Scanning with a digital camera

[Doddle]

I am still waiting on all parts to be delivered, but I plan to try microscope lenses on an APS body.. reason being that, much like enlarger lenses they are designed for flatness of field and resolution into the corners for a third the price of a Focotar-2 or 40mm Kaiser Schneider Componon HM (the two enlarger lenses I was looking at.)


It's going to take a while to figure out distances and what adapters/helicoids to use exactly to reach 1:1 with.


Anyone else out there looking at microscope RMS mount lenses, surely I'm not the first one to try this?

 

[ColSebastianMoran]

Anyone else out there looking at microscope RMS mount lenses, surely I'm not the first one to try this?

I have a couple that do a great job at 4x. Lens nose is quite close to film. Have no idea of performance or coverage at 1x.

If you want to go exotic at 1x, I don't think you can beat the 75 f/4 APO-Rodagon D 1x lens. 80 f/4 Olympus bellows macro is in the same league.

 

[ColSebastianMoran]

Oops... wrong thread.

 

[titrisol]

much like enlarger lenses they are designed for flatness of field and resolution into the corners for a third the price of a Focotar-2 or 40mm Kaiser Schneider Componon HM (the two enlarger lenses I was looking at.)

Why not a Nikkor-EL lens, I have seen those go for $10-25 lately and they were amazing enlarger lenses , same for Vivitar VHE lenses which I think were Rodagons.
Also Polaroid had a line of "Copy" lenses which were very good (Tomioka) and they also go for next to nothing.

 

[Vince Lupo]

Just tried a new scanning method - my Hasselblad CFV II 50c back (50mp) on my old 500CM body with a 150mm f/4 C lens and a set of automatic bellows, Skier Copybox, Novoflex copy stand. This was a pretty down and dirty setup (nothing really lined up precisely beyond eyeballing it) just to see what it could do. Plus I processed the RAW (3FR) image in 8-bit -- stupid me, but no big deal. I set the lens on bulb, locked it open and used the electronic shutter in the back. Think it was about 1/20th of a second at f/16, ISO 100.

For a rough test I'd say this is pretty darned good, all things considered.


Hasselblad CFV II 50c Scan Test by Vince Lupo, on Flickr

 

[Andprayforrain]

How do you like the Skier box? Can it flatten very curled 35mm negs?

 

[Vince Lupo]

How do you like the Skier box? Can it flatten very curled 35mm negs?

So far so good, though I just got it. Primarily I got it for 120 film and 6x13 glass plates of all things.

Only thing I did discover is that the end of the strip frames don't always sit flat - it seems to be better for frames that are either in the middle of a strip or a couple of frames in. Here again, early days, so I will likely need to delve into it deeper.

 

[astrosecret]

anyone using a pixl-latr?

 

[Andprayforrain]

...Only thing I did discover is that the end of the strip frames don't always sit flat - it seems to be better for frames that are either in the middle of a strip or a couple of frames in...

That's good to know. Last night I scanned the first shot on a strip of five. The only way I could flatten the frame was by laying glass on top of the strip to press it flat against the mask (made from heavy black art paper) between the light table and the neg. It would be much easier to use a film holder that can flatten all of a curly strip. I find the 35mm Lomography holder simply can't hold a curly negative flat at any point.

Does anyone here use anti-Newton-ring glass? Is any particular glass recommended?

 

[madNbad]

I bought a Skier Copybox earlier this year and use it exclusively for 135 film. The carrier holds the film flat but not to the level of the Lomo Digitaliza or the Negative Supply FC-1. The advantage to the Skier is it offers both the carrier and light source in a compact package. You can scan uncut rolls, the Digitaliza is strips of six, or just a few cut frames, the Negative Supply works with uncut rolls. It also offers the ability to scan mounted slides. So far, there are some very good but less than perfect choices on the market.

