Edge to edge sharp L macro lens

[hirohhhh]

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I have Sigma 70mm f/2.8 DG Macro Art Lens that I use almost exclusively for capturing my film negatives with SL2. I noticed that the negatives are not perfectly sharp edge to edge, even when shooting F11, and making sure that the film is perfectly parallel (tested with mirror and levels on both surface and the camera).

I paid this lens less than $600, and it's only purpose is to scan negatives.

Would you recommend any other macro lens that can be mounted on SL2 that is significantly sharper and that does not cost arm and leg like some, probably much superior Leica macro lenses?

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[Stuart Richardson]

Are you sure the film is perfectly flat? (not parallel, but flat). The Sigma 70mm should be pretty good in this range. Another non-Leica priced option would be the 105mm. In terms of Leica options, the killer here is almost the adapters required. The S 120mm APO, while not cheap, can be found occasionally below 2500 dollars. The adapter will cost too. I found mine for 500 dollars used, but they are hard to find. It made sense for me because I had other S lenses too. The 100mm APO Macro R lens is a less expensive and similar prospect. The downside to these lenses is that they are both 1 to 2. The R version has an elpro to take it to 1 to 1, however. Another more involved, but possibly even better option would be to use a bellows with a purpose built reproduction lens, such as a 75mm APO Rodagon D, or even enlarging lenses. There are some good options here: https://www.closeuphotography.com/lenses I have a bit of a Rube Goldberg setup, but I have in the past used a Sinar to Hasselblad adapter to the S to V adapter to the S to L adapter to attach the SL2 to my Sinar view camera, in order to do closeup work. Novoflex makes a more sensible bellows system. The initial expense will be higher, but you can use it for a lot of things. If you don't have any of this stuff kicking around (since you are scanning film, maybe you have a view camera...), then the 105mm Sigma is probably a good first test.

All that said, I have found that scanning film with a camera is a very demanding challenge. I use an X5 for my lab, which unfortunately just broke. So recently I have been scanning negatives with the SL2 and 120mm APO. It works, but it cannot get to the quality of the X5. I think there are so many little issues, the biggest of which is the flatness of the film. You might see if you can use a glass plate to completely flatten the film (if it has newton rings, it would not matter for this test) to see if your results improve. There is also wet mounting. Another issue is to make sure you are using the e-shutter and turning stabilization off, and then using a very heavy tripod or stand and a self timer, but I figure you are.

[Chris W]

2 hours ago, Stuart Richardson said:

 

All that said, I have found that scanning film with a camera is a very demanding challenge. 

Same. I tried it several times and was never totally happy. I'm now using a vintage Minolta Image. It is much easier and the results are better.

[BernardC]

Further to what Stuart wrote, are all corners soft, or just one side? If all corners are soft, you probably have a film flatness issue. If it's just one side or corned you have a parallelism issue, either inside the lens, or in your setup.

One quick fix would be to cheat your focus toward the soft corner(s), which could help the entire neg fall within your limited depth of field. Other than that, you can try a better film holder.

There is a small chance that your lens is bad, but it's not very likely. If that was the case, a different lens could help.

Keep in mind that copying 35mm film is more difficult than larger formats. Your magnification is larger, and the fine detail is smaller. 35mm film generally doesn't lie as flat, but that will also depend on film stock.

I personally use a Hasselblad bellows + film holder for 35mm. These are relatively cheap if you can find them, but that's just one of dozens of setup options. Thye advantage of this setup is that it was originally designed as an all-in-one copy solution, so it's very easy to use.

For 4x5 and larger film I use a macro lens and put the film on a light table in a negative holder. I am currently helping an artist/friend digitize his catalog of 4x5 negs. He's using an old 55/2.8 (Yashica, but most SLR brands offered similar lenses), and a light table. It works just fine for his purposes, but he prints in the darkroom. We haven't tried to print the digital versions, but they surely wouldn't be as good as his silver prints.

[Jean-Michel]

For scanning film, it is far better to use a scanner. I use an Epson V850 Pro, but even the inexpensive consumer-grade V600 will give you better results than any contraption using a camera. Silverfast is my preferred scanning software, but Hamrick's VueScan is also really good (I used it with my Nikon Coolscan until that one died).

[Photoworks]

19 minutes ago, Jean-Michel said:

For scanning film, it is far better to use a scanner. I use an Epson V850 Pro, but even the inexpensive consumer-grade V600 will give you better results than any contraption using a camera. Silverfast is my preferred scanning software, but Hamrick's VueScan is also really good (I used it with my Nikon Coolscan until that one died).

I disagree , I have a few scanners here, dedicated film and flatbed, non of them can reach the color and contrast that the scanner has been doing.
Shooting in raw give you more DR that I was able to do on the scanners.
The only alternative is drum scanner , you get 32 or 16bit files that can be worked any witch way.

and then talking about the speed, you can do a roll of film in less than a min using flash.

