Useful to shoot some slide film – BEOON+M10

[Guest]

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"Scanning" old film shots with the BEOON, the photo below made me think that its worthwhile to shoot transparency film occasionally: had I shot this with the M10, I would have underexposed by ⅔rds  of a stop and lifted the shadows enough to show some detail inside the doorway; but in the Ektachrome slide there is no detail in the deep shadow — and there's the rapid fallout of light in the top-right of the frame, under the roof of the verandah we're standing on. This dark area is what accentuates the color of the shot. Color negative film would, in this shot, also not have the same look. So, shooting this with the M10, you would to have to be very conscious of wanting this light fall-off. My feeling is that if you shoot and scan transparency film occasionally, you can keep this look in mind much more easily when you process a digital shot. 

 

I should add that digitalizing slides with the M10 on the BEOON is fast and easy. My feeling is that the dynamic range of the M10 handles even dense slide easily, and most of the file only a little adjustment in LR is needed.

 

 

M6 | Summicron 35v4 | Ektachrome E100S

Wiang Pa Pao

 

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Alone in Bangkok essay on BURN Magazine

Edited August 18, 2017 by Guest

[A miller]

sounds sacrilege 

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[Guest]

Adam - what sound like sacrilege — but keep in mind that I'm not religious.

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Alone in Bangkok essay on BURN Magazine

 

 

 

Note: to moderator: Please be so kind to correct the spelling in the thread title from "BEEON" to BEOON".

[A miller]

Adam - what sound like sacrilege — but keep in mind that I'm not religious.

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Alone in Bangkok essay on BURN Magazine

 

 

 

Note: to moderator: Please be so kind to correct the spelling in the thread title from "BEEON" to BEOON".

 

fair enough

[Guest]

Somewhat surprised that no one has wanted to pick up the issues for discussion on this thread. My main point was that color transparency film provides a color reference for scanning that can be a useful experience even for digital photography. Before I ever used a digital camera, around 1998 or so, I shot E100S and Kodachrome because color slides — with their beauty and high resolution — provided a color reference for processing (color correcting) scans that I used for printing digitally, having given up printing with Cibachorme.

 

Today, using color negative film, you don't have this color reference — and I find that my "color memory", as well as most people,  is poor. That is also the case for processing digital color. Just look at the M10 Image Thread: the images in that thread, including mine, don't reflect the superb color that can be achieved with the M10.

 

My feeling is that many people would benefit from shooting and scanning some transparency film in order to form an idea of the color look that they may want to get in processing M10 files. The irony, is that, using the M10 to digitalize transparency film results in files that require surprisingly little post-processing — less than I had to do when scanning with the Imacon Precision III scanner! Also, the BEOON copy stand makes digitalization easy, much faster than making high-resolution scans. That makes me toy with the idea of shooting some Ektachrome if it indeed it will really be sold again towards the end of this year. That is despite the fact that I really also like Portra 400 and 800.

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[Guest]

Below is digitalization of an Agfa Scala image with just minor tonal adjustments, for it to look exactly like the slide. Perhaps no adjustments would have been necessary if I had used Live View on the 10 and enabled matrix metering for the auto exposure that I use.

 

What it shows is that the BEOON + M10 combination is a great alternative to scanning — and much faster. My feeling is that the results in scanning slides are at least as good that I got from my old Imacon Precision III scanner, which has a true optical resolution 6300 dpi and a dMax of 4.2. I doubt a scanner with a dMax of 3.6 (equivalent to about 1½ stops less dynamic range) could scan transparencies so easily: I saw a post by Borge stating that he found it difficult to scan slides with his Plustek.

 

Taken with M6 at Sop Kai Village , Mae Taeng, Chiang Mai

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Edited August 21, 2017 by Guest

[Steve Ricoh]

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Just wish I could get my hands on a BEOON at sensible money. As in most aspects of purchasing consumer goods, scarcity pushes the prices up and up, especially good examples. I'll keep looking.

 

Nowhereman, are you using a 50mm F/L?

[UliWer]

Your examples are very impressive, Nowhereman!

 

What sort of light source do you use for the BEOON?

