Scanning slides and negatives using a camera

[IkarusJohn]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Please excuse me if this has already been covered.  I did a search and couldn't find anything on topic.

 

I have about 30 years of slides and negatives, 135mm and 6x6 formats.  The results I'm getting from my Epson flatbed scanner and the 135mm scanner (I forget its name) are okay, but I'm wondering if I might get better results if I use my SL(601).  Is this correct?

 

Can anyone advise if this is worth doing, what I need equipment wise (presumably some sort of holder and a uniform whit background) and if it is feasible to photograph negatives as well as slides?

 

Or am I wasting my time?

 

Cheers

John

[a.noctilux]

John,

 

Yes, it can be done with ease.

The result can be good with slides.

Negatives can be less good because of the orange mask that need some corrections in post.

 

Have a look here :

https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/275849-useful-to-shoot-some-slide-film-%E2%80%93-beoonm10/

 

https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/276684-beoon-enlarger-lenses-to-avoid-recommended-open-thread-please-add-your-experience-for-benefit-of-others/

 

those with Leitz BEOON,

but with a bellow and/or macro lens this can be done also.

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[philipus]

Check the scanning forum at RFF, there's a lot of info there.

 

Please excuse me if this has already been covered.  I did a search and couldn't find anything on topic.

 

I have about 30 years of slides and negatives, 135mm and 6x6 formats.  The results I'm getting from my Epson flatbed scanner and the 135mm scanner (I forget its name) are okay, but I'm wondering if I might get better results if I use my SL(601).  Is this correct?

 

Can anyone advise if this is worth doing, what I need equipment wise (presumably some sort of holder and a uniform whit background) and if it is feasible to photograph negatives as well as slides?

 

Or am I wasting my time?

 

Cheers

John

[Jossie]

Hello,

 

Andreas Beitinger gives a description of his equipment and compares the results with those from a Nikon scanner. He claims the results are comparable in quality with a Nikon scanner. One caveat is there, however: IR-based dust and scratch removal will not be possible. Colour management is possible using e.g. Argyll.

 

Also colour negatives are not a problem. Removing the orange mask is essentially a white balance issue. For details see CFS-244 (http://www.c-f-systems.com/Docs/NegativePositiveCFS-244.pdf sorry, the link in this forum always works only once).

 

Hermann-Josef

[IkarusJohn]

Thank you Hermann-Josef, Philipus & Arnaud.

 

It seems like mastering my scanner and the scan software might be a better use of my time.

[frame-it]

https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/257324-the-unthinkable-switching-from-vuescan-to-silverfast/page-5?do=findComment&comment=3560309

 

well, most of page 5 covers this

 

 

 

 

and also Godfrey's setup https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/286558-a-personal-cl-review/?p=3560376

 

Please excuse me if this has already been covered.  I did a search and couldn't find anything on topic.

 

I have about 30 years of slides and negatives, 135mm and 6x6 formats.  The results I'm getting from my Epson flatbed scanner and the 135mm scanner (I forget its name) are okay, but I'm wondering if I might get better results if I use my SL(601).  Is this correct?

 

Can anyone advise if this is worth doing, what I need equipment wise (presumably some sort of holder and a uniform whit background) and if it is feasible to photograph negatives as well as slides?

 

Or am I wasting my time?

 

Cheers

John

Edited September 22, 2018 by frame-it

[adan]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

"Duplicating" slides was done with cameras for decades before scanners came along. I used to get film "dupes" made of my color slides, when sending copies of travel stories/photos to multiple newspapers for publication.

 

Honeywell, when it was the U.S. Pentax distributor in the 50s and 60s, created the "Repronar" - a single copying unit with a variable-brightness (and even filterable) "stage" or lightbox, bellows, and a Pentax body modified for a waist-level finder, etc. etc.

 

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/honeywell-repronar-model-805a-slide-1732225660

 

You might be able to hack one of those to hold an SL body, with an old Leica-R bellows and lens. Or use it as a model to build something similar yourself.

 

As with any photo-replicating system, it all comes down to: quality of the light source, quality of the lens, and quality of the operator.

 

Ideally, for 1:1 reproductions, a lens optically designed for that scale and for bellows mounting - a true macro prime lens (Elmar 65mm or Elmarit-R 60mm or 90 Macro-M), or even better, a micro-lens (Leitz Micro-Summar, Photar, Milar - or similar from Pentax, Nikon, etc.), or an enlarging lens - will give the best resolution. The dedicated 1:1 lenses in your scanners are similar. (NB - the micro lenses have ungodly-short focal lengths (12.5mm, 16mm, 24mm). But they are not "wide-angles" - that is just to increase their magnification to 10x or 30x on a given bellows length, when needed.)

 

https://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-wiki.en/index.php/SUMMAR

 

The Repronar device came with a Pentax 5 cm f/4 "Repronar II" lens - essentially a darkroom-enlarger lens, like the Leitz Focotars.

