New Nikon ES-2 Film Digitizing Adapter & Slide Scanner Announced

[Scapevision]

850 camera has something called back illuminated sensor. Back light is the key for scanning.

Not to confuse with light needed to backlight the film, the sensor technology has zero effect on ability to capture your slides or negatives. I use other brand camera to do so, and it works fine. The original question was more of a question of being able to stick the new adapter on any other nikon body. I also assume you can stick it on Canon with an adapter.

 

[splitimageview]

Correct, the back lit sensor is just newer tech, not related to the scanning function.

The adapter will work on lots of other cameras, but the D850 is the one with the color conversion smarts.

Exactly how 'smart' it is remains to be seen. 😉

 

[Dwig]

Not sure if there is software that replicates ICE or not. But the original Digital ICE is not just software, it's also partly hardware.

Correct. ICE requires a 4 color sensor. The forth color being infrared. Not DSLR or scanner that lacks this forth color sensor component can use any ICE software or plugin.

That said, there are software apps that attempt to automagically detect dust, as distinct from image detail, and remove it. EPSON Scan has such an option in addition to ICE when used with a compatible scanner. I've never found it to work particularly well on B&W as it too frequently gets confused by any crisp grain, but it works OK for modest use, but shows flaws when pixel peeping.

 

[SolaresLarrave]

Mouthwatering camera... I never felt like this when the D800 and the D810 came out (and I never even learned about the D750 and the D600 and the D610). But then, this is such a body that it'd take me years to learn it... I don't even want to think about it. Learning the basics in my D700 took me already a while! 🙂

Oh, well... one can always dream... and save one's pennies.

No low-pass filter... and the pixel density eliminates the risk of moiré. Is that true?

 

[Huss]

How film is stored is important, but it all starts with how film was developed. Where it was developed for me, back then, it was often quick and dirty by all means....

Gotcha. I have some extremely poor handling of film at 1 hour places.

 

[Huss]

Not sure what the quality will look like compared to the Coolscan 9000, but it certainly would be a lot quicker.

Also, why wouldn't that adapter, since it fits on the end of the Macro camera lens, work with any Nikon DSLR? Not sure why you'd need to buy a D850. Sure, you'd need Photoshop to invert a negative image, but you could shoot RAW (as opposed to the jpg they are pushing when using the D850), and no inversion needed when shooting slides.

Looks interesting.

Best,
-Tim

I'm already doing a near identical thing with my D750. I use the same macro lens that is suggested with the D850, the current Nikon film copier (which is almost the same as the one above) and light it with a flash.
There are two main differences w/ Nikon's new get up. The new sensor and more importantly to me, the camera's ability to make the conversion from negative to positive.
Currently I am doing it with profiles I created in Lightroom, and have been getting better results (and waaaay quicker!) than with anything outside a drum scan.

M3 DS, Summaron 35 3.5 Goggles, Fuji C200, Nikon D750 scan.

CaddyM3DS-33 by desmolicious, on Flickr

CaddyM3DS-35 by desmolicious, on Flickr

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Not to confuse with light needed to backlight the film, the sensor technology has zero effect on ability to capture your slides or negatives. I use other brand camera to do so, and it works fine. The original question was more of a question of being able to stick the new adapter on any other nikon body. I also assume you can stick it on Canon with an adapter.

Sounds promising.
So, it is camera, macro lens and this adapter. Or to be exact - film in the holder, holder on adapter, adapter on macro lens and lens is on the camera.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

....
M3 DS, Summaron 35 3.5 Goggles, Fuji C200, Nikon D750 scan.
....

I like the result!

 

[splitimageview]

Sounds promising.
So, it is camera, macro lens and this adapter. Or to be exact - film in the holder, holder on adapter, adapter on macro lens and lens is on the camera.

Yes, and inside the camera, code for the color conversion. 😉

 

[Huss]

Sounds promising.
So, it is camera, macro lens and this adapter. Or to be exact - film in the holder, holder on adapter, adapter on macro lens and lens is on the camera.

That's all it is. And it is what many of us are doing already.
It takes me a few seconds to scan one image - as a full rez raw file.
For 35mm film use, the D750's 24 mb sensor already resolves grain sharply and results in images up to 6000 by 4000 pixels. It basically easily out-resolves the film.
What the D850 brings, to me, is the in camera conversion.

 

[Corran]

Neat, I didn't know they already had a similar product. DSLR scanning is more time-consuming and labor-intensive for me (mostly due to my high-end flatbed and batch scanning), but I'm glad to see such a product exists.

I think they missed a trick though. Should've had a small LED light built-in, attuned to the inversion and color correction profiles for specific films (or even build your own?).

I wonder if the "digitizing" setting on the D850 could/would be added to some other cameras via firmware updates?

