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Scanning slides and negatives using a camera


IkarusJohn

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The beoon looks interesting Arnaud. I ended up going back to the Leica Store today and buying the macro adaptor. Decided I wanted to see what I would do with it creatively and I will be able to use it to digitise my film. I might check out the essential film holder verwackelt wrote about as well. 

So if shouldn't use the noctilux, that leaves me with either my 75mm Summilux or my 50mm sonnar c. I am afraid I don't have the same technical knowledge as you about these lenses, which of these two would you recommend for scanning?

PS:How come you know so much about lenses Anraud? 🤔

 

On 12/12/2020 at 7:25 PM, a.noctilux said:

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)

 

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Olivier,

Sonnar C ( I don't have one, maybe good enough) would be better for copying flat negatives than Summilux or Noctilux.

If you want something "better for flat copying", but don't want to pay Macro-Elmarit-R 60mm +adapter  price,  you can have some choices in enlarger lenses (more difficult to use) or macro SLR cheaper old lenses + adapters from reputed brands in manual like Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, etc.

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I have a Beseler slide duplicator, I did a lot of slide copying for myself and customers. Used a Canon New F1 with a motor drive, I have a Schneider 80mm f4 Componon designed for 1:1. For digitally photographing negatives, I started with my Nikon D300, but not enough different from my V700 scanner. I now use a Leica CL and get excellent results, but color negs drive me crazy, b&w is easy. For larger format negs I use the Beselar light base and a Kaiser copy stand. I use mostly a Nikon 55 f2.8 micro Nikkor, because it will go to 1:1 magnification and a 2 1/4 square image needs slightly more than 1:2 available on my other macros. Also it is a nice piece of glass.

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  • 1 month later...
On 9/24/2018 at 7:48 AM, ramarren said:

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.

curious the copy techniques you set on the CL, I had the Macro-Elmarit-R 60mm but traded it a while ago for Summicron R 50.Anyway, I have an old Nikkor 50 Macro and its hard for me to see if I have the exact focus (my problem), my question is what do you set WB to? What ISO? What f/stop? etc .... thanks in advance (don't have a lightbox yet, using an iPad with wax paper over it, seems to get rid of pixels. I import the DNG files in CaptureOne and invert it there. Not elegant, but I do not quite get the colors that, for example, make portra portra. 

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6 hours ago, sblitz said:

curious the copy techniques you set on the CL, I had the Macro-Elmarit-R 60mm but traded it a while ago for Summicron R 50.Anyway, I have an old Nikkor 50 Macro and its hard for me to see if I have the exact focus (my problem), my question is what do you set WB to? What ISO? What f/stop? etc .... thanks in advance (don't have a lightbox yet, using an iPad with wax paper over it, seems to get rid of pixels. I import the DNG files in CaptureOne and invert it there. Not elegant, but I do not quite get the colors that, for example, make portra portra. 

You should be able to focus accurately with your Nikon using focus peaking, just be sure to open the lens wide to focus and then stop it down for the photo. Don't use the smallest f/stop but still use a small one to give you good DOF to compensate for any slight bowing in the negative. Set the WB to whatever the iPad screen is set to, although if you have paper over it that will affect the WB. A Kaiser Slimlite light pad (£40 to £50) is 5500k and much superior to an iPad as a light source. No regular photographic software will invert a colour negative accurately which is why you generally need a plugin package like Negative Lab Pro for Lightroom, or Color Perfect for Photoshop. I don't know what you do if you are using CaptureOne.

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For converting c41 film it is important to have a cooler lightsource than an ipad can be. You can use an older colorhead from a color enlarger or normlight.
I have continous spectrum leds build in my lighttable. The colorcouplers in an negativ emulsion have such an narrow bandwith that it is very importand to have continuous spectrum in order not to exclude some parts of the colorspectrum of the couplers in the emulsion. Cheap LEDs have gaps in the spectrum which you do not want.
To avoid torturing the whitebalance for neutralising the orange mask of the negatives a blue 80a compensation filter is recommended.
For inverting i have very good results with Negmaster Plugin for Photoshop and Lightroom.
It is a bit of learning curve and importand to work through the tutorials. But i find the results are better than color perfect or Negative Lab pro.
https://negmaster.com

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lots of great information here: https://clifforth.co.uk/howto/

I bought two of his products, they're great. but even if you don't buy from him, there's a ton of good information on his site.

and he's very, very good, too:

https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?150162-Camera-scanning-on-the-cheap-an-example-approach

