Has anyone tried "scanning" 35mm negs with an SLR?

These are interesting rig-ups; I got a Reflecta CrystalScan 7200 a few birthdays ago but have been too occupied/lazy to use it so far. :-[ I am however saving it for the day when I feel motivated to scan some old (or new) material.

I wonder why nobody has so far posted any pictures that show the photographed and processed results.

Anybody?
 
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Lee Jay

EOS 7D Mark II
Sep 22, 2011
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mrsfotografie said:
I wonder why nobody has so far posted any pictures that show the photographed and processed results.

Anybody?

Slide%20Macro%20Setup%20example.jpg

Slide%20Macro%20Sample%20crop.jpg
 
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Mar 25, 2011
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Lee Jay said:
mrsfotografie said:
I wonder why nobody has so far posted any pictures that show the photographed and processed results.

Anybody?

Slide%20Macro%20Setup%20example.jpg

Slide%20Macro%20Sample%20crop.jpg

Its because the jpeg small image results are so difficult to evaluate.

Realistically, those old photo negatives and slides were often made with consumer or low end cameras back when we were poor college students, and high end scanning is limited by the quality of the original.

If you have high end film equipment, then get a dedicated film scanner and then resell it, or have them professionally done.
 
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Hi, as to getting good Color from color Negs, I have found that "color Perfect" plugin to work great on negatives.
I scan still using a FS4000, into Tiff raw files. Using the plug in has given me quicker and nicer conversions.

I just started trying to copy via DSLR, and it works there also.
The problem I find is that you need to make sure that camera and film are aligned, and that you CLEAN everything.
I am choosing to go this way in the future, as the scanner takes 20-55 minutes for 6 and the DSLR is 1 a minute. I have way too many negs to scan via scanner

I also am using it to shoot large format negs, like 126, 6x7, and even 4x5 inch. With these, I am so far finding success stitching the parts together and getting a great "scan"/copy.
I would post, but, right now I am dealing with the alignment, dust issue.

I scan/shoot the negs as negs.
 
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LDS

Sep 14, 2012
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privatebydesign said:
Yes it did, here is mine.

It looks Novoflex still produces something alike, although less sophisticated (there's no bellows between the lens and the film): http://www.novoflex.com/en/products/macro-accessories/focusing-racks/castel-cop-digi/

Anybody knows why Canon never made for the EOS those macro accessories once available, and switched to a very specialized lens only like the MP-E 65mm? It's an excellent lens, but I find it less versatile than a bellows (especially since it comes without a focusing rail). Anybody tried the Novoflex bellows?
 
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mrsfotografie said:
These are interesting rig-ups; I got a Reflecta CrystalScan 7200 a few birthdays ago but have been too occupied/lazy to use it so far. :-[ I am however saving it for the day when I feel motivated to scan some old (or new) material.

I wonder why nobody has so far posted any pictures that show the photographed and processed results.

Anybody?

based on this review it's not so useful for scanning thousands of slides because of the speed http://www.filmscanner.info/en/ReflectaCrystalScan7200.html
that's why copying slides at least with camera is faster. now, I still need some time... ;-)
 
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LDS

Sep 14, 2012
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Mt Spokane Photography said:
Realistically, those old photo negatives and slides were often made with consumer or low end cameras back when we were poor college students, and high end scanning is limited by the quality of the original.
Well, someone is old enough to have a lot of slides shoot on Kodachrome 25 or 64 using some decent FD lenses (not the L ones, but some good ones like the 24/2.8, 135/2, 200/2.8 and 300/4), and I'm interested to understand if an FF camera with a macro lens can beat a film scanner or not.
Professional services may be expensive, not available nearby, and I would be a little worried to send away some "precious" (at least for me) slides I have no backup of :-\
 
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Lee Jay

EOS 7D Mark II
Sep 22, 2011
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Mt Spokane Photography said:
Lee Jay said:
mrsfotografie said:
I wonder why nobody has so far posted any pictures that show the photographed and processed results.

