Canon or aftermarket equivalent to Nikon ES-2 film digitizer

pwp

Oct 25, 2010
2,530
24
Is there a Canon or aftermarket equivalent to Nikon's ES-2 film digitizing adapter?
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1357884-REG/nikon_27192_es_2_film_digitalizing_adapet.html

In the past I have made cumbersome setups to do camera scans of old B&W negs and colour transparencies. A straightforward solution would be a trigger to me digitizing my hero images from the film era.

With my clunky homemade setup using 5D-IV and 100mm L f/2.8is macro I got seriously good results, way better than any Epson flatbed scanner. For one important image I shot a 35mm B&W neg in three sections and stitched them. Very good! Though the time investment made it a definite one-off.

-pw
 

LDS

Sep 14, 2012
1,761
292
AFAIK Canon didn't made a film duplicator since its FD era "Duplicator 35", which also required the Auto Bellows. Novoflex has a simple film support for its bellows/rails, but as everything from Novoflex, it's not cheap. I've seen duplicators from Kaiser and Kenko, but they include some lenses, don't know how good they are.

Flatbed scanners usually don't reach the same performance of high-end dedicated film scanners.
 
Upvote 0
Mar 25, 2011
16,848
1,835
I think you can find 3rd party gadgets, here is one: You can always adapt the threads to fit your lens.

https://www.amazon.com/Albinar-Digi...=1534775841&sr=8-2&keywords=35mm+slide+copier

https://www.amazon.com/Polaroid-Sli...4775975&sr=8-9&keywords=35mm+slide+duplicator

https://www.amazon.com/Opteka-Copie...775975&sr=8-13&keywords=35mm+slide+duplicator

If money is no object, the Hasselblad Flextight X5 gets good views and is a virtual drum scanner.

Since my old slides were mostly taken with my Argus C3 55 years ago, my Epson V700 does a great job on them, and it works on my much older 120 sized negatives.
 
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pwp

Oct 25, 2010
2,530
24
The ES-2 is just a threaded adapter/holder, get the Nikon one and threaded tubes to make it work on the Canon 100mm Macro. Of the three Nikon lenses it will work on out of the box two need supplied threaded tubes.
Thanks Private, yes that's something to look into. If it's a simple matter to fit the ES-2 to the EF 100 L f/2.8 macro with an easily sourced adapter, then we're good to go!

Thanks also to Mt Spokane for the links & suggestions. A used Flextight X5 isn't such a silly idea. I could use it over a year or so to complete my project then re-sell and barely lose a penny. Good thought...

-pw
 
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stevelee

FT-QL
CR Pro
Jul 6, 2017
2,383
1,064
Davidson, NC
My old Minolta Dimage Scan Dual III works really well with VueScan software, having features far beyond anything the original software can do. The slides from my 2000 trip to Eastern Europe have faded, but I think with more work I could make these look better: Helsinki. The Russian Orthodox church pictures are not too bad. I keep traveling and making pictures otherwise, so dealing with the new pictures always seems to take priority over scanning and working with the old shots. I also have extensive color negatives from the 2001 trip to Seattle and Glacier National Park. VueScan, in my limited testing, does great with the masks, having presets for different stock. Right now my main project is digitizing and cleaning up 78s of my neighbor's singing in college as her 90th birthday present, so stray slide scanning needs to wait until I finish that.

I've also used my iPad as a light box and shot slides with my 100mm macro lens. That works surprisingly well, but not as conveniently as the Minolta for multiple slides.

Somewhere I bet I still have a slide attachment from c. 1970 that worked on my Canon film camera. When I find it, I bet I will find my Spiratone fisheye attachment that should screw into my 50mm f/1.4 for fun special effects, especially for silly retro-looking video. Might also be worth a try on the kit zoom with my T3i.
 
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