BEOON scanning crops off the edges

[anerjee]

Recently I bought a BEOON set-up to scan my 35mm b&w film. I use a m-p with a 50mm m-hexanon. I find the quality and flexibility quite acceptable, but one niggling issue is that I cannot get 100% of my negative in view, one of the edges is always cropped by a small amount.

Usually not an issue, but I'd like to know why this is so? Is it due to the fact that the lens is not a true 50mm? Or the Copy stand is out of alignment ever so slightly?

I use the recommended tubes and mask for 1:1 scanning. The film runs under the mask, and the lens is focussed wide open and then stopped down to f8.

Anyone else faced the same issue? Any advise or tips would be mucho appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Jhausler]

I get that sometimes as well. usually the camera is off by a few degrees which causes opposite corners to appear clipped. That was with an M9.

I recently started using an A7 on the BEOON and find that the bottom of the frame is always cropped a bit. It's never bothered me though as I just do a Auto Sync crop in LR.

You can get a cheap El Nikkor enlarging lens in 50mm. It not focused at infinity, so it'll give you a larger scan. You'll want to use a different mask though.

Or maybe just dont set the lens at infinity and adjust the focus using the knobs till you find a good crop.

 

[johannielscom]

Interested in the setups you guys use for that scanning.

Care to share a picture of the setup? 🙄

 

[Godfrey]

In addition to the specific alignment and coverage of the lens and camera on the BEOON copy stand, there is also the fact that different lenses will image to greater and lesser amounts of the 35mm "24 x 36 mm" format frame. Short focal lengths will often image slightly larger onto film where normal to longer focal lengths will image close to the specification.

I've used both the SL and the M-P typ 240 with the BEOON, utilizing a Color Skopar 50mm f/2.5 or a Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 on a Nikon F to Leica M mount adapter. Both do a good job. To eliminate small issues of coverage, I drop the magnification down from 1:1 to .95:1* which means that some of my pixel real estate is consumed by a bit of the mask (about a 10 pixel wide border all the way around the negative image). That way I can see the edges of the mask for best frame alignment and ensure I capture as much of the negative as the mask allows. The small loss in pixel resolution is inconsequential when you're capturing with a 24 Mpixel camera; it's equivalent to scanning with a 4200 PPI negative scanner.

*This is most easily accomplished with the Micro-Nikkor 55mm: use the BEOON's A+B+C tube combination and the lens's helicoid focusing mount to set the magnification just right. In the picture of the setup below, I get the full mask frame in with the Micro-Nikkor 55mm set to 1:8 magnification and the BEOON's height set to 1:1.5. The SL mounts about 3mm to the right end of the mask's reference frame as seen through the viewfinder. If I truly want to get the entire frame in the capture, I use my own mask that is cut to allow the entire width of the film including the film rebate with a width of 40mm in the gate, and reset the height and extension accordingly in order to capture everything.

G

 

[Jhausler]

Interested in the setups you guys use for that scanning.

Care to share a picture of the setup? 🙄

Here's my setup. I put the stand on a glass from a picture frame on top of 2 children's unit blocks. I put an ipad underneath with a white screen app. I use a 50/3.5 Elmar for the lens.

 

[Godfrey]

Interested in the setups you guys use for that scanning.

Care to share a picture of the setup? 🙄

Here you go:

Leica SL mounted on BEOON with A+D tubes and Color Skopar 50mm to capture 1:1 magnification

Leica SL mounted on BEOON with A+B+C tubes and Micro-Nikkor 55mm to capture ~0.95:1 magnification​

When capturing negatives, my setup is nearly identical to JHausler's with a thick piece of glass supported by two small wooden blocks that the BEOON sits on. I use a small flat-panel, color temperature corrected light box as the light source, however. It's much brighter than an iPad for shorter exposures and the balanced color temperature allows better color negative capture.

G

 

[Jhausler]

Ooh, tell me more about your lightbox? What's it called. Got an amazon link?

 

[johannielscom]

Here's my setup. I put the stand on a glass from a picture frame on top of 2 children's unit blocks. I put an ipad underneath with a white screen app. I use a 50/3.5 Elmar for the lens.

