What methods do you use for digitizing film photos

[philipj]

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On 8/9/2024 at 11:03 AM, Smudgerer said:

( I upgraded my old creaky Jobo CPE2 last year for a Filmomat "automatic" film processor )

How are you liking the Filmomat? I'm happy doing b+w developing at home in a paterson tank but currently have a lab doing my colour film (dev only, scan at home). I would definitely prefer to do it myself, but the full fledged Filmomat is not cheap, and my volumes aren't high.

For completeness for the thread: I'm digitizing with an SL2-S and the Apo-Macro-Elmarit-R 1:2.8/100 with the 1:1 ELPRO lens attached. The SL2-S is nice because you can do full border scans with pixel shifting and keep tons of resolution for cropping afterwards. The copystand/etc are Negative Supply kit, which are pricey but no complaints otherwise. I picked up Smart Convert from Filmomat to get a feel for how colour negatives should go when inverting, but actually I'm mostly doing things by hand in Pixelmator Pro (and b+w does not need any special software like Smart Convert or Negative Lab Pro for conversion in my opinion, works fine manually in your image editor of choice).

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[Smudgerer]

12 hours ago, philipj said:

How are you liking the Filmomat? I'm happy doing b+w developing at home in a paterson tank but currently have a lab doing my colour film (dev only, scan at home). I would definitely prefer to do it myself, but the full fledged Filmomat is not cheap, and my volumes aren't high.

For completeness for the thread: I'm digitizing with an SL2-S and the Apo-Macro-Elmarit-R 1:2.8/100 with the 1:1 ELPRO lens attached. The SL2-S is nice because you can do full border scans with pixel shifting and keep tons of resolution for cropping afterwards. The copystand/etc are Negative Supply kit, which are pricey but no complaints otherwise. I picked up Smart Convert from Filmomat to get a feel for how colour negatives should go when inverting, but actually I'm mostly doing things by hand in Pixelmator Pro (and b+w does not need any special software like Smart Convert or Negative Lab Pro for conversion in my opinion, works fine manually in your image editor of choice).

Hello philipj

I am totally sold on the Filmomat. With film I only shoot B&W but I know others who have this machine who are very pleased with the workflow when processing colour, either colour negative or transparency. Just the ease and consistency of the processing with the Filmomat was worth the price of admission to me, plus it is conceived and made extremely well. Whether it is worth it is simply a decision only an individual came make, but it fits well into the Leica financial layout universe where nothing really comes cheap.

I do not shoot a lot of film maybe 12x 35mm and 6x 120 rolls a month on average so the economics of spending around €4K on the machine may not make too much sense to some, but as I said it works for me, no question. Coming from using my old Jobo CPE2, ( which is still working, albeit with the immersion tank leaking a bit and the magnetic connection with the film drums keeps detaching, but still sort of ok functional ), the difference is appreciable.

Filmomat does offer a simpler system, the Filmomat Light that may well be worth consideration if the full blown Filmomat is too much of a financial leap. The Filmomat Light is like the Jobo CPE processors but actually much more flexible and cheaper. When my CPE 2 does eventually die I will seriously consider getting a Filmomat Light too for smaller volume film processing runs. Again it's a well conceived and well built piece of gear.

I've just processed 4 B&W films, I "contact printed" them by "scanning" them under glass on a light panel with my GH4, picked selects the "old school" way marking with a grease pencil and scanned the selects with either a Nikon 4000ED or Plustek 8000i. The advantage of contact sheets is to be able to file them with the sleeved negatives thus making identification of the images on the negative sheets much easier. I have tried whole roll scanning by digitizing all frames with a camera and kits like your Negative Supply one, but ended up with 85% or more of the frames/images not worth the effort or worth keeping, so I went back to the well proven contact sheet method instead and only scan the frames I really feel are worth doing.

I only work my images to print them, I do not subscribe or post to any web' portals. Printing is by inkjet with either of my Epson SC-P6000, SC-P800, or P3800 printers, choice between those being the print size and the type of ink sets.

