Seeking advice on how to complete DSLR film scanner solution - Have selected DSLR and Lens

[Robert Ley]

If you are interested in scanning negatives with a digital camera you should checkout this website: https://www.negativelabpro.com/
I have been using this method for a while and it works very well.

 

[loccdor]

@loccdor if you don't mind sharing, what solution did you end up settling on? I'm keeping my eyes open for a future setup and would like to know the perspective of someone just starting out. It's helpful to hear from people who have perfected it but we often forget the growing pains

Hi Shom, thanks for your interest. I used the SmallRig parts copystand that Shijan detailed above with a few small modifications. For the light source I am using the CS-Lite which works very well. No complaints with the stand, camera, lens, or light. I have gotten around 4800 dpi of detail on 35mm frames. The last (and most difficult) part to perfect has been the film holder. Ordinary Matin plastic slide mounts are enough to hold 35mm film flat enough for sharp focus across the frame. But you have to cut individual frames from your film to use them. For medium format I was trying the plastic holder that came with my Epson flatbed scanner, but that one definitely doesn't hold the film flat enough towards the edges. I also tried a glassed enlarger negative carrier, but it was causing newton rings. So the plan is next to try a couple glassless enlarger negative carriers, and if those don't work well enough I will probably break down and purchase the Essential Film Holder.

 

[loccdor]

I should also mention, I tried the Hugin software for stitching multiple sections of medium format frames together. It works well on frames that have enough lines and things in focus, but seems to fail on shallower depth of field images.

 

[shom]

Thanks for the details @loccdor really appreciate the breakdown! I just got an used set of Lomography Digitaliza holders, I haven't had a chance to use them yet but I'm hopeful.
Thank for the reference @Robert Ley

 

[GLS]

So the plan is next to try a couple glassless enlarger negative carriers, and if those don't work well enough I will probably break down and purchase the Essential Film Holder.

I went through all the same steps re: digitising 120.

The EFH does an OK job, but it still doesn't hold the film perfectly flat. The only methods I have found that does that is either:

a) Using an ANR glass sandwich, but then the results suffer in my experience (i.e. shooting through the glass causes a perceptible loss of resolution).
b) Taping the film, emulsion side up, to a single piece of ANR glass. The lens-to-film path is then not obstructed in any way. This gives the best results I've seen for 120, and is the method I currently use. The drawback is it is very slow and tedious to do multiple frames this way. Getting custom-sized high quality ANR glass sheets made for the larger formats (6x12, 6x17) also gets expensive.

 

[loccdor]

Thank you GLS. If the Essential Film Holder is able to keep 120 film of a similar flatness as a plastic slide mount can for 35mm, everything will be within the depth of field at f/10. If not, it sounds like a problem many people have that needs a solution for better scanning speed - perhaps a piece of ANR glass with clamps on the long sides that can be easily engaged/disengaged? The search continues.

 

[GLS]

If not, it sounds like a problem many people have that needs a solution for better scanning speed - perhaps a piece of ANR glass with clamps on the long sides that can be easily engaged/disengaged? The search continues.

Possibly could work but I doubt it would do as good a job as tape. The short sides really need to be held down too to achieve optimal flatness, especially if there is any curl to the film, and especially if it is a PET base.

I use Tesa 4104 tape. It is the same kind used on drum scanners; very strong adhesive yet doesn't leave any residue on the film.

 

[shom]

I went through all the same steps re: digitising 120.

The EFH does an OK job, but it still doesn't hold the film perfectly flat. The only methods I have found that does that is either:

a) Using an ANR glass sandwich, but then the results suffer in my experience (i.e. shooting through the glass causes a perceptible loss of resolution).
b) Taping the film, emulsion side up, to a single piece of ANR glass. The lens-to-film path is then not obstructed in any way. This gives the best results I've seen for 120, and is the method I currently use. The drawback is it is very slow and tedious to do multiple frames this way. Getting custom-sized high quality ANR glass sheets made for the larger formats (6x12, 6x17) also gets expensive.

