Will a polarizer help during film digitization with a camera?

[loccdor]

What are the pros and cons of using a polarizer in the film digitization process? If you have stray light bouncing around, wouldn't that help to reduce it? Has anyone here tried it?

 

[Chan Tran]

No it wouldn't help. You should do the process in a dark place of having a hood to cover the lens and the front of the film.

 

[Larry Cloetta]

What are the pros and cons of using a polarizer in the film digitization process? If you have stray light bouncing around, wouldn't that help to reduce it? Has anyone here tried it?

Thank you for not mislabeling this process as “scanning”. The English language thanks you.

 

[John Wiegerink]

Thank you for not mislabeling this process as “scanning”. The English language thanks you.

It might work, but not on your camera. In the "good old" days we used large gel polarizers over our studio lighting to cut reflective hotspots. This was even before strobe flash became popular. I think I still have two 12" dia. polarizers tucked away someplace.

 

[BAC1967]

I noticed when scanning negatives with a digital camera it reduces or eliminates Newton rings from the negative against glass.

 

[loccdor]

I noticed when scanning negatives with a digital camera it reduces or eliminates Newton rings from the negative against glass.

Interesting result that I would not have thought of...

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Interesting result that I would not have thought of...

very interesting indeed; I wonder if this works for enlargers too?

 

[brbo]

And I really wonder if it works at all.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

very interesting indeed; I wonder if this works for enlargers too?

Wouldn't polarizers also cut down on the amount of light? Also, polarizers work most at 90-degree angle to the light and falloff from there. So would the light be equally applied or will you get falloff creating exposing problems?

 

[Chan Tran]

Wouldn't polarizers also cut down on the amount of light? Also, polarizers work most at 90-degree angle to the light and falloff from there. So would the light be equally applied or will you get falloff creating exposing problems?

Polarizer does cut down the amount of light but for digitizing where it doesn't matter much with long exposure time it's not a problem. I don't know about the Newton ring problem as I don't have any glass mounted slides or negatives but as far as stray light I have no problem with that. Just work in a darken room. Doesn't have to be completly dark and make sure the light source doesn't send light to the other size of the film.

 

[_T_]

CMOS sensors have worse noise performance with longer exposures. Also you would have to be more careful about making sure your setup is stable to keep motion blur from reducing your resolution