Edited by bags27
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Thank you, i own the essential film holder. Its a very good tool for a reasonable price. And a nice website with a lot of informations.
Thank you for the second link. i will read it at evening…
I invest a bit more in light source. I had an old Just norm light table with flourescent tubes.
I get rid of them and bought these LED strips and mount it in the lighttable.
https://store.yujiintl.com/search?type=article%2Cpage%2Cproduct&q=YUJILEDS®*+Standard*+Illuminant*+CRI*+98*+D50*+5000K*+MCPCB*+LED*+Module*+(ISO*+3664%3A2000)*+for*+Color*+Inspection*
Together with a 80a Filter it produces very good files. For b&w only these LEDs are overkill

Next improvement will be a real glassplate instead of that wobbly acrylic matt plastic and a reprostand. I did it with my Lumix on a tripod and one of the legs is always in the way… :)

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On 2/16/2021 at 3:12 AM, 250swb said:

 

You should be able to focus accurately with your Nikon using focus peaking, just be sure to open the lens wide to focus and then stop it down for the photo. Don't use the smallest f/stop but still use a small one to give you good DOF to compensate for any slight bowing in the negative. Set the WB to whatever the iPad screen is set to, although if you have paper over it that will affect the WB. A Kaiser Slimlite light pad (£40 to £50) is 5500k and much superior to an iPad as a light source. No regular photographic software will invert a colour negative accurately which is why you generally need a plugin package like Negative Lab Pro for Lightroom, or Color Perfect for Photoshop. I don't know what you do if you are using CaptureOne.

Thanks for the info. CaptureOne does not have a plugin, a big complaint among users, you have to invert the curves, works fine for b&w, a lot of work for color and it seems hit and miss.

Thanks again for the response

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Capture one has a very expensive stand alone version for that purposes. It is called CaptureOne Cultural Heritage. Museums use it for "scanning" art and old document for archival uses with their backs.
https://digitization.phaseone.com/products/complete-solutions/film-scanning/
https://digitization.phaseone.com
Just inverting the curves or changing the highlight and depth sliders in levels inverts a negativ, but do not make the needed gradation and color adaptions.
i find following plugIns more pleasing:
Best: Negmaster
good: Negative Lab Pro
Good but the user interface is pita: ColorPerfect.

I f you are good in making profiles and LUTs etc may be your own workaround will be very good too.

But i am not an expert in that…
 

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I have been scanning the last few months with the SL2.

I have started with 100 R lens with 1:1 adapter and then moved to sigma 105 Lens that  is great solution. alternatively more affordable is bellow with enlarger lens. A good enlarger lens has been used forever and they are already optimized for closeup focus.

I tether to capture one raw files and insert curves to get positive out of negative.
Lightroom has a Negative Lab Pro plugin what works great. but slow!

Capture one has now a plugin that can do almost the same ant it is free !

https://www.mwilmes.com/toolbox
Analogue Toolbox for Capture One

Film tray:
FC-35/120 is the last film carrier https://www.abdicamera.com/shop/p/fc-35120

and 

https://www.negative.supply

I use a flash instead of a Lightbox and a plexiglas sheet, that gives me a 1/125 f9 and ISO200. and I change the power of the flash to adjust exposure.

this way I can shoot on a sunny days and don't have any reflection on the film.

Some LED light-boxes  don't have  un-even lights and other flicker.

 

Edited by Photoworks
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I haven't tried it, as I don't scan images with a camera but if you are looking for something for free, Darktable now includes a couple of modules in the 'basic group' called 'invert' and 'negadoctor' just for this purpose.

From a brief try when I was looking for a LR alternative, Darktable itself seems to work well but the GUI is confusing in my opinion and you can't disable/remove the bits you don't want.

It may be worth a try just for negative conversions.

Edited by Bobitybob
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Thank you, it has not to be free. I was interested in a C1 plugIn because i do not like Lightroom so much and like C1 more and do not want too many apps.
As i understand the analogue toolbox is more a remote control of C1 that switches the levels in C1. 
I will give it a try…

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On 2/18/2021 at 7:21 AM, verwackelt said:

Capture one has a very expensive stand alone version for that purposes. It is called CaptureOne Cultural Heritage. Museums use it for "scanning" art and old document for archival uses with their backs.
https://digitization.phaseone.com/products/complete-solutions/film-scanning/
https://digitization.phaseone.com
Just inverting the curves or changing the highlight and depth sliders in levels inverts a negativ, but do not make the needed gradation and color adaptions.
i find following plugIns more pleasing:
Best: Negmaster
good: Negative Lab Pro
Good but the user interface is pita: ColorPerfect.

I f you are good in making profiles and LUTs etc may be your own workaround will be very good too.

But i am not an expert in that…
 

capture one cultural heritage is extremely expensive for my use especially,,,,, will check out Negmaster

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vor 5 Stunden schrieb sblitz:

but I am not interested joining FB

Same with me. Do not want to join the Zuckerberg hordes… :)
I simulate the plug in with the levels in C1 but i found its result meh.
The contrasts were ok, but i found the color differentiation not  so pleasing.

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