twvancamp
Thom
Started messing around with a set up today...a mini light box I found at a thrift store and a Nikon 55mm 3.5 attached to my X-Pro 1. The setup could be much improved but I'm already more impressed by this than what I typically get from my Epson v600.
titrisol
Bottom Feeder
It depends on your lens, if it can get you to 1:1 you don't need a bellows or extension rings.
Yes, external light is a big issue, make yourself a "pyramid" with black cardboard to elimnate most of the stray light and prevent reflections and haze
Yes, external light is a big issue, make yourself a "pyramid" with black cardboard to elimnate most of the stray light and prevent reflections and haze
Russell W. Barnes
Well-known
One thing I used to do years ago for close-up work and which I'm thinking of adapting is to mount the light-box and neg on a car scissor jack. That way I can keep the camera fixed and make fine focus adjustments by raising and lowering the jack.
Tim Gray
Well-known
This is my current setup. The Ambico shade blocks most of the external light but I still close the shade and turn off the lights:
Negative Supply Pro Riser II
How difficult is it to get the camera completely parallel with the film with the Negative Supply stand?
css9450
Veteran
The stand in that picture looks like it might be fixed in a parallel position, but if not (and for those using regular tripods), you can get your sensor plane perfectly parallel to the negative by first placing a small mirror on the light pad and looking at in Live View. It will be obvious when it is right: basically you'll just line it up with the centerweighted circle on the screen. Harder to explain in writing than to do it in person; try it, its VERY easy.
Tim Gray
Well-known
Ahh good tip. Thanks!
madNbad
Well-known
One of the upgrades to the stand is adjustable feet for leveling. It would have been better if Negative Supply had provided a way to lock the feet in place once the adjustment is made. The stand is really designed to work with their carriers and accessories but works well enough with the Skier Lightbox. My first choice was for a Kaiser copy stand but I wanted to help out a new business.
ColSebastianMoran
( IRL Richard Karash )
Several nice rigs shown here, and good results. Here's my take, following @Takkun's nice outline.
Camera: Mirrorless, for the ease in focusing. I'm using Sony A7Rii, A7, A6000 bodies, all have superb focus magnification and focus peaking, easy to get precise focus and I prefer manual focus. In comparison, I have difficulty getting good manual focus with my Nikon DSLR bodies; for these I pretty much have to use AF.
Focus method: Setup the camera and lens for the desired magnification. Then move the whole camera/lens to achieve focus. For this, you'll need a smooth, no-wiggle, no-slip method for moving camera/lens. You need to be able to move without jiggles, and once you have focus, to be able to lock without anything moving. For me, it is a big, sturdy copy stand (made by hacking Polaroid MP-4). Perhaps a good macro rail will do this, but the one's I've tried wiggle too much while moving and shift a bit on lock-down. If you can't do this, then use AF.
Lens: I've tested a lot of lenses, few lenses are designed for 1x, so cam-scan of 35mm to FF body is the toughest challenge. For 1x, purpose-built 1x lenses are tops. There aren't many; the 75 f/4 APO Rodagon-D 1x and 80 f/4 Olympus Bellows macro are the only ones other than real exotics. Then, it's good modern macro lenses, with floating elements to give better 1x performance, and there are lots of choices. I think these are all excellent; the older 55 f/2.8 Micro Nikkor and 90 f/2.5 Vivitar Macro MF lenses are solidly in this group. Some enlarging lenses are good, some not good. I'll mention a couple, but there are others. I like 80 f/4 Componon-S, 50 f/2.8 El-Nikkor old style w/metal body and huge numerals. Finally, the 50 f/4.5 Tominon from the Polaroid MP-4 system, though designed for higher magnification, gives excellent results.
Film holder: Negative Supply, the Essential Film Holder, and holders in the Skier Copy Box are all very good and let you move the film strip from image to image. Negative carriers from enlargers are excellent, but you have to open up to move the film. Wet mount on glass is said to be fabulous but time consuming. Avoid dry contact with glass unless it's ANR glass.
Light source: Video light, set to daylight balance. Flash, especially TTL-auto flash, but you'll need to have some continuous light for positioning and focus. Kaiser light panel, but you'll be shooting at ~1/3 sec. Avoid cheap tracing panels. Narrow-band tri-chromic light (R, G, and B, not continuous spectrum) gives good results and vivid colors; a current iPhone or iPad is an easy way to experiment with this.
Support: Copy stand that gives precise no-slop movement. Or, a horizontal arrangement with a good bellows or rail system works very well.
Tethering? Many prefer this approach; I do not. I like the focus mag and focus peaking on the LCD with my Sony bodies.
Software: I've tried many methods and products. See my thread "Color-Negative Challenge" here in the "Scanners" group. Today, I prefer Negative Lab Pro, but there is a lot of innovation.
I wish everyone good shooting and good cam-scanning! And, stay safe these days.