Edited August 11, 2024 by Smudgerer
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[jgeenen]

I just received a JJC "Film Digitizing Adapter And LED Light SET" - similar in layout and function to the already mentioned Valoi and other solutions but much more affordable. I paired it with a used Minolta MD Macro Rokkor 3.5/50 and a K&F MD to M adaptor that I mounted on my Leica M11. Only downside of this setup - I cannot get to 1:1 size (the combination of the adaptor and the recessed Rokkor front element allows max 1:1.6. The effective pixel is therefore slightly less than 6000x4000.

Although this setup costs me less than 250 Euro and is easy to use, I still prefer professional LAB scanning, which I can get for about 20 Euro including film development and TIF output (JPG is a bit less expensive and probably sufficient as well) because I cannot get the results free of speckles (too much dust in my office room).

[BWColor]

On 8/11/2024 at 5:06 AM, Smudgerer said:

Hello philipj

…..

I do not shoot a lot of film maybe 12x 35mm and 6x 120 rolls a month on average so the economics of spending around €4K on the machine may not make too much sense to some…..

Wow.. “I do not shoot a lot of film” ..   What qualifies as “a lot”?

[Smudgerer]

14 minutes ago, BWColor said:

Wow.. “I do not shoot a lot of film” ..   What qualifies as “a lot”?

You think that's a lot? I did say "on average"..............Anyway however much film and exposures I run through my cameras pales when compared to many digital camera users, it stuns me when I read of some shooting hundreds of images per day. With film I shoot as carefully as I can and am pleased if I get more than a couple of images I like per 24-30 exposure roll, ( I bulk load TriX/HP5/FP4/XX and prefer to have 24-30 frames per roll rather than the normal 36exp ). What qualifies as "a lot?", I don't know, we all will have different opinions on that I guess.

[Martin B]

Reviving this older thread to update with my personal more recent experience. I added a new Apple Mac Mini which I am using now to post process all my photos both digital and from film. Until then, I have only used SilverFast in two separate versions for my Plustek 8200i and my Epson V850 scanners. Even SilverFast delivered decent results, a few things kept bothering me: first that each program was fixed to one scanner and updating isn't free of charge. It can get messy when two SilverFast programs need updates on the same PC supporting two scanners like in my case. The other annoying thing with SilverFast is that it often left a yellowish border cast behind with converted 35 mm color negative films. First I thought it came from the development of the film, but when scanning the same frame in question on my V850 scanner it wasn't there. At this point it remained unclear if it came from the software itself or from scanning with my Plustek scanner. 

On my new computer, I decided to give Vuescan a try and purchased the full version to support color negative and slide/positive scanning. I found Vuescan much easier to operate than SilverFast, and Vuescan instantly worked with both my scanners without any further driver install needed. The full version allows me to use Vuescan on up to 4 computers and can operate as many scanners as I want. Plus updates are free. I scanned the color negative causing the yellow border mentioned earlier with my Plustek scanner and no cast at all was visible in the final image. So clearly the cast came from post processing with SilverFast and not by the scanning itself. So far I tested Vuescan with 35 mm and medium format 6x6 and 6x7 negatives and slides with excellent results. Color negative conversion is better compared to SilverFast, too - the colors come out much more natural and require much less post processing. 

[250swb]

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Glad you found Vuescan a better choice, same here. I never liked Silverfast and just leaving Vuescan to do its own thing gave better conversions, and with more knowledge of Vuescan they can be even better. Either way the scan should be the starting point and never the end because there’s always something to do I post processing.

[rossawilson1]

Part of the reason I went away and back to film for years becasue scanning was a bore. I got hold of a Pakon scanner a few years back and have never looked back. They're old and pricy if you can find one, and you needed to run windows XP originally but now you can run it on windows 11. If you're on a Mac it needs to be a Windows emulator on an Intel Mac not a silicon Mac. 

If I was in your shoes today and I couldn't find a Pakon I'd try using a reputable lab, alternatively I'd look at DSLR scanning using Negative Supply products and Negative Lap Pro software. I have this set up for when I want really high res scans the Pakon can't do. But the reality is the DSLR scanning stuff just sits in a cupboard. Still if the Pakon broke I'd likely get it out and get a system going.

The most important thing in my book is to create a relatively straightforward system I don't hate. Practice the process and don't change it. Just get the images in and get used to the process and repeat. Fussing around ends up being a real joy killer and frustration ultimately, you might want to just do lab scans in that case. 