Anybody?

Slide%20Macro%20Setup%20example.jpg

Slide%20Macro%20Sample%20crop.jpg

Its because the jpeg small image results are so difficult to evaluate.

The small one is a 100% crop of the big one. I thought that would be obvious.
 
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dcm said:
Used an epson v750 for hundreds of slides, thousands of negatives in different sizes from 70+ years of photography. The details you can get from old b&w negatives is amazing. It took a while and some experimentation to dial it in. Key benefit of this scanner is two pass scanning, one in IR to eliminate dust, scratches, etc. Highly recommend VueScan for the process, it also has profiles for many different types of negatives. Not sure if you can apply that to images you take with your camera but you might check that out.

Your post saved me some keystrokes. +1 on everything. I don't have hands on with V750, but have hired out some work to a provider who uses a V700 (essentially the same machine without wet-mount ability), and was very pleased with the quality. And Vuescan is killer. Every hardware provider should just stop trying to develop their own half-arsed proprietary software and just make a bundling deal with Ed Hamrick for Vuescan, which allows you to essentially save out RAW files of the scanned data so there's not loss due to processing the file out as TIF or JPG. Vuescan is better than software that came with $20,000 Heidelberg scanners I worked with in a previous job.

Epson's V600 is a great flatbed scanner for your old prints, but for film, it's hobbled by so-so software and horrible film holders. I'm using a pair of Microtek i800's that beat the V600 in about every way and plays very well with Viewscan. Got them both for under $200 ea. on eBay. A dedicated film scanner would be the best thing if you have the bucks. For me, scanning is less mission-critical than nostalgic or for archive, so a large expense can't be justified.

I really feel a scanner is by far the best way to go for this type of work, yet my hat is off to the ingenuity shown by those who have built the home brew rigs shown in this thread. If you go the slide duplicator style route, choosing the right kind of lens would be important. A macro lens or even an enlarging lens would have the flattest possible field of focus that would be key to best results. And the odd and varied base colors of the many types of color negative films will give you fits pretty much without a doubt. A scanner (or more correctly, the software) would compensate for that more easily, in addition to the infrared dust cleanup that scanners with that capability can do.
 
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drummstikk said:
dcm said:
Used an epson v750 for hundreds of slides, thousands of negatives in different sizes from 70+ years of photography. The details you can get from old b&w negatives is amazing. It took a while and some experimentation to dial it in. Key benefit of this scanner is two pass scanning, one in IR to eliminate dust, scratches, etc. Highly recommend VueScan for the process, it also has profiles for many different types of negatives. Not sure if you can apply that to images you take with your camera but you might check that out.

Your post saved me some keystrokes. +1 on everything. I don't have hands on with V750, but have hired out some work to a provider who uses a V700 (essentially the same machine without wet-mount ability), and was very pleased with the quality. And Vuescan is killer. Every hardware provider should just stop trying to develop their own half-arsed proprietary software and just make a bundling deal with Ed Hamrick for Vuescan, which allows you to essentially save out RAW files of the scanned data so there's not loss due to processing the file out as TIF or JPG. Vuescan is better than software that came with $20,000 Heidelberg scanners I worked with in a previous job.

Epson's V600 is a great flatbed scanner for your old prints, but for film, it's hobbled by so-so software and horrible film holders. I'm using a pair of Microtek i800's that beat the V600 in about every way and plays very well with Viewscan. Got them both for under $200 ea. on eBay. A dedicated film scanner would be the best thing if you have the bucks. For me, scanning is less mission-critical than nostalgic or for archive, so a large expense can't be justified.

I really feel a scanner is by far the best way to go for this type of work, yet my hat is off to the ingenuity shown by those who have built the home brew rigs shown in this thread. If you go the slide duplicator style route, choosing the right kind of lens would be important. A macro lens or even an enlarging lens would have the flattest possible field of focus that would be key to best results. And the odd and varied base colors of the many types of color negative films will give you fits pretty much without a doubt. A scanner (or more correctly, the software) would compensate for that more easily, in addition to the infrared dust cleanup that scanners with that capability can do.