 

As you no doubt know from scanning, slides have a ferocious density range, and it is often hard to squeeze detail out of their dense shadows without the highlights flaring. Honeywell offered an accessory for the Repronar that was basically a very thin (1-2mm/16th-inch) optically-flat ~4x5" piece of glass that mounted at 45° between the slide and the imaging lens, to bounce "fill light" from a secondary light box into the image path, to "open up" slides' shadow areas.

 

Not that you need or want to check all those boxes yourself - just some historical ideas you might want to borrow from, if you put together your own system.

[IkarusJohn]

Thanks Andy & frame-it

[philipus]

My apologies, I forgot to answer the most important question in your OP, John - whether you'd be wasting your time.

 

I tried digitizing using an EOS 5D2 and the 100L macro with the film on a simple light table. The results easily matched what I get from my Coolscan V ED and it was a surprisingly quick affair to shoot a whole roll once the workflow had been set up.

 

The one thing I didn't like much was the lack of digital ICE for dust but now, several years later, I am doing fine without that function on an X1 and use an Ilford Antistaticum cloth which works like magic. Sure I need to spot the scans but it usually takes just a minute or even less.

 

There are lots of posts online about getting rid of the orange mask on colour negative films but the easier approach is just to use the Photoshop plugin ColorPerfect.

 

If you have a suitable digital camera and lens it's a very very simple thing to set up and try.

 

br

Philip

 

 

Thank you Hermann-Josef, Philipus & Arnaud.

It seems like mastering my scanner and the scan software might be a better use of my time.

[frame-it]

you can just use the SRDx plugin for Photoshop

 

https://www.picture-plugins.com/product-information/

 

[ramarren]

Please excuse me if this has already been covered.  I did a search and couldn't find anything on topic.

 

I have about 30 years of slides and negatives, 135mm and 6x6 formats.  The results I'm getting from my Epson flatbed scanner and the 135mm scanner (I forget its name) are okay, but I'm wondering if I might get better results if I use my SL(601).  Is this correct?

 

Can anyone advise if this is worth doing, what I need equipment wise (presumably some sort of holder and a uniform whit background) and if it is feasible to photograph negatives as well as slides? ..

I've been digitizing transparencies and prints, both positives and negatives, since 1984. Thousands of them.

For the first decade I did it as part of my work with incredibly expensive machines that the company paid for.

 

I bought my first film and flatbed scanners in the middle 1990s so I could do my own work at home. For 35mm, a good film scanner (mine is a Nikon Coolscan V ED now) and experience with good scanning software (I use VueScan) produces excellent results and can be reasonably efficient. But it's never quick. Larger format film requires a much more expensive scanner and is significantly slower, if much higher resolution. I have never really needed the extreme resolution.

 

With the Sony A7 and then with the Leica M-P240 and SL I started switching over to camera copy instead of scanning larger formats. This proved so successful for medium format scanning, netting an excellent quality 16 Mpixel scan, such that I sold the Nikon Super Coolscan 9000. I then turned my attention to 35mm and found I could get consistent and fast results with that too once I improved my copy equipment (better copy stand, improved negative handling jig).

 

When I sold the SL, I thought long and hard about this and bought the CL body. It turns out the CL body is even easier to get quality digitizations of negatives using copy techniques than the SL ... the smaller format proves easier to work with, due to less optical magnification needed, and returns the same digital resolution.

 

So that's what I do now: I use the CL along with a Macro-Elmarit-R 60mm, Macro-Elmar-R 100mm, and Summicron-R 50mm lens kit on a Novoflex copy stand and focusing rail, a Leica Focusing Bellows-R, a flat panel light box, and my own design film handling jig. The setup can handle film formats from Minox (8x11mm) to 6x9 cm, and prints up to 8x12 inch (larger than that I switch to LED studio lights and a vertical capture jig). The raw exposures are processed in Lightroom; negatives processed using my own custom made camera calibration profile that does the image inversion for B&W and color negatives, which I then output to positive TIFF masters for finish rendering.

 

While I still have the Nikon Coolscan and Epson flatbed scanners, I haven't used them for the past year or two other than very occasionally. The quality and consistency of my digitization is now good enough, and it's much faster to setup and capture a hundred frames, probably by a factor of two or more. Once captured, I can process the frames either in batches quickly or one at a time at my leisure.

[Jossie]

@frame-it

 

did you test SRDx?

[DaveM3]

I have had decent results with 6x6 negs using a Nikon DSLR on a Benbo tripod pointed down over a cheap slim LED light pad and some "museum glass" (which you can buy from any decent picture framing shop) to hold down the negs.  The museum glass is coated so you don't get problems with reflections and other aberrations.

 

I could do with a Macro lens or maybe extension tubes for 35mm film.

[oliviersm]

I'm currently looking to do exactly the same with my Leica M10-P. I am considering buying either the Leica R 60mm 2.8 or the Leica R 100mm 4. I really can't test out the focal lengths. Any tips on which might be better to optimise the coverage of my M10 sensor? I'll be digitising 35mm & 120mm negatives.

 

Thanks,
Olivier

 

[Bobitybob]

If you like building your own stuff, you could try this https://hackaday.com/2020/12/11/still-got-film-to-scan-this-lego-and-raspberry-pi-scanner-is-for-you/

 

[oliviersm]

I love building my own stuff, I'm just terrible at it.

