extension rings.

Click to expand...

I think it is better to shoot the slide full frame and crop digitally, where you can also un-crop.

Thuggins, thanks for your post.

I am particularly in favor of creating a separate section or at least a thread discussing the art of converting a photo negative or positive into its electronic numeric representation using the devices available for such art and/or home-brewed devices.

ph said:

For those considering digitalization of past work, but not yet tied to hardware, I would recommend using a bellows plus an enlarging lens. The advantage (apart from the flat field of the lens) , is that you can select crops from the original. Something which cannot be done directly by a slide copyer and which is limited by using extension rings.
p.

Click to expand...

While I agree with faberryman that is is better to shoot the full slide and then crop it, I am curious to know why you don't believe it is possible to crop with a slide copier. I've got the Zuiko 38f2.8 macro which is rated from 1.7X to 8X life size. Granted, you'd have to move the slide around in the copier (this would be quite easy with unmounted slides or negatives) to get the spot you wanted, but it would produce about any crop/enlargement you could want.

One of the best resources I found for this topic is here:
http://www.dpbestflow.org/camera/camera-scanning
Digitizing my BW negatives for more than a year now.Whole page of negatives (36 +/-) can be done in less than 8 minutes.
Using Nikon D7000. Nikon PB-5 with PS-4 negative stage, Rosco light panel as light source and Componon S 4/80mm lens (due to cropped sensor on the camera). Tried with different combinations of bellows, rings and holders with Micro Nikkor's 3.5 and 2.8/55, but on the end settled with Componon. Shutting just in NEF format, tethered Lightroom. Eventually, when my D700 dies, will move to full sensor for this. Great way to utilize old digital body.
I found that having camera on copy stand, pointed down (mostly for my medium format negatives) is too painful for my back and neck. YMMV! Now I'm working on my horizontal rig for 6x6 negatives

I found this guide to be very helpful: http://lamlux.net/2016/02/23/digitizing-negatives-with-a-digital-camera/

Personally, I use a Sony NEX digicam along with the Leica BEOON and a LED lightpad from Amazon. A vast improvement over the CanonScan 8800f that I used previously. Others have used a similar solution with a Leica M9, or an APS-C Fuji X-Pro 1 with a 50mm enlarging lens. For digitizing 35mm, the BEOON is a really compact set up, and helps to keep the digital sensor and film on the same, flat plane.

Slide copy device: I only knew of the rigid tube version.Versions that behave like a bellows are of course equally flexible.

Going dangerously close to digital themes; digital cropping\magnification as a basis would give less resolution (provided that your optical element can handle the enlargement ratios). In my case I do not really need extreme quality since I do not print larger than A4, usually do 1:1 copying and only occasionally do a little reframing, perhaps using 70% of the slide.

I use the excellent Olympus "double" bellows. The first bit on the rail extends between camera and lens, the next between lens and film/slide mounting device. The camera mount on the bellows itself can be exchanged so that -if needed- one avoids the extra extension of an adapter.

p.

An idea to make sure the alignments are good it might be worth shooting some fine grain B&W film of some resolution targets strategically arranged about the centre/corners/edges using a sturdy tripod of course and if these are not sharp enough all over parts can be cut and rearranged till all areas are perfect on your slide (might be a patchwork but it is effective when mounted between glass) this then will aid in focus and alignment when you set up the rig for copying. Refocus might have to be tuned to accommodate your system of slide holder and side of emulsion (better toward the lens).
Example can be found here and downloaded (pardon the external link), if useful let me know.
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1...?key=VDdKTnhrb3V5Ym5pTm5NSE1LRE96ank5VlRsTklR