Thanks, I'm taking notes of this for when I'm going to do some scanning -these kinds of threads are motivating (but I prefer to leave that type of work for the dark days of fall/winter).
 
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mrsfotografie said:
Thanks, I'm taking notes of this for when I'm going to do some scanning -these kinds of threads are motivating (but I prefer to leave that type of work for the dark days of fall/winter).

Good plan. I packed away my film archive by the end of April probably would excavate it again until holiday time.

One thing important to know about VueScan that I forgot to mention: The RAW files it puts out are compatible with Lightroom/ACR, but NOT Aperture. That's one thing that started my move away from Aperture even before Apple announced it was reaching end-of-life.
 
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drummstikk said:
One thing important to know about VueScan that I forgot to mention: The RAW files it puts out are compatible with Lightroom/ACR, but NOT Aperture. That's one thing that started my move away from Aperture even before Apple announced it was reaching end-of-life.

Thanks, fortunately I've got Lightroom that I use for my Sony RAW files so it's easy to go from there. For CR2's I still prefer DPP ;)
 
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I am following the posts carefully. So far, it seems a macro lens with a DIY setup to stabilize the negatives in front and a diffuser with a remotely triggered flash to backlight it is the best setup.
The jury is still out on the processing of the negatives.

I have a question: in the link posted http://petapixel.com/2012/12/24/how-to-scan-your-film-using-a-digital-camera-and-macro-lens/
the author says 4-6 shots are required for a 35mm image, but he is using a Zeiss Makro Planar, and a 1:3 magnification.
What I don't understand is, unless the magnification is greater than 1:1, why would I need to take multiple images and stitch. Can someone clarify?
Thanks!
 
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The bottom line I think to how to go about it is what do you intend to do with the image after scanning it.
Do you want to print it up at some massive size to put on your wall at home, or even sell commercially, or do you just want a copy to put up on facebook or share over the computer with family or friends.
To print and frame it up at eny decent size you'll need a very good copy/scan indeed .... to share it on the internet or your computer, then you don't need to go all out to get the best out of the slide.
Perhaps most can be copied in a cheap and easy way .. but you may have a few gems that would warrant best practice to get a top quality digital copy.
I have copied many of my slides in a few different ways.
I have the old FD mount Canon Auto bellows and slide duplicator.
I have projected slides on a pure white surface at a medium to smallish size to keep them sharp and just taken a digital shot.
I still shoot film on Linhof Technorama 617s 120 panorama and also a Horseman 4x5.
I wanted the absolute best scan I can do at home without having to send them away to be drum scanned.
Lots of research later and I opted to buy an Epson V750 pro ... I had to import it from the USA as Epson does not even sell that model here in Australia, I have a transformer to drop the volts down to 110 from 220.
I then bought a wet scan kit from "Scan Science" in Canada, waited the 4 months for the kit to come out by boat.
The kit comes with shims to adjust the height so you can dial in the correct distance to achieve perfect focus.
It does take some time to test and sort out a work flow, I have it dialed in now.
I scan at it's max optical res at 4800 .. the tiff files from a 120 pano come in at about 2gb
I could enlarge these easy to 100" x 30" on the Fuji Flex paper and they would look brilliant.
Yes they do take time to de-dust, working clean helps.

So bottom line is what is the final use of the image you want, and decide what lengths you are prepared to go to to get optimal image quality.
Those that say they don't get good quality from the Epson don't know how to use it correctly, or not taken the time to do so.
The quality I can achieve from the Epson V750 would hard to differentiate from a scan using a 20K+ drum scanner
End use is what should determine the technique you would use here.
 
