Advice: Leica BEOON for Scanning

[Miles.]

Hi all,

I'm thinking about moving to a mirrorless setup for scanning my 35mm film. I have a Leica BEOON and 50mm enlarger lens from the film days, which seem to be popular choices already. I've ordered a light table and am thinking about purchasing a used Fuji X-E4 for the project.

My question is around which extension tubes/settings on the BEOON will I need to use to get good results with an APS-C sensor and 50mm enlarger lens? Are there any other things I'll need to get good results?

Thanks for your expertise, advice and patience!

 

[Doug A]

The BEOON was designed to work with a Leica film camera and a 50mm Leica camera lens. A combination of the supplied extension tubes for 1:1 reproduction is printed on the base of the BEOON. The obvious present day application would use a live view Leica digital camera and a 50mm Leica (or compatible) lens with a flat field. People have had good luck in that regard with an LTM 50/3.5 (or 50/2.8) Elmar - the lens the BEOON was intended to work with.

As soon as you change the size of the sensor (APS-C vs FF) or the distance from the focal node of the lens to the flange (enlarging lens vs camera lens) all bets are off concerning an extension tube length. There is no standard for that distance with enlarging lenses. People who have made the combination work have arrived at a workable total extension tube length by trial and error.

I scan my 35mm negatives with a BEOON using a Fuji X-T20, a 50/2.8 Schneider Companion-S enlarging lens and an adjustable helical extension tube from a Leitz Focaslide at its minimum length of 50mm. I could find no combination of extension tubes that totaled 50mm. Scanning is super fast and amazingly sharp at a true 4,000 ppi.

 

[Miles.]

The BEOON was designed to work with a Leica film camera and a 50mm Leica camera lens. A combination of the supplied extension tubes for 1:1 reproduction is printed on the base of the BEOON. The obvious present day application would use a live view Leica digital camera and a 50mm Leica (or compatible) lens with a flat field. People have had good luck in that regard with an LTM 50/3.5 (or 50/2.8) Elmar - the lens the BEOON was intended to work with.

As soon as you change the size of the sensor (APS-C vs FF) or the distance from the focal node of the lens to the flange (enlarging lens vs camera lens) all bets are off concerning an extension tube length. There is no standard for that distance with enlarging lenses. People who have made the combination work have arrived at a workable total extension tube length by trial and error.

I scan my 35mm negatives with a BEOON using a Fuji X-T20, a 50/2.8 Schneider Companion-S enlarging lens and an adjustable helical extension tube from a Leitz Focaslide at its minimum length of 50mm. I could find no combination of extension tubes that totaled 50mm. Scanning is super fast and amazingly sharp at a true 4,000 ppi.

Hi Doug, thanks for your reply and info -- I had forgotten that 50mm camera lenses aren't nearly as exact as enlarging lenses so that clears up quite a bit of my confusion from previous research.

Would you mind sharing a link to that adjustable Leitz part?

 

[dourbalistar]

milescl, I digitize my negatives with a Leica BEOON and an APS-C camera. Top to bottom, my setup is:
Sony NEX-5T digital camera, Voigtlander VM-E close focus adapter, Leica BEOON, EL-Nikkor 50mm f/2.8 enlarging lens, and a Huion L4S light pad from Amazon.

For 135 negatives, I mount the EL-Nikkor on the BEOON's "D" extension ring. The VM-E adapter has a short helicoid to get me a little more extension adjustment. On the camera, I use live view magnified to 8x, and set focus using the BEOON's main column, since the enlarging lens has no focusing helicoid. This setup doesn't quite fill the entire APS-C frame, but I can still get decent resolution (~4450px on the long edge). The photos I share on the forum here and on my Flickr photostream are digitized using this kit.

For medium format 120 film, I use a different combination of BEOON extension tubes (B+C), take multiple frames and stitch using Lightroom's Panorama Merge function. There's a few other threads here on RFF that helped me when I started digitizing with the BEOON. There may be other threads if you do a search:
https://www.rangefinderforum.com/node/152428
https://www.rangefinderforum.com/node/162370

I hope that helps!

