What aperture are you digitizing at? If you’re up at f/8-f11 this is a lot less of an issue.
I have tried numerous film holders, and none of them allow this luxury. As you advance film, the optimal focus field varies from shot to shot because the film surface always bends slightly, unless you have your negative sandwiched between two pieces of ANR glass.
What aperture are you digitizing at? If you’re up at f/8-f11 this is a lot less of an issue.
As I've already mentioned, this is my experience as well. I usually shoot as close to f11 as possible -- usually a 75mm lens.
He wants to use his camera as a scanner...Scanner lens.
I will be using a Nikon D800e. Currently I have been using a Nikkor 60mm macro lens and it's "ok" but am wondering if using an APO 80mm Schneider enlarging lens might be better.
Eric
I know that. What I never will understand: Just with the monetary value of the time you gain by using ICE you already can buy an entire farm of scanners.
Dslr capture is certainly not ideal - it’s a hack - like reinventing something that previously existed. But I have a fairly decent setup which cost me nothing - I had the Dslr, the lenses (macro / enlarger) a copy stand, a light box, wireless flash gun. All fairly standard stuff. I don’t need a 20 year old scanner and an old computer running ancient OS etc. I’ve done all that with other gear. Not for me.
Dslr capture is certainly not ideal - it’s a hack - like reinventing something that previously existed.
It is all relative. If I saw my current camera-based setup back in 2003 when I was scanning with a Coolscan, I would have been begging to take my kidney for it. So... ideal or not, it's the best film scanning technology under $15K the world has ever seen. If we put our dreams aside, the fact is that there's never been a better time to scan film at home. If this was available back then, maybe I wouldn't have stopped shooting film to begin with.
When it comes to using single exposures with a digital camera to digitize film, "Scanning" is one of those commonly used terms that makes no logical sense - "scanning" usually implying a moving sensor and/or multiple exposures stitched together - but like many other commonly used terms, its familiarity seems to succeed over logic.
I just found out a suspicion of mine was valid. The scan is sharper if I set the camera to "liveview" since there is no mirror movement during exposure. The difference was very noticeable sadly. I use a 10 second self timer setting BTW.
May be I should just use my mirrorless camera .....
I use a wireless TTL flashgun as a light source. No shake.
No need to make it sound as such, at any given time you can find on eBay 3 dozen of film scanners with ICE. Even in the absurd situation that you would have to search for one, the time invested is way less than what it will take you to retouch all the dust and scratches from your film.
Vibrations is a big and often underreported issue with camera scanning. This get real bad real quick once you try to go above 3000dpi. A truck passing by your house, a wind gust, or a refrigerator kicking in nearby - any of these can erase the difference between a 26MP sensor and a 50MP one. Moreover, some apartment buildings (multi-story toothpick&cardboard complexes common in the southern US) are effectively uninhabitable from the camera-scanning perspective: the micro-jitter never goes away.
I see 3 possible ways to address it:
The #1 is hard to achieve with continuous light sources. FilmToaster is expensive. My approach is closer to #2. Before digitizing, I wait for good weather (no wind) and do it after 11pm when everyone goes to bed and the house stops shaking. Having two separate desks helps too: one for the camera stand, and another for your computer which is tethered. I advance the film in the negative holder, wait for 2-3 seconds, then press the mouse button while trying not to touch the desk. And even with all this preparation, pixel shift is a gamble so I stopped using it.
- Increase the intensity of a light source to achieve much higher shutter speeds
- Have the copy stand or a tripod placed on solid foundation, preferably on the ground level. Digitize when there's less disturbances around.
- Adopt a more rigid negative mounting system with a hard linkage to camera+lens, like Nikon's ES-2 or FilmToaster.
I live in a standard toothpic&cardboard house so my experience isn't atypical for the rural US. From this perspective I miss Texas where single-story houses built on top of a solid concrete slab were common. That would have been ideal.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?