The ANR glass sandwich seems like the "only" way to keep it completely flat throughout the entire film surface. I wonder if scanning with a higher resolution sensor (or pixel shift cameras) and then binning it down might be able to produce better quality.

 

[GLS]

The ANR glass sandwich seems like the "only" way to keep it completely flat throughout the entire film surface

Not really. If the tape-down method is done correctly the film is still held as near to perfectly flat as makes no difference. Perfect alignment of the film and sensor planes is also crucially important (I find a small mirror is the best way of doing this). Using pixel-shift I end up with approx. 140 megapixel images from a frame of 6x6 (without stitching), so it is very unforgiving of even the slightest imperfection in digitisation technique.

 

[Edgy01]

The solution to your problems is very simple. Don’t get too exotic, because you don’t have to. With limited space, here is the solution. Back when I bought my first digital camera I bought a Nikon Coolscan 950. Simple, yet effective to the point of being able to enlarge to 11 by 14 prints. When such digital cameras first appeared they inherently had a macro mode. Close focusing. Someone started making a small device that you simply put onto the front, like an accessory filter, and it allowed you to put a mounted slide or unmounted film into it. It’s much like a slide copier, from the olden days! I will try to find one on eBay And send you the link. Then get yourself an old Nikon Coolpix camera for next to nothing and you are set. I think that thing was less than $50 and worked extremely well. Buy an old used Coolpix camera and copyaway!

link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/2742996513...GlSaJiReC&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=EMAIL



dan

 

[250swb]

The solution to your problems is very simple. Don’t get too exotic, because you don’t have to. With limited space, here is the solution. Back when I bought my first digital camera I bought a Nikon Coolscan 950. Simple, yet effective to the point of being able to enlarge to 11 by 14 prints. When such digital cameras first appeared they inherently had a macro mode. Close focusing. Someone started making a small device that you simply put onto the front, like an accessory filter, and it allowed you to put a mounted slide or unmounted film into it. It’s much like a slide copier, from the olden days! I will try to find one on eBay And send you the link. Then get yourself an old Nikon Coolpix camera for next to nothing and you are set. I think that thing was less than $50 and worked extremely well. Buy an old used Coolpix camera and copyaway!

link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/2742996513...GlSaJiReC&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=EMAIL



dan

I can't help but think a Nikon Coolpix isn't going to reach the highest quality given that's what the thread is about. Simply copying a negative isn't the problem. But for the record Nikon do make a dedicated adapter called the ES-2 that fits onto the front of a macro lens and allows you to copy film with almost any digital camera. The problem is that it's only for copying 35mm.

I've recently been doing some back to back tests and I've disproved some things to myself and been baffled by some of the problems people are having because I can't reproduce them. I'd been using a 60mm Nikkor micro lens for all my copying with a Nikon Z7, up until I got the new Z 105mm micro which gets rave reviews for sharpness. So first I tested them both with the same negative and found,... there is barely any difference in quality in the lenses, but the 105 just edges it. I use a Kaiser Slimlite Plano for my light source so then went through all the options I could think of for mounting the 6x6 negative to see if one stood out. And none did. I taped the negative directly to the 'glass' (the Tamiya yellow masking tape is excellent), I used a heavy piece of ANR glass to sandwich the negative, I used multiple negative holders from old scanners and enlargers, I made my own negative holder. And then I tried again with 6x12, 4x5, and 35mm and every combination came out equally sharp.

What I take away from this is that 'enough is enough', and too little is too little. Everything can be a struggle without a good lens, or enough megapixels, or a good light source, and the peripherals like negative holders start to play more of a part than they should. So rather than thinking a new negative holder will make everything better keep it simple, use a good LED light source and sandwich the negative with ANR glass of sufficient size and weight, not a small piece scavenged from an enlarger.

 

[loccdor]

Where are you guys getting your ANR glass?