[smuseby]

The pandemic wasn't all bad. With over 50,000 images languishing in various boxes, with a lot of time on your hands, my wife and I set about digitizing all 50,000. The slides were easy: we used a Nikon 35mm scanner which has an auto feed attachment. For the negatives, we used a macro lens on a Nikon D810 with a Nikon digitizing film attachment which enabled a manual feed of 6 exposure strips; these were converted into positives with NLP. Importing the files into Lightroom provides for nicely rendered images for cataloging, editing and selecting for printing. I scan the exposures selected for printing with the Nikon scanner.

I also used the Nikon D810 for photographing 6x6 negatives. My unsolved problem at this point is finding a PC with a firewire card for connecting to my Nikon Coolscan  8000 scanner (having years ago paid GotJunk to haul these useless PCs away).

[Robert Ardinger]

On 3/17/2025 at 5:50 PM, smuseby said:

I also used the Nikon D810 for photographing 6x6 negatives. My unsolved problem at this point is finding a PC with a firewire card for connecting to my Nikon Coolscan  8000 scanner (having years ago paid GotJunk to haul these useless PCs away).

Not sure if this will work for you, but I still can use my Nikon LS9000 scanner which has “Firewire” 400 as the output connector by using a “Firewire” 400 to “Firewire” 800 cable, connected to an Apple “Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter” which is then connected to an “Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter” which connects to the “Thunderbolt 3” (USB-C) port on my computer (Mac).  Using Vuescan I still get all functions of the LS9000 to work.  That said, I mainly use a Nikon Z7II, the 50mm Z MC MicroNikkor and the Nikon Slide/Negative copying attachment for nearly all my film scanning.  I have compared the output of the Nikon setup with the LS9000 for 35mm scans and really see no functional difference but the speed of copying is much, much faster with the Nikon setup.   The film grain is very sharp in both setups and that is about the most I can ask of the scanners optics.  I also use Negative Lab Pro for conversions.

[raizans]

I have a Pakon F235 and Leafscan 45 set up on two old Macs. The one for the Pakon is running Windows XP in a virtual machine. If they die, I’ll probably switch to a Negative Supply setup. Is AI-powered dust removal a thing now? I haven’t kept up with the news.

[erl]

On 3/18/2025 at 11:50 AM, smuseby said:

The pandemic wasn't all bad. With over 50,000 images languishing in various boxes, with a lot of time on your hands, my wife and I set about digitizing all 50,000. The slides were easy: we used a Nikon 35mm scanner which has an auto feed attachment. For the negatives, we used a macro lens on a Nikon D810 with a Nikon digitizing film attachment which enabled a manual feed of 6 exposure strips; these were converted into positives with NLP. Importing the files into Lightroom provides for nicely rendered images for cataloging, editing and selecting for printing. I scan the exposures selected for printing with the Nikon scanner.

I also used the Nikon D810 for photographing 6x6 negatives. My unsolved problem at this point is finding a PC with a firewire card for connecting to my Nikon Coolscan  8000 scanner (having years ago paid GotJunk to haul these useless PCs away).

Firewire cards are pretty cheap, and easy to fit. Buy one and find an empty slot in your computer. Your 9000 Nikon scanner is excellent. Slow but easy to multitask on something else  while it is working.

[Doug A]

There are a lot of ways to scan negatives. Each of them has advantages and disadvantages. It takes me about five minutes to take the VALOI easy35 out of the shoe box where it resides, scan an uncut 20-exposure roll of 35mm B&W film, put the scanned rolled up film in an empty plastic 35mm film can, and put the easy35 away again. After using the easy35 for a while I no longer have the patience to mess around with plastic film holders. 

The disadvantage of this approach for me is that I am dissuaded from shooting color film because of the post processing, but that's why they make digital cameras, isn't it. 😀

I develop my own B&W film too. It costs me about $1 (one dollar) to develop a 35mm roll with Rodinal 1:50, reused fixer, and 1.25 liters of distilled water for a plain water stop bath and three changes of wash water per the Ilford film washing method. 

[KFo]

Just recently returned to shooting film in a bit of volume.  Sick of paying for processing and scanning (black and white) I went back to DYI.

For black and white (and once accidentally a roll of color) I process and scan at home.

