A fast, easy and cheap solution for digitizing slides and negatives

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dierk

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I just posted this in an other thread, but i noticed, that the title of that thread does not explain the content.

So here is an extra post with a more meaningful title.


I did a post on this topic a few days ago at Steve Huff:
http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2014/05/29/digitizing-slides-and-negatives-on-the-cheap-by-dierk-topp/

The topic: A fast, easy and cheap solution for digitizing slides and negatives
The main idea is, to use the light of a tablet as a neutral white light source and solve the (my) main problem with the light.
The rest can be done in many different ways.

The problem with the DSLR was the light and the resolution (at that time 12 MPix) and the problem with the scanner was the boring time per scan, and also the resolution of only 2400 DPI!
Some time ago I noticed, that my tablet can be used as an ideal light source.

The light is very neutral (I checked it with the Colorchecker). And I came up with the following quick and “not so dirty” solution, of course not for professional work.
​
If you are interested, you find the whole post at Steve Huff.


This is the basic setup:
14153161873_69b9531807_c.jpg


I did 24x36, 24x56 panorama, 6x6 and 4x5" with very satisfying results. Digitizing a row of 6 negatives is done in a view minutes!

For 24x36 and 24x56 I use the NEX-6 with the Leica Makro-Elmarit-R and 1:1 adapter, the 4x5" i made with 6 sepatate shots (2x3) and stitched. With multiple shots and stitching you can get any resolution, you want, depending on the lens and the magnification ratio!

For 6x6 I used the Sony A7R with the same lens, but no 1:1 adapter.

some examples:
click for higher resolution
24x56 (two shots of left and right part and stitched)


6x6



4x5"




dierk
 
Never thought of a Pad as a light source for digitizing.

Very cool. Thank you for sharing.

Many moon ago I was thinking of getting a Nikon slide copying setup they used to sell as a way to do the same thing. Never did it but heard of folks doing that.

B2
 
Nice!

I use my M9 with a beoon 1:1 copier, it rocks!

Today with Raw and 15 mp or more you can squeeze info from the negs to amazing limits.

What i haven´t done is to copy colour negs, simply don´t have the patience to correct colour, but on B/W shines!
 
Now you got me thinking of using the top-lid of my Epson V700 as a light source and then my wife`s NikonD3200 as "scan-unit".... Interesting approach, your results look very good.
 
mervynyan said:
what's the color temperature from the pad?
Click to expand...

I can not measure the color temperature. It will differ from the model too and from the "white" screen, that you get.

This is, how I made the white (quote from the post at Steve Huff)
On the tablet you need a neutral white image. I made one by taking a screen shot of an email with very little text and enlarged the screen so much that I had only the white background and then did another screen shot.
Of course there are many other ways for a white screen.
​
Slides and especially old slides often have a severe color shift and I tried to adjust the color manually.
 
There is also a free app called Light Table. I used it in one iPad and used another iPad to photograph several negatives. It doesn't even come close to any scanner, but allows looking at negatives, and using them for the web. Digitizing color negs this way is a hassle to say the least, since temperature ant tint have to be adjusted manually.
U38816I1401940933.SEQ.1.jpg


U38816I1401941769.SEQ.0.jpg


U38816I1401940933.SEQ.0.jpg
 
maddoc said:
Now you got me thinking of using the top-lid of my Epson V700 as a light source and then my wife`s NikonD3200 as "scan-unit".... Interesting approach, your results look very good.
Click to expand...

I saw, that you use the XPan.
This may be interesting for you. As I wrote, I have 24x56mm negatives (from Horizon 202) and copied them with two separate shots and stitched later without any problems (manual exposure!)

The resolution from a 16 MPix camera is about 3.000x7.900 pixel= 24 MPix.

Here are three more examples (Ilford Delta 100)
you find more here in my flickr album

click for larger version





 
Crazy Fedya said:
There is also a free app called Light Table. I used it in one iPad and used another iPad to photograph several negatives. It doesn't even come close to any scanner, but allows looking at negatives, and using them for the web. Digitizing color negs this way is a hassle to say the least, since temperature ant tint have to be adjusted manually.
Click to expand...

I did a little experimenting with a Beseler Dual Mode Slide Duplicator.

For color negatives, adjust the color of the "light table" and adjust the White Balance on the digital camera until the film edge comes out neutral. This wasn't too hard. Then, shoot your negative and invert the result. Gets reasonably neutral, but there are devils in the details.

I'm still looking for a reasonably good approach for getting good color from color negs using the "camera as scanner" approach.

And, an aside: Noted in another thread that there's an option to invert the screen on iPhones and iPads. So: Invert the screen, go to the Camera app, hold it over your negatives on a light table and you have a color-inverting loupe. Neat.
 
6x6 examples

color negative film

Up to now I did only a few tests. My main goal is B&W.