 

[Godfrey]

The only thing in this kit that is of interest to me is the film carrier for negative strips. I already have all my workflow in place for inverting B&W or color negative, takes me three seconds to do an arbitrary number of raw captures. \

The bugger-all is finding a quick and reliable way to hold the negatives in strips that doesn't cost a lot of time reconfiguring and refocusing the camera every frame.

One does not need 45 Mpixel images of negatives ... there isn't that much real, useful photo data to be had from 35mm film images, unless all you've ever shot is Technical Pan with your camera locked to a tripod and perfect exposures. A 4000 ppi scan is about 21-22 Mpixel, IIRC, and in most cases that's more than enough. 🙂

Now if you're doing 120 negatives, then 50 Mpixel capture would be good, but this setup isn't for 120 formats.

G

 

[Betin]

I'm already doing a near identical thing with my D750. I use the same macro lens that is suggested with the D850, the current Nikon film copier (which is almost the same as the one above) and light it with a flash.
There are two main differences w/ Nikon's new get up. The new sensor and more importantly to me, the camera's ability to make the conversion from negative to positive.
Currently I am doing it with profiles I created in Lightroom, and have been getting better results (and waaaay quicker!) than with anything outside a drum scan.

M3 DS, Summaron 35 3.5 Goggles, Fuji C200, Nikon D750 scan.

I gave up on scanning color negs with DSLR. The biggest challenge negative orange mask is not uniform. In fact there are two separate masks - magenta and yellow. Their density varies depending on upper color layer density. All examples I found online how to deal with neg mask just can't deliver the same color fidelity even a cheap scanner is capable of. Your examples are just another proof, sorry.

This new feature of D850 is a HUGE selling point for me. I might even upgrade my DSRL finally. How good it is remains to be seeing. And of course it needs to be capable of dealing with 120 and large formats as well to be really valuable.

 

[Huss]

I gave up on scanning color negs with DSLR. The biggest challenge negative orange mask is not uniform. In fact there are two separate masks - magenta and yellow. Their density varies depending on upper color layer density. All examples I found online how to deal with neg mask just can't deliver the same color fidelity even a cheap scanner is capable of. Your examples are just another proof, sorry.

This new feature of D850 is a HUGE selling point for me. I might even upgrade my DSRL finally. How good it is remains to be seeing. And of course it needs to be capable of dealing with 120 and large formats as well to be really valuable.

No challenge to me. I just make minor adjustments per image in final processing as I see fit. Same as I would with a pure digital workflow - adjusting colour on individual channels as seen fit.
And as with any editing, colour/contrast etc is adjusted to personal liking.

What issue with colour fidelity do you see with my images?

Why wouldn't this be able to deal with 120 and larger film? DSLRs already handle this with a copy stand and light pad.

 

[Betin]

What issue with colour fidelity do you see with my images?

Green is yellow, no pure reds. Low contrast.

 

[Betin]

There is no green. The leaves are yellow green.
The only red is "California' on the license plate. That is accurate.

Low contrast? Leica Summaron 35 3.5 from 1950s.

Zzzzzz.

I'm sorry, didn't want to mock your image. As photographers we are inclined to have our own interpretation.

This is what inexpensive ($300) gets out of a cheap ($2 per roll) film. And it takes full roll at once without a need to baby sit it. Scanning 35mm is not a big deal. But 120 and larger are big and expensive pain.

i'd like to see skin tones, reds and real greens from dslr neg scan

 

[Corran]

Green is yellow, no pure reds. Low contrast.

i'd like to see skin tones, reds and real greens from dslr neg scan

The problem is, that is subjective on color film, and furthermore is easily changeable with a few button presses in LR/PS.

For instance, I find the image you posted to be severely lacking in highlights and overall contrast and has a yellowish tinge - the people look jaundice.

Of course the other issue could be monitor calibration or issues like viewing angle and light sources when editing.

Comparatively I think Huss' image is pretty well balanced in contrast and tone. Pushing the yellow towards green a little might be valid (subjectively), but again that's a 10 second change in PS with a HSL layer.

 

[Betin]

The problem is, that is subjective on color film, and furthermore is easily changeable with a few button presses in LR/PS.

I thought like that too. Until I started printing color in a darkroom. Negative film has it's own color which is objective. You have control on overall color cast but that's about it.

 

[Corran]

No one is talking about color darkroom printing. I'll admit I have no experience there (but I want to give that a go sometime). Regardless, scanning != color darkroom printing.

 

[Betin]

No one is talking about color darkroom printing. I'll admit I have no experience there (but I want to give that a go sometime). Regardless, scanning != color darkroom printing.

The point is scanning with DSLR color neg film is not just a matter of adjusting white balance to compensate for orange mask and tweaking some curves. I'm surprised nobody come yet with a software to remove it properly. Hope this new Nikon delivers. And maybe other vendors to follow.

Meanwhile DSLR scans of b&w silver film are really good without complex manipulations.