My choice of scanner is a Reflecta RPS 10M with SilverFast software.  I made that choice because the Reflecta could handle film a roll at a time and has very good actual scan resolution.  Once setup I don’t need to babysit the scanner.  I average shooting about one roll of black and white a week but it actually comes in clumps; you know how that is.

Once I sorted out the scanning process, which took me about a week on and off scanning and rescanning the same negatives, I have sorted out that end of the workflow to my satisfaction. I don’t see any significant downside to the RPS 10M at this point.  I considered using a camera copy stand type setup to do the scans but decided against it.  1. I didn’t want to invest space in that kind of setup.  2. I didn’t want to find myself with another camera just for scanning.  3. I wanted max scan resolution while not attending the scanning process.

 

[jakontil]

16 hours ago, KFo said:

Just recently returned to shooting film in a bit of volume.  Sick of paying for processing and scanning (black and white) I went back to DYI.

For black and white (and once accidentally a roll of color) I process and scan at home.

My choice of scanner is a Reflecta RPS 10M with SilverFast software.  I made that choice because the Reflecta could handle film a roll at a time and has very good actual scan resolution.  Once setup I don’t need to babysit the scanner.  I average shooting about one roll of black and white a week but it actually comes in clumps; you know how that is.

Once I sorted out the scanning process, which took me about a week on and off scanning and rescanning the same negatives, I have sorted out that end of the workflow to my satisfaction. I don’t see any significant downside to the RPS 10M at this point.  I considered using a camera copy stand type setup to do the scans but decided against it.  1. I didn’t want to invest space in that kind of setup.  2. I didn’t want to find myself with another camera just for scanning.  3. I wanted max scan resolution while not attending the scanning process.

 

I love this scanning system, but i read frm another equivalent brand like it’ having alignment issues make me doubful.. i wish the pakon is rebirth lol

i have the camera scanning system, plustek and an epson but the two last options consumed more time

[skahde]

I like to use a Nikon ES-2 combined with a Nikkor AIs 55mm f2.8 on a digital camera. Lots of Megapixels and a larger sensor help to make best use of the macro lenses resolution and to bring out a nice grain-structure. 

[KFo]

14 hours ago, jakontil said:

I love this scanning system, but i read frm another equivalent brand like it’ having alignment issues make me doubful.. i wish the pakon is rebirth lol

i have the camera scanning system, plustek and an epson but the two last options consumed more time

I haven't seen any alignment issues yet, but I'm only about 16 rolls into this thing.  I have been pleased with the frame finding, no issues so far and my M3 is pretty frugal (and tight framed).  I get 39-40 exposures/roll.

[smuseby]

On 3/21/2025 at 4:13 PM, erl said:

Firewire cards are pretty cheap, and easy to fit. Buy one and find an empty slot in your computer. Your 9000 Nikon scanner is excellent. Slow but easy to multitask on something else  while it is working.

No empty slots on my Mac book pro. I really don’t want to buy a pc, but I think that’s the solution. 

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[BWColor]

On 4/1/2025 at 7:31 PM, smuseby said:

No empty slots on my Mac book pro. I really don’t want to buy a pc, but I think that’s the solution. 

Not sure what generation of MBP you have, but I have two Thunderbolt 4 hubs coming off my MBP and run multiple monitors, 4TB & 2TB SSD drives, one 10TB hard drive, scanner, card reader and ethernet.  I have a Coolscan 9000ED and if I want to hook it up I will use the FireWire to USB converter and attach it to one of my hubs.

[BWColor]

This thread has been quite educational.  I just started the purchasing of equipment and planning to scan decades of negatives that predates the introduction of the Coolscans.  I’ll be using Negative Supply kit for 35mm and MF with an A7CR/Tamron 90mm Macro for color images.  I’m waiting to get the Negative Supply kit.  So far, I’ve been using the Valoi 35Easy and playing with PixelShift, which has some color benefit and smooths out grain.  I’m waiting for a Novaflex Contax/Leica-M adapter and Contax extension tubes to use with my Leica M11 Monochrom & Contax/Zeiss 100mm f/2.0 Makro Planar.  This will be my B&W setup and I won’t rely upon PixelShift.

I now realize how important it is to be able to generate a contact sheet.  All of my negatives are already in negative pages..  Is it better to use a larger light table and digital camera, or an Epson flatbed to make the contact sheets?