[Guest]

Steve - I lucked out last week and bought a second BEOON for $159, so now I can keep one in North America and another one in Southeast Asia. It's really in perfect condition with the original box and manual, though I don't really care about that. I happened to find it on eBay three minutes after it was listed and bought it outright at the listing price. That was after I had lost an auction for another one in similar condition, on which I bid up to to $256, but some else who knew how to get a bid in at the last second got it for $265. I then offered $265 on still another one listed at $395, but the seller rejected that and told me he had already rejected $299 earlier: he is the original owner and it's in mint condition. BEOON prices seem to be rising, as many people now think it's a good solution. 

 

In buying a BEOON the essential things to look for are that the 1:1 mask should not be bent and that the hole on the base, into which the pin on the mask fits, should not be enlarged — because then the film frame cannot be aligned properly. On the other hand, if the M-mount on top f the BEOON is skewed if can be aligned properly by unscrewing there tiny screws and rotating the mount until the camera bottom is parallel to the to white spots on the top part of the BEOON; the manual describes how to do this, but, confusingly, it's in the section on LTM cameras. The amazing thing is that I managed to get the correct position on the first try.

 

Originally, last year I started using the DR Summicron-50. Then, on someone's recommendation, I bought a Focotar 2 enlarging lens; but, not having done any rigorous testing, couldn't see a difference in the rough type of Tri-X shots I was making, in which softness in the corners did not matter. Last week, when I started digitalizing E100S and Kodachrome transparencies, I tried one image with these two lenses and could see immediately that the corners were much sharper with the Focotar — a big improvement. It's simply because enlarging lenses are designed for a flat field, while macro lenses are not.

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[Guest]

Your examples are very impressive, Nowhereman!

What sort of light source do you use for the BEOON?

 

UliWer - Thanks, I'm really happy with the BEOON, and certainly prefer it to the Imacon, for the reasons stated above. I'm using an Autograph Light Pad 920 LX that I bought from Amazon or B&H.

[Ko.Fe.]

My 200$ scanner does it with 48-bit color depth and it is super easy comparing to any camera rig. IMO. Dust removal included....

But if you have 6.5K$ camera and 200$ copy stand, why not.  

[Guest]

I haven't been posting family pictures, but here's one from some 40 years ago, shot in Chiang Mai with an M3 and a Summicron 50 lens on Kodachrome 25 film. Whatever anyone says, my experience is that it's very difficult to make a scan of a transparency like this with a scanner with a maximum dMax of 3.6. No, this BEOON+M10+Focotar 2 scan is better than what I was getting with the Imacon Precision III, and required only minor adjustments to match the breathtaking colors of the Kodachrome 25 slide.

 

 

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[UliWer]

Is this the Focotar 2 1:4.5/50mm or the Focotar II 1:5.6/100mm you use?

[Guest]

It's the Focotar II 50mm f/4.5 lens. The BEOON 1:1 mask needs a 50mm lens to match a 35mm film frame. With regular M-mount lenses you use the A+D extension tubes; with a 50mm enlarger lenses, which have an M39 thread mount, you use the B+C+D tubes, which is not mentioned in the manual. Some people say that a Rodagon enlarger lens is better than the Focotar, but I don't know.

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[A miller]

doesn't this workflow result in a file that is only as big as a RAW file from an M10, which is 30-40MB?

[Guest]

Adam - Yes, but that is not significant because the scanner files that are, say, 120MB don't carry more information but contain a huge amount of empty bits, although I don't know the reasons for that.

 

For example, if I take an M10 digitalization of a B&W negative of a color negative (a DNG file) and run it through through a program called MakeTiff, which makes a "linear TIFF", the resulting TIFF file is about 120MB but doesn't have any more information than the original M10 24MB DNG. You can read up on this on the ColorPerfect website. I believe that scanners that produce 120MB do something similar.

 

The important thing is the resolution and dMax. As I wrote earlier, the Imacon Precision III that I used had a true optical resolution of 6300ppi and a dMax of 4.2, much better than what the Plustek scanners can produce. Yet, my feeling is that the digitalizations I made with the BEOON + M10 + Focotar 2 combination are at least as good as what I got from the Imacon, if not better. Also, what I do now with the BEOON takes me 5 seconds per frame, including positions the negative in the mask — the Imacon took 12-15min for a full resolution scan, and required more extensive color correction and processing.

 

As an experiment, I just exported from Lightroom an M10 file as a "full-size TIFF": it produced a 143MB TIFF file, so there you are.

