Questions about basic "DSLR" scanning rig

For the part to hold the camera: maybe something like this will be more useful than a tripod: https://www.dold-mechatronik.de/Reprostativ-V5-kit
There is also a list of parts if you're not in Europe.

So, would you then attach the makro focusing rail to that stand?

Bob Bibab said:

So, would you then attach the makro focusing rail to that stand?

Click to expand...

Yes, the manual on the same site also has a suggestion for which macro focusing rail to use, although you can probably also use other ones.

What do you think about those Kaiser copystands and is it fairly straightforward to use a durst enlarger column to achieve the same?

Ruub said:

For the part to hold the camera: maybe something like this will be more useful than a tripod: https://www.dold-mechatronik.de/Reprostativ-V5-kit
There is also a list of parts if you're not in Europe.

Click to expand...

Have you bought this stand? The website says:

There are still other components needed. More detailed information, please refer to the assembly instructions that we were asked by Jochen Möller available.

The camera and all other components are to be seen in the pictures are not included.

PhilBurton said:

Have you bought this stand? The website says:

There are still other components needed. More detailed information, please refer to the assembly instructions that we were asked by Jochen Möller available.

The camera and all other components are to be seen in the pictures are not included.

Click to expand...

Are you asking what other parts need to be purchased? Or were you just pointing out that I'll need additional parts?

The manual is here: https://www.dold-mechatronik.de/documents/Community/Reprostativ/Reprostativ_v5_Bauanleitung1.1.pdf

Everything but the camera / light table / film + the quick coupling plate is included. The manual is in German, but the pictures are very clear also if you don't speak German.

The quick coupling plate he recommends is this one: https://www.amazon.de/Andoer®-Schnellwechselplatte-Gradienter-55mm-Kugelkopf-Wimberley/dp/B00N5HHRO2
But you can also buy another one with the same tripod coupling.

I haven't bought this one (yet) but I am going to, it seems sturdy and it is a lot cheaper than other dedicated copy stands.
If you have an enlarger that you'd like to convert, that is probably a great option as well.

Ruub said:

Everything but the camera / light table / film + the quick coupling plate is included. The manual is in German, but the pictures are very clear also if you don't speak German.

Click to expand...

And the furniture pads. Don't forget the furniture pads.

I have read one good review of this by someone who described it as sturdy. On a German forum, however, someone said that they had built a similar product themselves and had found that the square shape of the column was a problem from stability perspective. He thought it needed to be rectangular. But he had never used this particular product so who knows how it would perform. And it is very cheap compared to other similar products.

I was wondering though, would this stand be stable with a macro focus rail attached to it, or would the camera be sitting too far away from the column for the design?

Yes of course! I forgot those pads

I can't speak to the sturdiness of the design yet - I'm going to try it and I can report back if you like (and I remember ).

Ruub said:

The manual is here: https://www.dold-mechatronik.de/documents/Community/Reprostativ/Reprostativ_v5_Bauanleitung1.1.pdf

Everything but the camera / light table / film + the quick coupling plate is included. The manual is in German, but the pictures are very clear also if you don't speak German.

The quick coupling plate he recommends is this one: https://www.amazon.de/Andoer®-Schnellwechselplatte-Gradienter-55mm-Kugelkopf-Wimberley/dp/B00N5HHRO2
But you can also buy another one with the same tripod coupling.

I haven't bought this one (yet) but I am going to, it seems sturdy and it is a lot cheaper than other dedicated copy stands.
If you have an enlarger that you'd like to convert, that is probably a great option as well.

Click to expand...

At this price, it's almost a no-brainer for just general photo use.

Two months later, I've bought the Reprostativ and can say that I really like the build quality! I've written up a brief review here: https://lighthacking.nl/blog/2020/0...sing-the-reprostativ-a-lightbox-and-a-camera/
Any feedback / tips are welcome, I hope this helps someone.

@Ruub How do you make sure the camera sensor is parallel with the film? I also found this "copy stand" and I do not see any way of adjusting the camera pitch (towards/away): the leg appears to be mounted at 90 degrees, but there's always some sag due to camera+lens weight, usually the bottom tip of the lens leans toward the leg a bit.

If you place a mirror at the bottom of your setup, do you see your lens iris **directly** in the middle of the frame where the cetral focus point is?

Bormental said:

@Ruub How do you make sure the camera sensor is parallel with the film? I also found this "copy stand" and I do not see any way of adjusting the camera pitch (towards/away): the leg appears to be mounted at 90 degrees, but there's always some sag due to camera+lens weight, usually the bottom tip of the lens leans toward the leg a bit.

If you place a mirror at the bottom of your setup, do you see your lens iris **directly** in the middle of the frame where the cetral focus point is?

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip! I haven't checked this yet, but you're right, this is not something you can adjust using this setup. My feeling is that it won't be much of an issue (especially because the camera is mounted quite close to the light panel) but I'll search for a mirror and report back.

Bormental said:

@Ruub How do you make sure the camera sensor is parallel with the film? I also found this "copy stand" and I do not see any way of adjusting the camera pitch (towards/away): the leg appears to be mounted at 90 degrees, but there's always some sag due to camera+lens weight, usually the bottom tip of the lens leans toward the leg a bit.

If you place a mirror at the bottom of your setup, do you see your lens iris **directly** in the middle of the frame where the cetral focus point is?

Click to expand...

It took me a bit longer than expected to find a mirror... Is this what you mean? I placed a small mirror on the light table in the center of the field of view, and focused on the (apparently front of the) lens of the camera (100% crop shown).