 

[Miles.]

milescl, I digitize my negatives with a Leica BEOON and an APS-C camera. Top to bottom, my setup is:
Sony NEX-5T digital camera, Voigtlander VM-E close focus adapter, Leica BEOON, EL-Nikkor 50mm f/2.8 enlarging lens, and a Huion L4S light pad from Amazon.

For 135 negatives, I mount the EL-Nikkor on the BEOON's "D" extension ring. The VM-E adapter has a short helicoid to get me a little more extension adjustment. On the camera, I use live view magnified to 8x, and set focus using the BEOON's main column, since the enlarging lens has no focusing helicoid. This setup doesn't quite fill the entire APS-C frame, but I can still get decent resolution (~4450px on the long edge). The photos I share on the forum here and on my Flickr photostream are digitized using this kit.

For medium format 120 film, I use a different combination of BEOON extension tubes (B+C), take multiple frames and stitch using Lightroom's Panorama Merge function. There's a few other threads here on RFF that helped me when I started digitizing with the BEOON. There may be other threads if you do a search:
https://www.rangefinderforum.com/node/152428
https://www.rangefinderforum.com/node/162370

I hope that helps!

dourbalistar thanks for sharing your set-up and those additional links. I think by researching this and not doing my own trial and error with all the parts together has me feeling really confused.

If I were to get a standard adapter without close focus what would I be losing out on? If I'm using a Pixl-latr for 35mm mounted slides will I run into issues because the film plane will be slightly different than using the masks provided with the BEOON?

 

[Emile de Leon]

I would use full frame for this.

 

[dourbalistar]

dourbalistar thanks for sharing your set-up and those additional links. I think by researching this and not doing my own trial and error with all the parts together has me feeling really confused.

If I were to get a standard adapter without close focus what would I be losing out on? If I'm using a Pixl-latr for 35mm mounted slides will I run into issues because the film plane will be slightly different than using the masks provided with the BEOON?

I agree it's confusing in the abstract without equipment in hand to do trial and error. But once you get a digital camera to test out, I think you will be able to get it dialed in pretty quickly. Using a standard adapter without an additional helicoid (or using the pixl-latr) you might fill a bit less of the APS-C sensor. I'm not filling the frame 1:1 either, but happy with the results even after cropping. Hopefully my samples can give you an idea of what's possible, but YMMV.

Here's a few more links that might be helpful, given the existing equipment you have and/or are considering buying (e.g. crop-sensor Fuji):
https://www.pixl-latr.com/leica-beoon-pixl-latr-by-philipp-potocki/
https://redcentphotography.wordpress.com/2016/05/23/behold-the-leica-beoon/

 

[dourbalistar]

I would use full frame for this. You will need a screw to M adapter and a focusing helical mount or you wont be able to focus. I would use a 50mm enlarging lens for corner to corner sharpness..not a reg 50mm. If you are going to dump that kind of cash on all of this..then just get a used Sony or similar for FF. Here is my setup..

Yes, full frame would definitely be better for getting closer to 1:1. Some of the older Sony A7 models are relatively inexpensive now. The great thing about the BEOON is that you can always upgrade your camera to get higher resolution (more megapixels or pixel shift), or upgrade your "taking" lens. I'm using what I have which is an old Sony APS-C, and I even started digitizing using a Canon 50mm f/1.4 LTM as the taking lens. It worked ok. Here's one of my early examples using the Canon 50/1.4 LTM. You can see a bit of barrel distortion on the top and bottom edges:


2016.03.12 Roll #069-09260-positive.jpg by dourbalistar, on Flickr

 

[Doug A]

Would you mind sharing a link to that adjustable Leitz part?

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/ZAUAAOSw8zNhTsdo/s-l300.jpg

A cautionary note: To fill the APS-C frame with the 24x36 negative I have to adjust the extension tube to it's absolute shortest length of 50mm. There is zero further adjustment. With a different enlarging lens the setup might not work.

 

[Doug A]

With a 50mm camera lens a FF camera is the obvious choice. With a 50mm enlarging lens the standard BEOON extension tube setup won't work anyway and the reproduction ratio with an APS-C sensor will work better with just about any enlarging lens.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

By the time you will spend on all gear an bits to have a camera rig, your budget will well exceed price of the current Plustek with dust, scratch removal, which non of the cameras rigs have.

