Slide Scanners

[peterm1]

View attachment 4826858
I put this slide copy setup together from pieces I was able to get off the Goodwill auction site. I haven't tried it with my A7Riii yet but I think it'll work well. I'll use my Micro Nikkor 55mm lens.

BTW I forgot to mention in my previous response that while you can of course use a Micro Nikkor 55mm f2.8 (which has great resolution and so should work very well), you do not have to use a micro/macro lens for bellows kit as the bellows provides the extension needed for close focus and magnification of the image. If you have one, an ordinary 50mm lens will usually suffice so long as it is good enough to provide the resolution needed - something like a 50mm f2 would probably be ideal in this respect. The lens should, in any event, be stopped down to f8 or f11 to provide depth of field (otherwise almost non-existent at these distances and hence prone to focusing error) and to ensure the image is as sharp as possible. (Slow shutter speeds are not really an issue as with a bellows and slide holder, the entire set up is locked to the front of the camera and any movement affects the whole system). Also, the user manual should give an indication of which lens this is calibrated for - if it's calibrated for a 50mm lens and you use a 55mm one, you should expect that there will be a slight cropping factor which may crop out some edge details of the slides - which may or may not matter. Having said all of the above the 55mm Nikkor Micro should in other respects work well.

 

[Bill Jones]

BTW I forgot to mention in my previous response that while you can of course use a Micro Nikkor 55mm f2.8 (which has great resolution and so should work very well), you do not have to use a micro/macro lens for bellows kit as the bellows provides the extension needed for close focus and magnification of the image. If you have one, an ordinary 50mm lens will usually suffice so long as it is good enough to provide the resolution needed - something like a 50mm f2 would probably be ideal in this respect. The lens should, in any event, be stopped down to f8 or f11 to provide depth of field (otherwise almost non-existent at these distances and hence prone to focusing error) and to ensure the image is as sharp as possible. (Slow shutter speeds are not really an issue as with a bellows and slide holder, the entire set up is locked to the front of the camera and any movement affects the whole system). Also, the user manual should give an indication of which lens this is calibrated for - if it's calibrated for a 50mm lens and you use a 55mm one, you should expect that there will be a slight cropping factor which may crop out some edge details of the slides - which may or may not matter. Having said all of the above the 55mm Nikkor Micro should in other respects work well.

Peter.

I don't understand your comment about what lens the bellows is "calibrated for". A bellows us just an adjustable lens extension. I use amount other things a Contax bellows with an S-Planar 100mm f4 lens or a Planar 50mm f1.4 normal lens. As long as the bellows extension is equal to the actual focal length of the lens as opposed to the marked focal length and the lens is set to inf, any set-up will yield a true 1:1 copy.

When coping mounted slides beware that the mounts crop the edges of all the slide and at 1:1 you will get some mount showing on all four sides if you are properly centered. Typically this is on the order of .02 inches or .5mm per edge.

When coping a lot of slides and speed is important set the bellows extension shot of the actual focal length and get a larger amount of the slide mount in the copy. Then crop the copy. I did not suggest an amount of shortening because it depends on how accurately and repeatably your slide holder olds the slides. You'll need to test that.

Bill

 

[peterm1]

BTW I forgot to mention in my previous response that while you can of course use a Micro Nikkor 55mm f2.8 (which has great resolution and so should work very well), you do not have to use a micro/macro lens for bellows kit as the bellows provides the extension needed for close focus and magnification of the image. If you have one, an ordinary 50mm lens will usually suffice so long as it is good enough to provide the resolution needed - something like a 50mm f2 would probably be ideal in this respect. The lens should, in any event, be stopped down to f8 or f11 to provide depth of field and to ensure the image is as sharp as possible. (Slow shutter speeds are not really an issue as the entire set up is locked to the front of the camera and any movement affects the whole system). Also the user manual should give an indication of which lens this is calibrated for - if it's calibrated for a 50mm lens and you use a 55mm one, you should expect that there will be a slight cropping factor which may crop out some edge details of the slides - which may or may not matter. Having said all of the above the 55mm Nikkor Micro should in other respects work well.

Peter.

I don't understand your comment about what lens the bellows is "calibrated for". A bellows us just an adjustable lens extension. I use amount other things a Contax bellows with an S-Planar 100mm f4 lens or a Planar 50mm f1.4 normal lens. As long as the bellows extension is equal to the actual focal length of the lens as opposed to the marked focal length and the lens is set to inf, any set-up will yield a true 1:1 copy.

When coping mounted slides beware that the mounts crop the edges of all the slide and at 1:1 you will get some mount showing on all four sides if you are properly centered. Typically this is on the order of .02 inches or .5mm per edge.

