After looking through a lot of my camera-scans of 35mm b&w negatives from the past few years, I can say I was able to make an improvement in sharpness by reducing camera-shake. But I can't say for sure which improvement to my system made the most difference: switching from a tripod to a copy stand - or getting a brighter light source which gave me shorter shutter speeds. I was also able to get some additional improvement but upgrading my lens.
tl;dr
In my very first set-up I mounted my Fuji XT-1 camera to a tripod with inverted center column <photo here>. And my light source was a generic LED light panel. At my camera's native ISO of 200, and stopped down to something like f/11, my typical shutter speeds were 1/3rd to 1/6th second. After sharpening in Photoshop, I thought the quality of those images was not too bad. But we always hope for more.
Next, I replaced the tripod with an ALZO Copy stand, and 4 months later I replaced the generic LED panel with a brighter one. With the brighter light, I was able to use shutter speeds in the 1/80th - 1/150th sec range. My camera-scans were definitely a little sharper after these two upgrades. But I can't say for sure if one helped more than the other.
I started out using a Schneider-Kreuznach Componon-S 5.6 / 100mm Enlarger Lens on a bellows. I think I paid $40US for the lens in 2019 (eBay). In 2020 I switched to a Rodenstock APO-Rodagon D 75mm f/4.0 which I bought on eBay for $160. The improvement in sharpness was not huge because the enlarger lens was already doing a pretty good job. But I did see a decernable improvement in the fine details. With the Rodenstock APO lens I am now doing much less sharpening in post-processing - in many cases, none, other than Lightroom defaults.
tl;dr
In my very first set-up I mounted my Fuji XT-1 camera to a tripod with inverted center column <photo here>. And my light source was a generic LED light panel. At my camera's native ISO of 200, and stopped down to something like f/11, my typical shutter speeds were 1/3rd to 1/6th second. After sharpening in Photoshop, I thought the quality of those images was not too bad. But we always hope for more.
Next, I replaced the tripod with an ALZO Copy stand, and 4 months later I replaced the generic LED panel with a brighter one. With the brighter light, I was able to use shutter speeds in the 1/80th - 1/150th sec range. My camera-scans were definitely a little sharper after these two upgrades. But I can't say for sure if one helped more than the other.
I started out using a Schneider-Kreuznach Componon-S 5.6 / 100mm Enlarger Lens on a bellows. I think I paid $40US for the lens in 2019 (eBay). In 2020 I switched to a Rodenstock APO-Rodagon D 75mm f/4.0 which I bought on eBay for $160. The improvement in sharpness was not huge because the enlarger lens was already doing a pretty good job. But I did see a decernable improvement in the fine details. With the Rodenstock APO lens I am now doing much less sharpening in post-processing - in many cases, none, other than Lightroom defaults.
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