For holding film from 35mm to 4x5, there's this https://pixl-latr.com/product/pixl-latr/
It has a diffuser built in so you can use daylight as a source and they are located in the UK.

Bormental said:

@Ruub How do you make sure the camera sensor is parallel with the film? I also found this "copy stand" and I do not see any way of adjusting the camera pitch (towards/away): the leg appears to be mounted at 90 degrees, but there's always some sag due to camera+lens weight, usually the bottom tip of the lens leans toward the leg a bit.

If you place a mirror at the bottom of your setup, do you see your lens iris **directly** in the middle of the frame where the cetral focus point is?

Click to expand...

It’s best to have a way to adjust the film holder, not the camera. Since I use enlarger film holders in my setup, I have 4 threaded posts sticking out of my light source with nuts that the film holder then sits on. From there, focus on one corner of the film holder and adjust the other corners height until they’re all in focus. It’s super simple and very reliable.

Ruub said:

It took me a bit longer than expected to find a mirror... Is this what you mean? I placed a small mirror on the light table in the center of the field of view, and focused on the (apparently front of the) lens of the camera (100% crop shown).

Click to expand...

Yes. So, is it in the center?

Adrian Bacon said:

It’s best to have a way to adjust the film holder, not the camera. Since I use enlarger film holders in my setup, I have 4 threaded posts sticking out of my light source with nuts that the film holder then sits on. From there, focus on one corner of the film holder and adjust the other corners height until they’re all in focus. It’s super simple and very reliable.

Click to expand...

After some experimentation, I settled on this copy stand. It's cheap, sturdy, well-sized and gives me perfect alignment. The shoe plate has two screws, that allow you to compensate for a slight sag. Once I realized this, I adjusted it once and do not even bother with the mirror anymore: I have marks on the base board where the center focus point and the negative holder need to be, and go from "let's scan some film" to "36 exposures are done!" in less than 15 minutes. It really is a dream setup.

Bormental said:

After some experimentation, I settled on this copy stand. It's cheap, sturdy, well-sized and gives me perfect alignment. The shoe plate has two screws, that allow you to compensate for a slight sag. Once I realized this, I adjusted it once and do not even bother with the mirror anymore: I have marks on the base board where the center focus point and the negative holder need to be, and go from "let's scan some film" to "36 exposures are done!" in less than 15 minutes. It really is a dream setup.

Click to expand...

I have that same stand, but modified the head so that I can rotate the camera orientation by 90 degrees to facilitate scanning a bunch of different film formats and half frame 135. I don't adjust the head alignment as I'm typically moving the head up and down quite a bit to accommodate different film sizes, so have found that it's easier to adjust the film holder, as the amount of sag that happens with that particular copy stand will vary with head height and weight of the camera you have.

I've written about my method before, but in brief I use a Kaiser RS2 XA copy stand, a Kaiser Slimlite Plano as light source, my D810 + Tokina 100mm macro lens + cable release to capture the frames, and a glassless 6x7 negative carrier to hold the 120 film. The carrier works pretty well, although the inner dimensions are actually a bit smaller than a 6x7 frame, so a little on the long edge gets cut off for those; for 6x6 it is fine.

I have just recently got into 4x5. I wanted a good solution to allow me to digitise the entire captured film area without resorting to using glass sandwiches and the Newton rings they can cause (even ANR glass doesn't always avoid this). In other words I needed a 4x5 holder that would only grip the extreme edges of the film where the blank rebate is, yet still hold it flat. I am not aware of any product currently on the market that will do this, with the possible exception of the Beseler Negaflat carrier, but I heard that damages the film with its grippers, which is a big no no for me. Anyway, long story short I ended up making my own:

I got a 2mm thick stainless steel frame custom laser cut to size, and stuck little rubber feet (the kind you use to stop drawers or cupboard doors banging) to the underside:


The upper surface I then coarsened up with a nail file and superglued it to a thin sheet of magnetised rubber:




I then cut the excess rubber off with a scalpel, leaving the steel frame topped with a layer of magnetised rubber:


I then magnetically aligned this with another sheet of the magnetised rubber, and cut that to exactly the same shape. This left me with an upper frame of magnetised rubber which was precisely aligned with the first, could be peeled off, yet would "snap" back to the correct alignment once the two were reintroduced. I originally envisioned having to glue one edge of the upper rubber to the lower to act as an anchor during this process, but it turned out to be unnecessary, and the magnetic "snap" itself works well and the sandwich holds a 4x5 sheet very flat and securely, despite only having about 1mm of film to grip at each side (even blasts with a rocket blower won't budge it at all).

Here is a shot of this custom rig holding a sheet above the light panel (ignore the crappy contents of the frame, it was literally the first perfunctory exposure I made with the camera just to check everything was working as it should):



It's early days yet, and I have only tested it with a single DSLR frame capture, but it appears to work well. I will need to see how it fares in regards to film flatness with higher magnification and multi-shot stitching.

All the materials for this cost me about £30.

FYI I have now tried the above bespoke holder in conjunction with a higher magnification multi-shot stitch of 9 x D810 frames (in 5:4 crop mode), and it works well. Gives a final digitised version of about 90 megapixels, but I'm sure the film has more to give.

Here is a resized web version of one such 4x5 sheet:



And here is a 100% crop showing a 2% area of the full res version (at the center of the bottom frame edge):



This is TMY-2 developed in Pyrocat-HD btw. I'm interested to see what Delta 100 or TMX will produce.