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sagittariansrock said:
I have a question: in the link posted http://petapixel.com/2012/12/24/how-to-scan-your-film-using-a-digital-camera-and-macro-lens/
the author says 4-6 shots are required for a 35mm image, but he is using a Zeiss Makro Planar, and a 1:3 magnification.
What I don't understand is, unless the magnification is greater than 1:1, why would I need to take multiple images and stitch. Can someone clarify?
Thanks!

The author is stitching multiple photos in order to extract the most detail from each negative/slide. The explanation:

"Using an higher reproduction ratio is more time consuming (you’ll need more shots to cover the same area), but as a result you will be able to extract the most detail from the film. Here are some examples showing my Canon setup at various reproduction ratios, compared to the results of a well-respected flatbed scanner, the Epson v700..."

The exact numbers depend on the size of the negative/slide compared to the size of the digital sensor. Using 1:1 for a 35mm negative would require stitching multiple shots on an APS-C sensor camera, or just a single shot on a full-frame digital camera.
 
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mrzero said:
sagittariansrock said:
I have a question: in the link posted http://petapixel.com/2012/12/24/how-to-scan-your-film-using-a-digital-camera-and-macro-lens/
the author says 4-6 shots are required for a 35mm image, but he is using a Zeiss Makro Planar, and a 1:3 magnification.
What I don't understand is, unless the magnification is greater than 1:1, why would I need to take multiple images and stitch. Can someone clarify?
Thanks!

Ah

The author is stitching multiple photos in order to extract the most detail from each negative/slide. The explanation:

"Using an higher reproduction ratio is more time consuming (you’ll need more shots to cover the same area), but as a result you will be able to extract the most detail from the film. Here are some examples showing my Canon setup at various reproduction ratios, compared to the results of a well-respected flatbed scanner, the Epson v700..."

The exact numbers depend on the size of the negative/slide compared to the size of the digital sensor. Using 1:1 for a 35mm negative would require stitching multiple shots on an APS-C sensor camera, or just a single shot on a full-frame digital camera.

Ah, 35mm film on an aps-c camera- that makes sense!
Thanks for the clarification :)
 
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dr croubie

Too many photos, too little time.
Jun 1, 2011
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As noted above, it depends on what you want to do with the images once 'scanned'. If it's just consumer-grade film, and/or you're just going to post them online shrunk to 2MP or so, go right ahead. If you want to inkjet print them up to A3 or something, that'll also work with better films and cameras.
But if you want to print them bigger like A2, you'd better get a real scanner, and even bigger than that and you're better off printing optically (enlarger and darkroom), as long as they're not slides.
If you're trying to extract maximum detail from a really good film, you're much better off printing optically. There's a recent test here (near the bottom) comparing resolution of mostly B+W films and Velvia/Ektar, most are resolving in the range of 100-130 lp/mm, even a D800(E) with the same lens (Zeiss Makro-Planar 50/2) only gets 85 (95) lp/mm.
 
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IMG_0001

Amateur photon abductor
Nov 12, 2013
364
0
LDS said:
privatebydesign said:
Yes it did, here is mine.

It looks Novoflex still produces something alike, although less sophisticated (there's no bellows between the lens and the film): http://www.novoflex.com/en/products/macro-accessories/focusing-racks/castel-cop-digi/

Anybody knows why Canon never made for the EOS those macro accessories once available, and switched to a very specialized lens only like the MP-E 65mm? It's an excellent lens, but I find it less versatile than a bellows (especially since it comes without a focusing rail). Anybody tried the Novoflex bellows?

I have an old Novoflex macro bellows and Novoflex noflexar 105mm f4 bellows lens. I've bought it about 2 years ago and use it now and then. In its early life, it was used in a medical context. It is alright in terms of sharpness but has some CA. Lightroom does a good job of getting rid of those though. The rail mechanism is a bit rough on my copy, but I think I could give it a cleanup and it would be smooth. Having an integrated focus rail, even a stiff one, is great nevertheless.

I don't have a slide copy attachment so I can't comment on that.
 
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