[Photoworks]

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5 hours ago, hirohhhh said:

I have Sigma 70mm f/2.8 DG Macro Art Lens that I use almost exclusively for capturing my film negatives with SL2. I noticed that the negatives are not perfectly sharp edge to edge, even when shooting F11, and making sure that the film is perfectly parallel (tested with mirror and levels on both surface and the camera).

I paid this lens less than $600, and it's only purpose is to scan negatives.

Would you recommend any other macro lens that can be mounted on SL2 that is significantly sharper and that does not cost arm and leg like some, probably much superior Leica macro lenses?

I would try a more newly design lens, like the Sigma 105 DG DN, designed for mirrorless (DN). The sigma 70mm is a DSLR lens with build in adapter.
 

LAOWA make some lenses too
I don't have experience with them

https://www.venuslens.net/product/laowa-100mm-f-2-8-2x-macro-apo/

 

[John Smith]

I bought the Sigma 105mm f/2.8 DG DN Macro Art and a Novoflex focusing rack for slides. The lens is stellar. Worked well for me.

 

[dpitt]

I wonder how a Leica Macro-Elmarit 1:2.8/60  or a Leica Macro-Elmar 1:4/100 would  do.
Anyone tried this?

[Jean-Michel]

7 hours ago, Photoworks said:

I disagree , I have a few scanners here, dedicated film and flatbed, non of them can reach the color and contrast that the scanner has been doing.
Shooting in raw give you more DR that I was able to do on the scanners.
The only alternative is drum scanner , you get 32 or 16bit files that can be worked any witch way.

and then talking about the speed, you can do a roll of film in less than a min using flash.

I may well be incorrect about the advantage/disadvantage of a scanner such as the Epson V850. However, Silverfast allows you to scan in 16 bit HDR RAW for black and white, and 48 bit HDR RAW for colour. For my purposes, scanning in 16-8 bit for b¶w and 48-24 bit for colour is sufficient. For older negs, simply putting the negs on the platen, rather than mounting into the carriers, is good enough. One can also use wet mounting if needed.

[Simone_DF]

Panasonic has updated its lens roadmap with a 100mm macro prime to be released in 2023, maybe it's worth waiting a few more months?

 

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[SrMi]

On 1/25/2023 at 2:49 AM, hirohhhh said:

I have Sigma 70mm f/2.8 DG Macro Art Lens that I use almost exclusively for capturing my film negatives with SL2. I noticed that the negatives are not perfectly sharp edge to edge, even when shooting F11, and making sure that the film is perfectly parallel (tested with mirror and levels on both surface and the camera).

I paid this lens less than $600, and it's only purpose is to scan negatives.

Would you recommend any other macro lens that can be mounted on SL2 that is significantly sharper and that does not cost arm and leg like some, probably much superior Leica macro lenses?

Camera West has an article on film scanning and they appear to be using the 60mm TL lens:

https://www.camerawest.com/blog/scanning-basics-with-negative-supply

[Stuart Richardson]

2 minutes ago, SrMi said:

Camera West has an article on film scanning and they appear to be using the 60mm TL lens:

https://www.camerawest.com/blog/scanning-basics-with-negative-supply

In the video they are using the Sigma 105mm. It seems they just stuck the 60mm on there for the photo. The 60mm TL lens is a bad idea...really! Unless you are just doing something really small for the web, it makes no sense to scan a full frame 35mm negative using a 20mp half frame APS-C crop out of a 47mp sensor. Any decent macro lens on 47mp is going to be better than even a great lens on 20mp. If the goal of scanning is to reproduce the negative in the best fidelity, then it makes no sense to throw away half your sensor area.

[SrMi]

47 minutes ago, Stuart Richardson said:

In the video they are using the Sigma 105mm. It seems they just stuck the 60mm on there for the photo. The 60mm TL lens is a bad idea...really! Unless you are just doing something really small for the web, it makes no sense to scan a full frame 35mm negative using a 20mp half frame APS-C crop out of a 47mp sensor. Any decent macro lens on 47mp is going to be better than even a great lens on 20mp. If the goal of scanning is to reproduce the negative in the best fidelity, then it makes no sense to throw away half your sensor area.

Thanks for the clarification with the lenses.

However, I believe 20MP is plenty of resolution for a 35mm negative, though you can use HR mode for scanning. For example, the V850 has an effective resolution of 2300ppi (3200x2100 pixels, 6.7MP) when set at 4800ppi and using Epson's scan software (link).