Yeah that would be pretty close to what I'm gunning for, with my Sony A7 tethered to the Mac Mini and my Heliar 50mm 2.0 LTM on the BEOON.

And a link to a good lightbox would be very useful indeed 😀

 

[Godfrey]

My flat-panel lightbox is an absolutely ancient Hakuba 5x7" model that I bought in Japan about 1992 when I was living there. I needed something to look at my negatives with when I was there and bought this in Tokyo's Shinjuku district at one of the many camera shops there. I remember it cost me a small fortune...!

Nowadays, just go to B&H Photo and look for "Light Box". You can get the Porta-Trace / Gagne LED Light Panel (6 x 9", Black) with Bright White LED illumination for about $80:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod..._trace_gagne_69_lp_blk_led_light_panel_6.html

I'd have to run a color temperature calibration on that, but I expect that the LED lights have a much more stable output than my old Hakuba. (I am sure my Hakuba cost me at least three times what that Porta-Trace costs..)

G

 

[dourbalistar]

I use this light pad from Amazon for my BEOON setup:
https://www.amazon.com/Huion-L4S-Portable-Interface-Active/dp/B00J3NRAV2

 

[coelacanth]

I'm using USB powered LED lightbox (thin panel) like dourbalistar posted above, and I made my own film carrier to have control over the opening size and also to prevent scratches or BEOON wobbling. BEOON's base will hold the carrier and film flat.

 

[Ronald M]

Why buy such a limiting copying device?

Leica 50 mm lenses are not 50 mm exactly. there is a small range . This will cut off some image and who knows about the Hexagon.

I one had a project to find two matching 50 2.8 original Elmars out of a dozen for 3D camera. No two matched.

You can always put a sheet of matt acetate across the film rails and leave the back open, shutter open and see what is going on.

I will also advise the film area/gate on m4-2 and later is smaller than M2 & M3 cameras for which the BEOON was designed. Easily seen by observing the space between frames.

 

[coelacanth]

Good point about Leica's "50mm" lenses being not truly 50mm FL. It's often slightly longer than 50mm, and also the film gate size of various cameras.

Also wide angle lenses often project larger image onto the film. Good example is Super-Angulon. Barnack Leica + SA would make a giant image on film (next to no frame spacing, image getting right up to the sprocket holes or even beyond) compared to say M6 with 50mm image.

I'm currently using EL-Nikkor 50/2.8 (with E-M5 MkII) which gives me enough space to even accommodate If + SA 21/4 image, which touches the sprocket holes.

 

[splitimageview]

Artograph Lightpad Revolution 80 (refurb, $50 shipped on ebay) for LED lighting, Beseler Negatrans for easy negative handling ($20 on ebay plus $5 for a new belt), EL Nikkor 50/4 (used this lens on my enlarger going back to the late 70s), Sony A7II for imaging.

The 50/2.8 EL Nikkor won't maximize the frame with this setup, the 50/4 does, however.

 

[Jhausler]

The 50/2.8 EL Nikkor won't maximize the frame with this setup, the 50/4 does, however.

why would the max aperture make any difference?

 

[splitimageview]

It doesn't.

 

[Godfrey]

Good point about Leica's "50mm" lenses being not truly 50mm FL. It's often slightly longer than 50mm, and also the film gate size of various cameras. ...

Nearly all lenses vary slightly, both from the nominal focal length and from other units by the same manufacturer. This is no less true of Nikon, Canon, and other manufacturers than it is of Leica. Lenses for stereo cameras are always matched up at the factory from a much larger supply to ensure that they are within a very small delta.

I recall when I was asked to help pick lenses for our flight documentation. We'd get a batch of Nikon lenses ... 12-20 new examples of say the 105/2.5 ... and I had the job of putting them on an optical bench and determining their actual focal lengths and 'best performance'. A lens marked 105mm would vary in actual focal length by between 100 and 112 mm. We needed three matched lenses, so we'd find all the sets that were as close as possible (I seem to recall the criteria was +/- 2mm) and then test the lenses in the groups for contrast and resolution. Out of 20 lenses, there were usually two sets of three that matched pretty closely.

G