When coping a lot of slides and speed is important set the bellows extension shot of the actual focal length and get a larger amount of the slide mount in the copy. Then crop the copy. I did not suggest an amount of shortening because it depends on how accurately and repeatably your slide holder olds the slides. You'll need to test that.

Bill

My bellows outfit comes with incised marks on the extension rods showing how far to extend the bellows for the focal length of lens it is intended for use with. I assumed yours would too. I had issues working out how to set it up in the beginning, as I say till I read the manual and that settled the matter for me. Maybe it's just me but I had not used one before. But that was just my starting point. Things were also complicated a tad because my the camera I was using was a cropped sensor camera which made it hard to set the whole up to avoid accidentally cropping some of the edges of the slides. (Mostly this did not matter but sometimes it did so care was neeeded. But that's another story.

 

[Bill Jones]

In the 1st line of my comments the word "amount" should read among.
In the 1st line of paragraph 3 the word "shot" should read short.

 

[Bill Jones]

My bellows outfit comes with incised marks on the extension rods showing how far to extend the bellows for the focal length of lens it is intended for use with. I assumed yours would too. I had issues working out how to set it up in the beginning, as I say till I read the manual and that settled the matter for me. Maybe it's just me but I had not used one before. But that was just my starting point. Things were also complicated a tad because my the camera I was using was a cropped sensor camera which made it hard to set the whole up to avoid accidentally cropping some of the edges of the slides. (Mostly this did not matter but sometimes it did so care was neeeded. But that's another story.

Peter,

I've been using this thing since the 60's and they can still give me a problem setting up. The moral is to get the set-up done once and don't fiddle with them. Since digital cameras produce such large files it's safer to set up to include too much and crop the picture in post.

Best of luck with your large copying project.

Bill

 

[titrisol]

My bellows outfit comes with incised marks on the extension rods showing how far to extend the bellows for the focal length of lens it is intended for use with. I assumed yours would too. I had issues working out how to set it up in the beginning, as I say till I read the manual and that settled the matter for me. Maybe it's just me but I had not used one before. But that was just my starting point. Things were also complicated a tad because my the camera I was using was a cropped sensor camera which made it hard to set the whole up to avoid accidentally cropping some of the edges of the slides. (Mostly this did not matter but sometimes it did so care was neeeded. But that's another story.

Yes, some of the bellows had markings for 50 and 55mm on one side, and the magnification on the other.
Pentax, Vivitar and the old Minoltas were like these.

 

[8x11mm]

The new Easy35 setup from Valoi is an excellent system: you need a camera and lens, but the light, hood tubes and size makes this a small and portable solution. For Minox, it is hard, as you need extreme closeup and lenses which have enough depth of field. Any mirrorless solution allows sharp focus, but for colour, the lack of dust and scratch makes post-processing tedious.
I use a customised Noritsu scanner for Minox commercially, which is superb, but not priced for everyone. Hurrah for the R lenses by the way. I have written some R articles for the UK Leica Society, with interesting tit-bits.

 

[DownUnder]

With slide scanners, the perfect is very much the enemy of the good enough.

Even with my Plustek and the most careful settings I manage to cobble together from the manufacturer's instruction manual, I get scans I have to do post-processing on until they look like something taken by Ken Rockwell.

After years of playing around with the Plustek, I've figured out three things that have surely saved my sanity.

1. Cull my slides mercilessly before the scanning starts.

2. Accept that no slide however sharp the original is, will ever come out the same in a scan.

3. Do a LOT of post-processing. Sharpness, colors, cropping. Mostly to remove/minimise the blues and magentas out of my fading/faded images.

Oh, and if I may, a fourth.

4. Invest the $$ a good scanner with auto-scan. I mean one that moves the slides as they are scanned. The Plustek does not.

If I could find one, I would go for a Nikon Coolscan, even at the ridiculously high cost they go nowadays on Ebay or in the few shops that occasionally get one. Those Coolscans are worth their weight in silver if not gold.

 

[Godfrey]

I have and use a Nikon Coolscan V for when I'm doing a lot of neg strips and want to automate the process, but most of the time now a copy camera approach with my setup produces superior results and is faster. Here are some pix:

Film/Slide Copy Setup

These are photos of my typical setup for 'scanning' 35mm slides and film strips. It consists of a Novoflex Magic Copystand and Focusing Rail; an Essential Film Holder with masks for 35mm strip film and mounted slides; a small flourescent flat panel light box; and a Leica CL fitted with M Adapter...

flic.kr

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