 

[dourbalistar]

With a 50mm camera lens a FF camera is the obvious choice. With a 50mm enlarging lens the standard BEOON extension tube setup won't work anyway and the reproduction ratio with an APS-C sensor will work better with just about any enlarging lens.

Well, it won't fill the APS-C sensor 1:1, but it still works. You have to crop down a bit, so if around 4,000 pixels on the long edge isn't enough resolution, full frame may well be the better choice. If you wander over to my Flickr, you can zoom in to see whether that's enough detail and/or resolution.

 

[dourbalistar]

By the time you will spend on all gear an bits to have a camera rig, your budget will well exceed price of the current Plustek with dust, scratch removal, which non of the cameras rigs have.

OP said they already have a BEOON and an enlarging lens, so in theory that helps with the overall cost. Dust and scratch removal is probably a positive (no pun intended) for color film. One advantage of a digital camera rig is software compatibility. Depending on the scanner and software support, you may run into issues down the road with your computer operating system. For me, another advantage of using a digital camera is speed. I can digitize a roll of film much faster with a digital camera compared to a scanner. Your mileage may vary depending on how you want to skin the cat. 😉

 

[Doug A]

Well, it won't fill the APS-C sensor 1:1, but it still works. You have to crop down a bit, so if around 4,000 pixels on the long edge isn't enough resolution, full frame may well be the better choice. If you wander over to my Flickr, you can zoom in to see whether that's enough detail and/or resolution.

With a 50mm extension tube on the BEOON my 50/2.8 Schneider Componon S nearly fills the APS-C sensor of my Fuji X-T20. The example I just looked at is 5918 x 3912 pixels.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

OP said they already have a BEOON and an enlarging lens, so in theory that helps with the overall cost. Dust and scratch removal is probably a positive (no pun intended) for color film. One advantage of a digital camera rig is software compatibility. Depending on the scanner and software support, you may run into issues down the road with your computer operating system. For me, another advantage of using a digital camera is speed. I can digitize a roll of film much faster with a digital camera compared to a scanner. Your mileage may vary depending on how you want to skin the cat. 😉

It looks like your impression about scanners is limited to Minolta/Nikon relicts. I was mentioning Plustek, not those absolutes.
Here is no difference between support on cameras and scanners.
But FF camera doesn't cost as low as Plustek, except some oldies, which are not supported by manufacturer anymore.

 

[ColSebastianMoran]

I tried out the lesser BELUN on a lark. An old 50 f/4 Componon fits just right, a couple of adapters, and an M42 focusing extension tube for 1x copying to a FF body.

Whole thing is a little wobbly, interesting as an experiment, but I'll prefer to use my copy stand. I think a front of lens accessory or a bellows setup will be better.

 

[dourbalistar]

With a 50mm extension tube on the BEOON my 50/2.8 Schneider Componon S nearly fills the APS-C sensor of my Fuji X-T20. The example I just looked at is 5918 x 3912 pixels.

Good to know! I wonder if some enlarger lenses, like normal taking lenses, vary slightly from the stated focal length.

 

[dourbalistar]

It looks like your impression about scanners is limited to Minolta/Nikon relicts. I was mentioning Plustek, not those absolutes.
Here is no difference between support on cameras and scanners.
But FF camera doesn't cost as low as Plustek, except some oldies, which are not supported by manufacturer anymore.

Plusteks certainly have some advantages like price, automatic dust/scratch removal, etc... Personally, the BEOON gives me flexibility to digitize both 135 and 120. And silly things like 35mm sprocket hole panoramas in a medium format camera. 😎


2021.08.28 Roll #289-06431-Pano-positive.jpg by dourbalistar, on Flickr

 

[Emile de Leon]

You would need a DOORX or similar to get the right extension for the BEOON.

 

[Miles.]

Thank you all for your answers and ideas... given my preference to use an enlarger lens and APSC, I think I'll just sell the BEOON to fund an old copy stand and bellows unit. Given prices of the BEOON these days I'll probably have $$ left over.