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Alone in Bangkok essay on BURN Magazine

Edited August 23, 2017 by Guest

[philipus]

Well I read the first post and thought, ok that's a pretty strangely exposed frame because the shadows are so extremely dense. I realise it can be due to many things, of course, like quality of the light at the time and how it fell, the film, meter behaviour etc and most importantly exposure decisions, so I certainly don't mean this as criticism.

 

For me, as a film-only photographer who is also happy to scan, any comparison to digital is irrelevant but I shoot and scan slide film more than any other emulsion and have very little problems bringing out details in the shadows.

 

Ultimately it is whatever works for the individual. Some prefer to digitize others to scan.

 

But of course, the more people shoot film and in particular slide film, the better.

 

Philip

[wlaidlaw]

I will be starting to use a BEOON I have bought, when I get back to the UK in October. I will probably use either my M240 or SL. The SL with its Retina Resolution VF might be better for optimum focusing. I will either use a Zeiss ZM 50 Planar, a 50mm Rodagon or a 60mm Companon S. I presume it is best to take in RAW and convert (I will use Capture One). Is it best to use a fixed colour temperature for WB and I suppose it then depends on the light box for what would be ideal? I am going to get a new LED light box, as I know when I tried copying old glass 1/4 plate slides with a Novoflex bellows, rather than a BEOON, I was getting light and dark stripes with my elderly Jessops light box, which uses 4 small fluorescent tubes as its light source. I will probably get a LitEnergy light box from SpeedGraphic, as that has a calibrated colour temperature of 5400ºK, thus may be better than the cheaper ones on Amazon. Are folks using a shield round the BEOON to eliminate stray light? 

 

Wilson

[Steve Ricoh]

I will be starting to use a BEOON I have bought, when I get back to the UK in October. I will probably use either my M240 or SL. The SL with its Retina Resolution VF might be better for optimum focusing. I will either use a Zeiss ZM 50 Planar, a 50mm Rodagon or a 60mm Companon S. I presume it is best to take in RAW and convert (I will use Capture One). Is it best to use a fixed colour temperature for WB and I suppose it then depends on the light box for what would be ideal? I am going to get a new LED light box, as I know when I tried copying old glass 1/4 plate slides with a Novoflex bellows, rather than a BEOON, I was getting light and dark stripes with my elderly Jessops light box, which uses 4 small fluorescent tubes as its light source. I will probably get a LitEnergy light box from SpeedGraphic, as that has a calibrated colour temperature of 5400ºK, thus may be better than the cheaper ones on Amazon. Are folks using a shield round the BEOON to eliminate stray light? 

 

Wilson

On reading your post I headed over to SpeedGraphic; the A4 LitEnergy is quoted as being 5200K

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[A miller]

 

Adam - Yes, but that is not significant because the scanner files that are, say, 120MB don't carry more information but contain a huge amount of empty bits, although I don't know the reasons for that.

 

For example, if I take an M10 digitalization of a B&W negative of a color negative (a DNG file) and run it through through a program called MakeTiff, which makes a "linear TIFF", the resulting TIFF file is about 120MB but doesn't have any more information than the original M10 24MB DNG. You can read up on this on the ColorPerfect website. I believe that scanners that produce 120MB do something similar.

 

The important thing is the resolution and dMax. As I wrote earlier, the Imacon Precision III that I used had a true optical resolution of 6300ppi and a dMax of 4.2, much better than what the Plustek scanners can produce. Yet, my feeling is that the digitalizations I made with the BEOON + M10 + Focotar 2 combination are at least as good as what I got from the Imacon, if not better. Also, what I do now with the BEOON takes me 5 seconds per frame, including positions the negative in the mask — the Imacon took 12-15min for a full resolution scan, and required more extensive color correction and processing.

 

As an experiment, I just exported from Lightroom an M10 file as a "full-size TIFF": it produced a 143MB TIFF file, so there you are.

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Alone in Bangkok essay on BURN Magazine

 

 

really, so you are telling me that 30MB on your method is the same as 140MB on my method wth my Coolscsan 9000 (scanning 135mm-size slides)???  Me thinks not; but then again for most purposes (e.g., web and small to medium size prints) it may not matter.

Edited August 23, 2017 by A miller