[hdmesa]

On 1/25/2023 at 3:49 AM, hirohhhh said:

I have Sigma 70mm f/2.8 DG Macro Art Lens that I use almost exclusively for capturing my film negatives with SL2. I noticed that the negatives are not perfectly sharp edge to edge, even when shooting F11, and making sure that the film is perfectly parallel (tested with mirror and levels on both surface and the camera).

I paid this lens less than $600, and it's only purpose is to scan negatives.

Would you recommend any other macro lens that can be mounted on SL2 that is significantly sharper and that does not cost arm and leg like some, probably much superior Leica macro lenses?

Back in the film days, I made my own prints in a darkroom with very high-end enlargers, and with 35mm film, it was often impossible to get the grain in the corners as sharp as the center. I would not expect "scanning" 35mm film with a camera to be much different. If you're not already using their gear, it may be worth it to invest in a better film holder setup like the ones from Negative Supply.

If you buy a longer lens like the 105 Sigma, you'll have even less depth of field at a given aperture, but you could buy it and return it if it doesn't do any better. You could also try focus stacking two images, one focused in the center, one in the corner.

Edited January 27, 2023 by hdmesa

[leicameech]

I use the 105 f/2.8 Sigma Art in L mount as well and I love it for this purpose. I used to have an Epson V600 and it was fine, except that it took forever to scan 12 negatives and each had to be edited in the epson software individually before scanning them all. I'm sure there must have been a better way but the convenience and speed of photographing them and the higher-resolution, better file was enough for me not to even consider going back. A copy stand could be cool, but I level the camera on a tripod pointed at a flat side table, on top of which I put an inexpensive ($20) light tablet. I bought a couple of pieces of glass from betterscanning (not sure if that guy is still in business) that were made to go into the plastic film tray that came with the Epson V600. I kept the glass and sold the scanner, and now I press the glass against the negative to keep it flat and trigger the SL2 af/shutter with a cable release with my big toe. ISO 400-800, f/8-11, 1/30-1/100th usually. The crop below ends up being 26MP. 

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[hirohhhh]

I would say that the negative is fairly flat. It's curled a little bit when outside of the film carrier, but it should be straighten in the carrier. I use Negative Supply Pro kit and the newest 35mm pro film carrier significantly flattens the film comparing to the old, basic version I had before.

I'm scanning in a Multi-shot mode, and I'm talking about very subtle out of focus visible only when zoomed in. Here's the example of the full shot, 100% zoomed in center and one of the edges. As I said, it's not much, but not as sharp as center (I look for grain). It might be that the film is curled a little bit and that the wet mount would fix this, but I try to avoid wet mount, as it looks like a total mess.

This is shot at f/8 when scanning/digitizing. No sharpening applied.

25% Zoom:

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100% center:

100% corner:As I said, the film is fairly straight. I'd lie if I say it's completely flat, but even that slightest curve (cupping) should be further straighten in the film carrier. I watched on YouTube someone is ironing the film under the wet cloth and that helps flattening, but I wouldn't do that, it's messy, a lot of additional work and probably not worth.

Edited January 27, 2023 by hirohhhh

[hirohhhh]

My thoughts on scanners vs digital cameras. I used both, I purchased V850 just for this purpose, used it for a roll or two, hated the process and then I decided to try capturing it with my SL2. I improvised the copy stand, used some cheap light box that I already had and used Negative Lab Pro to convert my negatives in Lightroom. I utilized the possibility of capturing it in 187mpx with SL2 and it was immediately obvious that it's superior to the flat bed scanner. Then I invested in Negative Supply basic kit, and over a year I upgraded it to the pro stuff which is better in many ways but not necessary.

If I'm not using multi-shot, I'd be able to scan an uncut roll within a few minutes, where with multi-shot it takes around 15mins. My setup is now permanent, always ready on the desk, I just connect the tethering cable to the computer before start scanning.

I scan both 35mm and 120 with this setup.

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica L-Mount

[bherman01545]

I have a great option, which also happens to be for sale:

Leica 100mm F/2.8 APO Macro Elmarit-R, #11210, 3 Cam, 98.5% MINT, Papers, Boxed!

https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1791526/0#16144675

It's a 30–35-year-old Leica APO Macro R lens that resolves beautifully on a 100MP Fujifilm GFX, so that may be a good choice as well

-Brad

[BernardC]

12 hours ago, hdmesa said:

If you buy a longer lens like the 105 Sigma, you'll have even less depth of field at a given aperture, but you could buy it and return it if it doesn't do any better.

It's counterintuitive, but all lenses have the same theoretical depth of field at 1:1. Depth of field is based on magnification. This makes sense when you consider that a wide angle has lower magnification than a telephoto, and therefore more depth of field.

In other words, the focal length of a macro lens should be selected based on working distance. The angle of view doesn't matter if you are copying flat art.