Hi Bob! I do/have done quite a lot of negative, transparency, and small print capture over the past thirty years using all sorts of scanners, copy camera setups, and fixtures. I still shoot film in several formats—Minox to 6x9 plus instant film prints. Here's a brief synopsis of my thoughts:
- A dedicated film scanner nearly always produces better resolution and detailing than any flatbed scanning solution, almost regardless of pixel count, because any good one includes a focusing lens that will pinpoint the correct focus accurately. Trying to obtain this precision with any flatbed scanner is almost impossible, and is certainly quite a bit of work and inconvenience. You can get this precision with a copy camera approach presuming you take care in your focusing and have a reliable fixture for camera and film that holds them in precise alignment. - For smaller than 35mm film, generally speaking the copy camera approach produces the best results for the simple reason that I can net a higher pixel count that is more editable with a copy camera setup than I can with a 4000 ppi film scanner, given today's DSLR and EVF cameras. For example, given a 35mm original, an Olympus E-M1 can produce up to a 15.9 Mpixel image BUT since the format proportion is not isomorphic, the actual negative scan data will be less than that. My Nikon Coolscan V ED (LS-50) film scanner will net 21.4 Mpixels at the limit, a copy camera approach with the Leica CL or SL will net 24 Mpixels. For Minox film, to show an extreme, the scanner drops way down to 2.2 Mpixels but both cameras can do nearly the same as they do with 35mm film. - For 35mm strips, it's a toss up now as to whether a good copy camera approach or a good film scanner approach produces the best results. The key problem with a dedicated scanner approach is how much time it takes to do the job; the key problem with the copy camera approach is the quality of the configuration, the time for setup, and how repeatable the configuration is from frame to frame. You don't want to have to refocus for every frame if you're doing volumes of negs with a copy camera … this is where expensive fixtures like the Negative Supply film carrier make very good sense despite their price. (Since I have the Nikon LS-50 and I don't shoot 35mm all that much, I give up on the time for 35mm and just use the film scanner. For medium format, where I really need to have a better fixture and have worked a dozen different fixtures already with only middling success/consistency, I've got a pledge/pre-order in place to get their film carrier as soon as it gets to market. It will be the right solution, finally; wish I could have produced one myself!) - For me, the notion of scanning a whole roll of 35mm in one go and producing a contact page of images to look at in a single scan is not particularly useful. The variations in image density, etc, through a roll of film makes it really tough to produce useable images that way that are consistently easy to view and assess for further work. I did that for my Minox negs and found the amount of time I had to put into adjusting each frame on the exposure to be a bigger time sink than just capturing each frame was with a consistent setup. For 35mm, when I want to produce a contact sheet, I simply scan the whole roll with the film scanner or copy camera, and then use LR to adjust them all, using a "similar exposure and content" batch approach to rough in the adjustments very quickly, and assemble them into a grid print that I can put out on standard letter paper if I want it for records keeping (can be kept with the negatives…) and quick selection that way. I usually don't bother and just keep them in LR electronically, since that's where I'm going to do the bulk of my selection and such anyway. - ANY film/small print scanning will take a modest investment in equipment and a modest—but probably larger—investment in time spent learning how to get what you want out of it consistently and reliably. If you're going to use a Micro-FourThirds based copy camera approach, I found the Pansonic-Leica Macro-Elmarit-DG 45mm f/2.8 lens was a godsend for this kind of work : infinity to 1:1 magnification, all internal focusing, and near perfect correction all the way through the range. The Olympus ZD 35 Macro and 50 Macro lenses did very well too, adapted to mFT, albeit that the 35 Macro needs a bit of rectilinear correction for copy work at this scale. (I haven't used either the 30 or 60mm macro lenses available now.) For copying nominal 35mm frames with mFT, you need about 1:2.1-2.3 magnification, depending on just how much latitude you want in positioning the negatives to allow easy framing in post process afterwards with minimal cropping loss. (I use the Leica CL body for this work nowadays, typically with the Macro-Elmarit-R 60mm f/2.8 or Summicron-R 50mm f/2 lenses. Both produce outstanding results and are not horrifically expensive if you want to try an adapted macro lens solution. The ancient (1966 issue), ridiculously cheap Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 that I picked up for $65 with its dedicated extension tube is another brilliant performer for this work. Adapters to mFT are inexpensive, even for good ones, and there are quite a few adapted lenses like these that work very well.) I hope all that nets you some good ideas as to how to proceed with this effort. There are a variety of ways of getting results and whichever one nets you the balance of convenience, speed, and quality that suits your purpose best is really something that only you can assess after trying a couple, IMO. best G > On Apr 10, 2020, at 5:56 AM, Bob Pdml <[email protected]> wrote: > > Since the lockdown looks as though it might go on for a long time yet I have > been thinking of scanning some of my old negs and slides. I have a Nikon > LS-1000 which I haven’t used for years because it’s just a balls-ache. > > I’d come to the conclusion that a camera plus copy stand and a light table > would be essential, and have been digging around looking for guidance. I > found this excellent video which is so good i thought i’d share: > https://youtu.be/FqD9SikzZq0 > > He’s not doing exactly what I want to do, but it does look like a good method > for freshly-shot film. > > Most of my slides and negs are either cut in strips and sleeved, or mounted. > My aim is mainly to catalogue what I have, shoot ‘contact prints’ on the > light table so I can have a reasonable idea what is on each film, and do a > higher quality scan only of selected individual frames. But I need an > industrial process to get through so many films. > > I like the method shown in the video, and would adapt it so that I’d put a > sleeved film strip on the lightbox, a glass sheet on top of that to keep it > flat, and shoot. > > If anyone has any hints, tips, bright ideas or dire warnings, please share! > > B > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
