Posted by John Varley on October 2, 2008 at 7:37 AM
I have a load of old BW (mainly) negatives that need digitising. Using a macro lens and a high megapixel camera looks like it would be a quick and cheap way of doing the job.
I would be interested to hear of anyones experience.
Posted by Mike Smith on October 2, 2008 at 8:03 AM
The dynamic range of DSLRs isn't as good as the dedicated film scanners, but otherwise the theory holds good.
The frustrating issue I found with digitising with a DSLR is the cleaning and dust spotting of the source material either before or afterwards, it is incredible the amount of crud that builds on your avaerage negative/slide. The software in the Nikon scanners (for example) makes this chore largely unnecessary, so if you have a large number to convert you will soon get bored with the cleaning process
Ive tried this type of copying in the past with limited success.
Most recently { a couple of years ago} i placed my old D70 body on the baseboard of my old Durst enlarger, and projected the 35mm slide/negs into the camera. The results were quite dodgy, and no better than i get via my old flatbed {bear in mind that i was less proficient with PS in those days, and i didn't own any noise reduction software at that time either}.
This method only worked for me, if i projected 35mm slides/negs into my old mamiya 645 film body, and then scanned the 645 negs on my flatbed.
In my film days i also experimented with an Ohnar slide copier, although the results were never satisfactory {increase in grain/contrast etc}, but i guess there are a lot more corrections that can be applied today, with digital.
I suspect a macro lens would be superior to those old 'fixed aperture' Ohnar's, with regards to IQ, and providing the neg is able to be illuminated evenly across the frame, and just bright enough to reveal the shadow areas, without blowing the highlights, i reckon its worth a bash. Edit: with negs, the highlights will be the dense areas, obviously.
Old B&W should in theory be better suited to copying than old colour, as there is more likely to be fading {loss of original contrast}, rather than fading and colour shifts.
Give it a try..............easy to delete!
Alan
Posted by John Robinson on October 2, 2008 at 8:41 AM
Hello John
Yes i do this all the time with a home made job. It's surprisingly good.
Some of the stuff put on here has been done with it.
My system is -
Sigma 150 mm. Lenshood and a piece of drainpipe inserted at a length long enough to get all the slide in. A slide holder with opaque plastic in the front.
Point at the sky or use flash indoors.
Put the camera on low vontrast and off you go . Now is that technical or what !!
ps I used a standard lens with three close ups on not long ago too.
Cheers
JR
Posted by John Varley on October 2, 2008 at 9:25 AM
Thanks everyone - that is just what I wanted to know - it works reasonably well - and dust spotting is a pain.
These days most of my digital stuff is catalogued in Lightroom - it is wonderful to be able to find a pic almost instantly. Well it is high time I sorted out my old film stuff and got the decent pics into LR.
I reckon there are about 10K BW images, although I suspect by my current standards 95% are junk and not even worth scanning!
Posted by David Taylor on October 2, 2008 at 2:17 PM
I've just dug out some slides taken at RAF Sharjah, Trucial States, Arabian Gulf 1966 from out of the attic, to digitise. Here is my homemade slide scanner , using a lampshade holder, glass vase, table mat, a metal glass-holder and a plastic holder. With a white melamine mdf board for a background. The set up is infinitely moveable and adjustable and cost absolutely nothing.
The camera is a Sigma SD14 with a Sigma EX DG 50mm macro lens.
Daylight exposure. The slide depicts the Station HQ entrance taken with a Yashica Mimy half-frame camera and Agfa slide film.
As Mike says the snag is the amount of dust scratches etc on the slide accumulated over 42 years
Posted by John Robinson on October 2, 2008 at 3:33 PM
Hi David
I used to do it like this but found a matt black tube was better as it cut out a lot of extraneous light which was resulting in a slight flare or mist on the image..
Cheers
JohnR
Posted by Peter Barritt on October 3, 2008 at 6:37 AM
I have used a lightbox, tripod and macro lens, blacking out everything except the tranny. these were from very old slides that the Nikon coolscan 5000 couldn't cope with. results were average but I did sell one taken in 1970 on Alamy for £50. They wouldn't pass quality control now
Discussion
7 repliesI would be interested to hear of anyones experience.
The frustrating issue I found with digitising with a DSLR is the cleaning and dust spotting of the source material either before or afterwards, it is incredible the amount of crud that builds on your avaerage negative/slide. The software in the Nikon scanners (for example) makes this chore largely unnecessary, so if you have a large number to convert you will soon get bored with the cleaning process
Ive tried this type of copying in the past with limited success.
Most recently { a couple of years ago} i placed my old D70 body on the baseboard of my old Durst enlarger, and projected the 35mm slide/negs into the camera. The results were quite dodgy, and no better than i get via my old flatbed {bear in mind that i was less proficient with PS in those days, and i didn't own any noise reduction software at that time either}.
This method only worked for me, if i projected 35mm slides/negs into my old mamiya 645 film body, and then scanned the 645 negs on my flatbed.
In my film days i also experimented with an Ohnar slide copier, although the results were never satisfactory {increase in grain/contrast etc}, but i guess there are a lot more corrections that can be applied today, with digital.
I suspect a macro lens would be superior to those old 'fixed aperture' Ohnar's, with regards to IQ, and providing the neg is able to be illuminated evenly across the frame, and just bright enough to reveal the shadow areas, without blowing the highlights, i reckon its worth a bash. Edit: with negs, the highlights will be the dense areas, obviously.
Old B&W should in theory be better suited to copying than old colour, as there is more likely to be fading {loss of original contrast}, rather than fading and colour shifts.
Give it a try..............easy to delete!
Alan
Yes i do this all the time with a home made job. It's surprisingly good.
Some of the stuff put on here has been done with it.
My system is -
Sigma 150 mm. Lenshood and a piece of drainpipe inserted at a length long enough to get all the slide in. A slide holder with opaque plastic in the front.
Point at the sky or use flash indoors.
Put the camera on low vontrast and off you go . Now is that technical or what !!
ps I used a standard lens with three close ups on not long ago too.
Cheers
JR
These days most of my digital stuff is catalogued in Lightroom - it is wonderful to be able to find a pic almost instantly. Well it is high time I sorted out my old film stuff and got the decent pics into LR.
I reckon there are about 10K BW images, although I suspect by my current standards 95% are junk and not even worth scanning!
The camera is a Sigma SD14 with a Sigma EX DG 50mm macro lens.
Daylight exposure. The slide depicts the Station HQ entrance taken with a Yashica Mimy half-frame camera and Agfa slide film.
As Mike says the snag is the amount of dust scratches etc on the slide accumulated over 42 years
I used to do it like this but found a matt black tube was better as it cut out a lot of extraneous light which was resulting in a slight flare or mist on the image..
Cheers
JohnR