[a.noctilux]

14 minutes ago, oliviersm said:

I'm currently looking to do exactly the same with my Leica M10-P. I am considering buying either the Leica R 60mm 2.8 or the Leica R 100mm 4. I really can't test out the focal lengths. Any tips on which might be better to optimise the coverage of my M10 sensor? I'll be digitising 35mm & 120mm negatives.

 

Thanks,
Olivier

 

Olivier,

As I have them for a while, some years ago, I managed to copy with them.

My conclusion is ( for my use of course) :

- 2.8/60mm is more manageable to use for slide copying with it's macro-adapter to reach 1:1

- 2.8/100mm Apo-Macro is a "bit" better but very heavy/large and even "better" flatter field with the Elpro to reach 1.1:1

as side note, I had also copied 24x65 Xpan negatives/slides, no need of Elpro,

 

so for usual copying 64/100 Iso slide, 60mm is good enough for 24Mpix, but with more pixels and less grainy film, I'd use the Apo 100mm

[oliviersm]

Thank you Arnaud, the 60mm was what I was leaning towards, and now with your point on manageability, it's definitely the way to go for me. As hassle free as possible is important for me here. I was hoping to purchase the macro adapter for the M and then use that to attach my noctilux to my M10-P until I realised, that it's simply too close. I don't want to get stuck with stitching negatives together etc...

 

3 minutes ago, a.noctilux said:

Olivier,

As I have them for a while, some years ago, I managed to copy with them.

My conclusion is ( for my use of course) :

- 2.8/60mm is more manageable to use for slide copying with it's macro-adapter to reach 1:1

- 2.8/100mm Apo-Macro is a "bit" better but very heavy/large and even "better" flatter field with the Elpro to reach 1.1:1

as side note, I had also copied 24x65 Xpan negatives/slides, no need of Elpro,

 

so for usual copying 64/100 Iso slide, 60mm is good enough for 24Mpix, but with more pixels and less grainy film, I'd use the Apo 100mm

 

[a.noctilux]

Hopefully, you don't use Noctilux for slide copying, it would be the worse choice.

Noctilux is a special lens corrected for far subjects and mainly for use in bad light at near wide open.

When I use (for fun)my 1/50 for copying or with macro-adapter, results are not as good as more modest lens like Summicron/Elmar.

With my Beoon, I use the modest LTM 3.5/50mm or Focotar 4.5/50mm enlarging lens with flat field and so small/light

have a look in this thread Beoon + M10

plus here

and many more (do search)

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[verwackelt]

Am 12.9.2018 um 02:27 schrieb IkarusJohn:

Please excuse me if this has already been covered.  I did a search and couldn't find anything on topic.

 

I have about 30 years of slides and negatives, 135mm and 6x6 formats.  The results I'm getting from my Epson flatbed scanner and the 135mm scanner (I forget its name) are okay, but I'm wondering if I might get better results if I use my SL(601).  Is this correct?

 

Can anyone advise if this is worth doing, what I need equipment wise (presumably some sort of holder and a uniform whit background) and if it is feasible to photograph negatives as well as slides?

 

Or am I wasting my time?

 

Cheers

John

No, you are wasting your time when using a slow scanner.
But you need equipment:
• a filmholder a good and cheaper one: 
  Essential Film Holder: https://clifforth.co.uk.
  Or the deluxe with a Leica price: https://www.negative.supply    
  I have the essential film holder and i am happy with it. You can also use a negative carrier from an old enlarger.
• a lighttable or lightbox (coolest light as possible) between 5000K and 6000K.
• a blue compensationfilter 80a for "scanning" colornegatives.
• a reprostand or tripod.
• a macrolens or a bellow with enlarger lens.

For inverting i use the Plug In "Negmaster" for LR and PS https://negmaster.com
I tried color perfect, but find it handling very "nerdy" and old school. Then i tried Negativ Lab Pro and find it OK but not so good as Negmaster.
Negmaster has better color differentiation.
Once the set is rigged i shoot a 36er film in 15 min and need about an hour with converting in positives in LR and PS…
Retouching and other postwork on top…
I would never go back to scanning again. (And i worked as a drumscanner operator in filmdays  )
 

I forgot: For negatives it is importand to use a kind of light with continuous spectrum because the coupler in the emulsion are in such a narrow bandwith, that with gaps in the spectrum the results can be very dissapointing. An old colorhead from an enlarger can be used too. There you can put the cyanwheel in for compensating the orange mask.
I have no color enlarger so i use Yuji Leds with high CRI and which are tested TM-30-18:
https://store.yujiintl.com/products/standard-illuminant-cri-98-d50-5000k-mcpcb-led-module-iso-3664-2000-for-color-inspection?_pos=4&_sid=694e97bc0&_ss=r

some interesting stuff to read:
https://www.yujiintl.com/tm-30-18-high-fidelity-full-color-gamut-led-lighting.html

Edited December 12, 2020 by verwackelt