 

[charjohncarter]

That's good to know. Last night I scanned the first shot on a strip of five. The only way I could flatten the frame was by laying glass on top of the strip to press it flat against the mask (made from heavy black art paper) between the light table and the neg. It would be much easier to use a film holder that can flatten all of a curly strip. I find the 35mm Lomography holder simply can't hold a curly negative flat at any point.

Does anyone here use anti-Newton-ring glass? Is any particular glass recommended?

You might be able to buy it at a framing shop, but be careful to get real anti-newton ring glass. Some framers use spray on frosting.

I have some AN glass I bought from 'Better Scanning' but they might not be in business anymore.

 

[Vince Lupo]

You can find AN glass on eBay. I bought a couple of small pieces but I didn't like the results. I thought it took a bit of the 'edge' off the negs, if that makes sense.

Another scan with the Hasselblad CFV II 50c setup. This time I did level everything and used a frame from a roll of HP5 Plus from my Bronica S2a that I developed earlier today.


Riley at Prime Hook3 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr

 

[madNbad]

Vince, I've been using an adjustable T square to center the Copybox. This is with the Alzo stand. I haven tried it with the Negative Supply stand yet.


Sony A7II for camera scanning

 

[Andprayforrain]

You might be able to buy it at a framing shop, but be careful to get real anti-newton ring glass. Some framers use spray on frosting.

Thanks, CJC. That's the glass I currently use, and used yesterday. I had the framing shop down the road cut me an 8x10 sheet. It appears to be real ANR, not the spray-on stuff.

It certainly does eliminate rings. However, because that glass is designed for framing use, I wonder whether it's less than ideal.

I set my negs emulsion side down and place the ANR glass on top, frosted side down. Because I set the negs on a thick paper mask, there's air space between the emulsion and the light table, so I don't need glass under the neg.

I've found that if the frosted side of the framing glass is within the depth of field (eg, if the plain of focus ends up a bit higher than the emulsion itself), it can affect the scan, by making edges in the shot rougher, grainier. (It doesn't affect properly focused scans.)

I wonder whether ANR glass designed for scanning use would be better, perhaps because it would have finer frosting less visible in any scan.

I have some AN glass I bought from 'Better Scanning' but they might not be in business anymore.

Yeah, I emailed them a couple of months ago and still haven't got a reply. I'm not the only one.

Scan Tech seem to be in business. They claim their molded-surface ANR glass is designed for optical clarity.

 

[Vince Lupo]

Vince, I've been using an adjustable T square to center the Copybox. This is with the Alzo stand. I haven tried it with the Negative Supply stand yet.


Sony A7II for camera scanning

Thanks for the info - I just used a small 9” torpedo level on both the Copybox and the back of the Hasselblad body (with the back off). I make subtle adjustments to the Copybox with small pieces of mat board under the feet. Right now they match up pretty well - if I have a chance I’ll take a photo of my setup.

 

[peterm1]

The pentax bellows when fully "closed" gives you a 0.7x magnification with the 55/1.8 ; which is too much for APSC cameras (you need 0.65x) It is easier to set your slide holder and move the front of the bellows for focusing while keeping it as compressed as you can.


You will be going in the wrong direction with the 35mm as the min magnification is 1.05x; I think you'd need a 85mm to get the full slide at a reasonable distance.

I tried a 105mm copy lens (from a Polaroid) which I adapted to the bellows and ran into the problem that the slide copier bellows was too short (need about 50cm), so I made a "canopy" with PVC pipe to keep the stray light out, etc.
So after al that pain and work, I ended up just using a takumar macro 50/4 and digitizing ~95% of the slide.

Focusing is relatively easy if you use your live-view screen at 16x and focus on the grain and the shoot at f/8
I use a LED light and have set custom WB in the camera to compensate for it.
Exposure works fine; I normally bracket +/- 1/2stops for safety
Digital processing with GIMP is not bad after some steep learning curve

However, even with a 50mm lens, it is a wonderful and simple way to digitize large number of negatives; and bring back some memories

titrisol thanks for this. Despite all of the complexities of scanning in this manner using a crop sensor camera I finally managed to scan over 200 slides satisfactorily. A little was lost on the edges but as I said in another post this mostly did not matter and was not significant.