Camera: Mirrorless, for the ease in focusing. I'm using Sony A7Rii, A7, A6000 bodies, all have superb focus magnification and focus peaking, easy to get precise focus and I prefer manual focus. In comparison, I have difficulty getting good manual focus with my Nikon DSLR bodies; for these I pretty much have to use AF.
Focus method: Setup the camera and lens for the desired magnification. Then move the whole camera/lens to achieve focus. For this, you'll need a smooth, no-wiggle, no-slip method for moving camera/lens. You need to be able to move without jiggles, and once you have focus, to be able to lock without anything moving. For me, it is a big, sturdy copy stand (made by hacking Polaroid MP-4). Perhaps a good macro rail will do this, but the one's I've tried wiggle too much while moving and shift a bit on lock-down. If you can't do this, then use AF.
Lens: I've tested a lot of lenses, few lenses are designed for 1x, so cam-scan of 35mm to FF body is the toughest challenge. For 1x, purpose-built 1x lenses are tops. There aren't many; the 75 f/4 APO Rodagon-D 1x and 80 f/4 Olympus Bellows macro are the only ones other than real exotics. Then, it's good modern macro lenses, with floating elements to give better 1x performance, and there are lots of choices. I think these are all excellent; the older 55 f/2.8 Micro Nikkor and 90 f/2.5 Vivitar Macro MF lenses are solidly in this group. Some enlarging lenses are good, some not good. I'll mention a couple, but there are others. I like 80 f/4 Componon-S, 50 f/2.8 El-Nikkor old style w/metal body and huge numerals. Finally, the 50 f/4.5 Tominon from the Polaroid MP-4 system, though designed for higher magnification, gives excellent results.
Film holder: Negative Supply, the Essential Film Holder, and holders in the Skier Copy Box are all very good and let you move the film strip from image to image. Negative carriers from enlargers are excellent, but you have to open up to move the film. Wet mount on glass is said to be fabulous but time consuming. Avoid dry contact with glass unless it's ANR glass.
Light source: Video light, set to daylight balance. Flash, especially TTL-auto flash, but you'll need to have some continuous light for positioning and focus. Kaiser light panel, but you'll be shooting at ~1/3 sec. Avoid cheap tracing panels. Narrow-band tri-chromic light (R, G, and B, not continuous spectrum) gives good results and vivid colors; a current iPhone or iPad is an easy way to experiment with this.
Support: Copy stand that gives precise no-slop movement. Or, a horizontal arrangement with a good bellows or rail system works very well.
Tethering? Many prefer this approach; I do not. I like the focus mag and focus peaking on the LCD with my Sony bodies.
Software: I've tried many methods and products. See my thread "Color-Negative Challenge" here in the "Scanners" group. Today, I prefer Negative Lab Pro, but there is a lot of innovation.
I wish everyone good shooting and good cam-scanning! And, stay safe these days.
ColSebastianMoran
( IRL Richard Karash )
Here's a Nikon bellows setup with 75mm lens, for 1x cam-scan. With the PB-4 and PB-5 bellows, this works with lenses of about 50mm to 90mm; don't try longer or shorter focal lengths.
ColSebastianMoran
( IRL Richard Karash )
And, here's a different setup, can be done with AF or manual focus lenses. A design by Peter Krogh. Some DIY required, and it works well. Illumination can be flash or a video light. Diffuser for this one is built-into the slide/film holder.
Dogman
Veteran
These setups look impressive, no doubt. I went the down-and-dirty route. Nikon D800 with the Nikon ES-2 Digitizer and a Micro Nikkor 60mm ƒ/2.8 lens. The parts are all compatible and work perfectly together. I pop in the negative strip or slide, take it outside on a bright day, point it toward a featureless sky and shoot away. Process in Lightroom. Everything looks excellent to me and there's no cumbersome setup or cobbling together parts. The only downside is cost--if you don't already have Nikon gear you have to buy it all. But older Nikon digital gear is relatively cheap these days. I'm cheap but I'm also lazy and this works perfectly for my purposes.
twvancamp
Thom
For now, I've landed on working in my darkroom with a Nikkor 55mm 3.5 w/ the M2 extension on my Fuji X-Pro1. This is on a basic tripod above a leveled LED tracing pad. I can shoot at f/8 or f/11 with reasonable speeds and using the self-timer.
I've set up a basic Lightroom preset to flip the RAW files and get them close to developed. Then go through and tweak a bit for each shot.
Seeing the beautiful setups here I realize this could all be better, but having only paid out $18 for the light pad I'm getting much nicer images than my Epson v600 produces in less time.
I've set up a basic Lightroom preset to flip the RAW files and get them close to developed. Then go through and tweak a bit for each shot.
Seeing the beautiful setups here I realize this could all be better, but having only paid out $18 for the light pad I'm getting much nicer images than my Epson v600 produces in less time.