 

[Edgy01]

I can't help but think a Nikon Coolpix isn't going to reach the highest quality given that's what the thread is about. Simply copying a negative isn't the problem. But for the record Nikon do make a dedicated adapter called the ES-2 that fits onto the front of a macro lens and allows you to copy film with almost any digital camera. The problem is that it's only for copying 35mm.

I've recently been doing some back to back tests and I've disproved some things to myself and been baffled by some of the problems people are having because I can't reproduce them. I'd been using a 60mm Nikkor micro lens for all my copying with a Nikon Z7, up until I got the new Z 105mm micro which gets rave reviews for sharpness. So first I tested them both with the same negative and found,... there is barely any difference in quality in the lenses, but the 105 just edges it. I use a Kaiser Slimlite Plano for my light source so then went through all the options I could think of for mounting the 6x6 negative to see if one stood out. And none did. I taped the negative directly to the 'glass' (the Tamiya yellow masking tape is excellent), I used a heavy piece of ANR glass to sandwich the negative, I used multiple negative holders from old scanners and enlargers, I made my own negative holder. And then I tried again with 6x12, 4x5, and 35mm and every combination came out equally sharp.

What I take away from this is that 'enough is enough', and too little is too little. Everything can be a struggle without a good lens, or enough megapixels, or a good light source, and the peripherals like negative holders start to play more of a part than they should. So rather than thinking a new negative holder will make everything better keep it simple, use a good LED light source and sandwich the negative with ANR glass of sufficient size and weight, not a small piece scavenged from an enlarger.

You are dead wrong. Those little Coolpix cameras do a significant job. He didn’t say that he needed a system capable of creating large files. The photography world is obsessed with large file sizes. It’s unnecessary. Have you never scanned a transparency with such an arrangement? Well I have. I don’t need to resort to running a 2-1/4” transparency through my Nikon Super Coolscan 5000ED to make a decent print. Keep in mind two numbers. 72 and 300. That represents the number of pixels per inch truly needed. The 72 is for online hosting of images, and the 300 dpi is for printing. Of course, these are a bit of a generalization, but you should get the idea. He’s up against a space issue.
dan

 

[GLS]

Where are you guys getting your ANR glass?

Knight Optical.

https://www.knightoptical.com/

 

[brbo]

You are dead wrong. Those little Coolpix cameras do a significant job.

I think we would all like to see a few scans made with a Coolpix camera at this point.

Keep in mind two numbers. 72 and 300. That represents the number of pixels per inch truly needed. The 72 is for online hosting of images, and the 300 dpi is for printing. Of course, these are a bit of a generalization, but you should get the idea. He’s up against a space issue.

That doesn't mean that you can scan 135 film with 72dpi. I'd say that pretty much nobody scans 135 film to display thumbnails online. Besides, world has moved past 72dpi screens. I have a computer that is 7 years old now and has a 218dpi screen. If I want to display a 135 frame at 12" on the long side (not nearly enough to fill the screen!) I would need to scan it at 2000dpi.

 

[loccdor]

That doesn't mean that you can scan 135 film with 72dpi. I'd say that pretty much nobody scans 135 film to display thumbnails online. Besides, world has moved past 72dpi screens. I have a computer that is 7 years old now and has a 218dpi screen. If I want to display a 135 frame at 12" on the long side (not nearly enough to fill the screen!) I would need to scan it at 2000dpi.

Indeed, think about how large screens have become. I may be an extreme case, but when I view photos online I'm actually sitting 5 feet from a 65 inch 4K television.

When I was printing a 9x12 inch photo book, using 2400 dpi scans from my old Epson, there was a visible lack of quality in a full spread 35mm frame compared to a 6x9. But I think the 35mm would have been fine for that with DSLR scanning.

 

[Bronson Dugnutt]

Here's a quick attempt from two very different Coolpix cameras. The 700 has a close focus of 10cm but is only enough for about 1:4. The P340 will almost do 1:1 handheld.

Coolpix 700, crop from 1600x1200 TIF
Coolpix P340, crop from RAW