The first two are stitched from 4 images (2x2) made with the 16 MPix NEX-6.

original size after stitching is 7.900x7.900 pixel = about 70 MPix
click for larger version



again stitch of 2x2 images




B&W examples from Agfa Ultra 100 color negative

NEX-6 (16 MPix) with the tiny and cheap Sony Macro 30mm E-mount
cropped to 1:1 ratio, 2.800x2.800 pixel= about 8 MPix



made with Sony A7R (36 Mpix like Nikon D800)
cropped to 1:1 ratio, 4.700x4.700 pixel= about 23 MPix
 
ColSebastianMoran said:
p.s. Dierk, I like your results in B&W. Very nice.
Click to expand...
thanks very much Sebastian :)

that encourages me to post some more, that I processed two days ago.

I must say, after having an easy solution to digitize my negatives, I would like to spend day and night on that. After 50+ years shooting I have so many negatives and only very few ever got printed. Most of them I never saw as positive picture and of course never could share it with other people. For me these images are a treasure of my (photo-) live.

24x36 B&W negative APX25

here is the whole album of this series. I made it on the island of Corsica, France in 1990.
click for larger view















 
mcfingon said:
The idea of stitching together the larger-format negs is great, dierk. I posted my method to scan negs using an old enlarger as a light source in another thread on RFF. I can scan 35mm or 120 size. My web-page explaining my method is here:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~fingon/howto/making_digitizer_mark_three/
Click to expand...
thanks, John
you did put a lot of effort into solving the problem. Your solution looks very big and like a lot of work! :)

Here is one more of the stitched images from 4x5"

this is the most complicated panorama, I ever made :)
It is made out of two 4x5" shots from Gandolfi Variant field camera.
First image with shifted front standard to one side and back standard to the opposite and the second image with shifts the other way around.
Lens was Rodenstock Sironar-N 150mm/5.6 MC
the usual darkroom chemistry ....
PP:
digitized both images with Sony A7R and Leica Makro-Elmarit-R 60mm
each image with 4 shots (2x2)
each image processed with LR5 and exported as TIFF
stitched with PTGui 9
the negative converted with CS6 and base contrast alignments
final processing with Nik Silver Efex Pro2
the result is about 7600x17200 pixel = 130 Mpix.

click for larger view



and this is a 1:1 crop
click on the image for the real 1:1 picture
 
Very cool stuff - as for light sources and copy stands, these are now easily found relatively cheaply as they have fallen out of use - if your original size is 35mm - there exist a few for medium format, though the light table or ipad illuminating idea is viable as color control is in-camera, unlike the old film-to-film duplication days. I have done tons of slide duplicating with similar equipment, and the results can be remarkable. To achieve dedicated scanner quality, make sure to control stray light, camera motion, and use the sharpest, flattest field optic you can. 35mm scanners are still relatively inexpensive, but this method trumps the flatbed approach, it appears, for anything larger, if done correctly.
 
Thanks Dierk for those great images. I've been digitizing with my Sony NEX-5N and an adapted Canon FD 50/3.5 macro lens too, and really like the results. It's tempting to get the new A6000 for more resolution, though after looking at my prints from the 5N (up to 24x36 inches), I don't feel that I need more resolution.

Like others I've been having trouble with C41, and here's an idea that I want to try out when I have time: illuminate the C41 negative with a light that has more blue content instead of a white light. If you look at the individual color histograms for C41 shot against a white light with a DSLR, the blue channel is really low, which makes it difficult to correct and keep the noise down. Blue is also opposite the color wheel from the orange that's used, so I guess that makes sense.

I'm using an old light table right now, but with an iPad, one can make different colored blank screens that you can display on it. For B&W, just use a white one as Dierk mentions, but perhaps for C41, one can try different shades of blue to get through the orange mask.
 
Very cool effort, lots of work from the looks of it :)

Thank you for sharing.

Out of curiosity, what do you do with a digitally scanned and stitched twin 4x5" panorama?

Have you printed these files?

I imagine if you run them through an HP and some quality Hahnemuhle roll paper you would get something quite special.
 
I've been doing a very similar thing with my laptop screen and my girlfriend's Lumix. Main problem I've found is that the Lumix lens introduces a lot of distortion if you try to fill the frame with the negative.
 
examples of 24x36 color slides

I did not do many color slides jet, but I have hundreds of slides with pictures of my family from the past decades and will try to digitize them in the near future (when I run out of ideas for new images :) )







this has been high ISO film and I used a soft filter (Vaseline on the lens), for the copy I had to focus on the grain

 
Wow. Off topic, but the tones you are getting with APX25 is incredible. I love this series. What developer did you use?


dierk said:
thanks very much Sebastian :)

that encourages me to post some more, that I processed two days ago.

I must say, after having an easy solution to digitize my negatives, I would like to spend day and night on that. After 50+ years shooting I have so many negatives and only very few ever got printed. Most of them I never saw as positive picture and of course never could share it with other people. For me these images are a treasure of my (photo-) live.

24x36 B&W negative APX25
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Click to expand...
 
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