Once set up it is a remarkably fast and efficient method of scanning slides (I have not yet tried scanning negatives though there is a negative holder in built into the Pentax set up. I can say I found the Takumar 50mm f1.8 to be perfectly sharp enough (in any event stopping to say f8 is desirable for depth of field and this helps. Certainly from the examples I posted below I would say they are pretty much as sharp as the original slides - and slides mostly do not provide the kind of resolution now possible from the later model sensors.). I also have a Takumar 50mm f4 macro which I may trial next time. I still have some negatives to scan and about another 200 lower priority slides to tackle also, so I will have plenty of opportunity to experiment more.

 

[ColSebastianMoran]

The pentax bellows when fully "closed" gives you a 0.7x magnification with the 55/1.8 ; which is too much for APSC cameras (you need 0.65x) ... snip ...

You will be going in the wrong direction with the 35mm as the min magnification is 1.05x; I think you'd need a 85mm to get the full slide at a reasonable distance.

I tried a 105mm copy lens (from a Polaroid) which I adapted to the bellows and ran into the problem that the slide copier bellows was too short (need about 50cm), so I made a "canopy" with PVC pipe to keep the stray light out, etc.
So after al that pain and work, I ended up just using a takumar macro 50/4 and digitizing ~95% of the slide. ... snip ...

Focusing is relatively easy if you use your live-view screen at 16x and focus on the grain and the shoot at f/8

Yes, the bellows is tricky. They were engineered to do 1x with a 50-55 macro. This works today with a FF body, but not (most bellows and slide copier) for an APS Body.

You'll want 75 or 80mm for the APS body. The 50 on APS fails due to the minimum extension of the bellows; no fix for that. Longer than 80 may fail due to max distance between sensor and film. Sometimes you can solve that by adding an ext tube between camera body and bellows.

 

[titrisol]

Glad it was useful
Despite al the shortcomings I think it is efficient as well

titrisol thanks for this. Despite all of the complexities of scanning in this manner using a crop sensor camera I finally managed to scan over 200 slides satisfactorily. A little was lost on the edges but as I said in another post this mostly did not matter and was not significant.

Once set up it is a remarkably fast and efficient method of scanning slides (I have not yet tried scanning negatives though there is a negative holder in built into the Pentax set up. I can say I found the Takumar 50mm f1.8 to be perfectly sharp enough (in any event stopping to say f8 is desirable for depth of field and this helps. Certainly from the examples I posted below I would say they are pretty much as sharp as the original slides - and slides mostly do not provide the kind of resolution now possible from the later model sensors.). I also have a Takumar 50mm f4 macro which I may trial next time. I still have some negatives to scan and about another 200 lower priority slides to tackle also, so I will have plenty of opportunity to experiment more.

Yes, the bellows is tricky. They were engineered to do 1x with a 50-55 macro. This works today with a FF body, but not (most bellows and slide copier) for an APS Body.

You'll want 75 or 80mm for the APS body. The 50 on APS fails due to the minimum extension of the bellows; no fix for that. Longer than 80 may fail due to max distance between sensor and film. Sometimes you can solve that by adding an ext tube between camera body and bellows.

Yes, I have recently tried with a 75mm enlarger lens *with a home made 39-42mm adapter (blue tape around the lens)* and made a "canopy" with black paper around the bellows/slide holder. It works fine, and can do full slides. Much better than the 105mm

However, as I stated earlier using the 50/4 Macro was good enough and made scanning hundreds of slides/negatives a breeze

Some negatives require bracketing +/- 1 stop

I don't intend to use this as fine art, but as a method to digitize an extensive collection and share with family mostly which haven;t seen the slides in 40-50yrs.

 

[mob81]

Provia 400X

_D811277 by Mohammed Basamh, on Flickr

_D811312 by Mohammed Basamh, on Flickr

 

[mob81]

_D811322 by Mohammed Basamh, on Flickr