I was always wondering what that bellows with the white plastic attached to it is supposed to do. Got one from my grandpa. Now I know, thank you for explaining this so well!
Holy crap this is awesome, I have been using foam core boards, an ips monitor, parchment paper to diffuse the light from the monitor, and flat black star bucks cup. Man, I love your videos.
Thank you! I do something similar with 120 and sheet film using an illuminated tracing pad, white acrylic sheets, and some bent 35mm film reels as spacers.
I really respect the amount of effort that goes into your videos. They are concise, informative, and offer a different perspective than the majority of videos and articles being produced today.
Another great video, really informative, full of detail and excellent examples. One thing though that has constantly been bugging me while I was watching is why not just use a normal 35mm macro lens? The way I do film digitizing seems much simpler to me - I use a 100mm macro lens, mount the camera on a tripod and point it towards an A4-sized light table that I have (it's actually a LED stencilling board). I always cut my film into 6-frame strips and use a flatbed scanner film attachment to hold it in place. I usually do this in the evenings so I can darken the room somewhat - the light table is so bright that regular household lighting doesn't play a role in the exposure, nor does it lower the contrast of the final image. Results are a fair bit better than what my cheap Pacific Image film scanner can muster plus I have greater control over the final image using RAW. You can probably replace the LED light table with a flash and a diffuser but I found the results are pretty good anyway. Thanks for the video!
Thank you! I do a similar approach for 120 and sheet film, but find, even then, that ambient light does cause glare. I'm also really, really particular about process. Doesn't mean mine is the best or only process, I'm just very particular about my approach. This is part of a larger workflow with raw editing and then some manipulation in Photoshop and for the balance of that workflow I found that this approach helps deliver the best digital files to work from.
@@DavidHancock Maybe the glare problem is more pronounced on the larger film formats, I really haven't noticed anything on 35mm. Your method with the slide duplicator seems faster though and a fair bit more repeatable - I've gone as far as putting paint marker guides on the legs of my tripod so I can rig the whole thing faster :)
Thank you for making a video on this approach. I shoot directly at my negatives using a full frame camera and a 1:1 macro for 35mm, and stich for medium format. I think I will be shopping for enlarger lenses in the coming days though! I wanted to point out using flat field correction in Lightroom, this can eliminate any effects of a uneven light source or uneven light due to lens imperfections. It improved my scans greatly. I just found this technique the other day and wanted to share.
I also read about using a bellow and a macro lens (nikkor 55mm 3.5) on full frame for this application. What might be the pros and cons between these two options? Thank you for your time and effort making these videos!
I prefer an enlarger lens solely because they were engineered for flat-to-flat reproduction and not to impart their own image character onto an image. Macro lenses, even great ones like the Nikkor 3.5, have some amount of field curvature and so forth that can impair how well reproduction from one flat surface is made onto another. That said, if you choice is a very good macro lens or a fair to mediocre enlarger lens, go with the macro.
Thank you! Film alignment is easy. The slide copier and bellows are designed to keep everything aligned. Stopping to f8 eliminates any flex in the film due to lightbulb temperature, and the sight gap between the bulb and copier helps dissipate bulb heat. Dust is a constant, constant battle. I clean the lens, sensor, and slide copier diffusion glass prior to use. Sometimes the diffusion glass is cleaned during digitizing if I have a lot of film. So dust management is just a cleanliness best practice.
Thanks for the updated video. I see that you gave up with flash as a light source (compared to the old set up). Is it about the spectrum you talk about in the video ? Did you ever feel the need to make some exposure blending in photoshop or does the bulb light source produces enough "low contrast light" to reduce the overall dynamic range of the film (especially with color slides) ? Regarding dust spots and scratches, do you have to work hard to remove them in post ?
Thank you and I did drop the flash. I found the light to be too harsh and not well suited for slide digitization. The full-spectrum bulb works great for that. For image blending, not really no. I will do that rarely, like twice a year, with some poorly-exposed slides to recover them, but generally speaking shooting in raw and editing in raw before raster allows for the negatives to be worked with amply.
Thank you! The best gear advice I have for you if that if you're already invested in a system, get equipment in that mount. There's good gear in every mount.
Thank you for sharing your digitizing technique. I have been experimenting with digitizing my 35mm negatives. I found that the negatives digitized at my local lab are significantly sharper and more detailed than those I've digitized myself (using the same set of negatives, for comparison.) This is my setup: Fuji XT-2 ; Fujinon XF60mm macro lens (1:2); Kaiser Plano light table, masked to cover extra lighting, Kaiser Reproduction stand. The negatives are held in the "Digitiliza" 35mm frame. I work in the evening in a darkened room in an attempt to block any extraneous light. I had been also been using inexpensive "Mieke" extension tubes with the 60mm macro lens, but many of the photos were very soft and distorted along the edges and especially in the corners. So, I'm no longer using the extension tubes, which took care of that problem. I'm asking for suggestions to improve sharpness and increase detail in in my digital files. Would the digital files be improved by using an enlarging lens in place of the macro lens in the setup I currently use? Thanks!
Hmm. Do you have a scan online that I can checkout? There are multiple causes of sharpness loss and taking a look at some scans I might be able to provide some better ideas on how to rectify it.
@@DavidHancock The scans improved after I : 1) removed the extension tube from the Fuji 60mm macro lens. I understand extension tubes distort the image with this particular lens; and 2) increased exposure time. However, the scans still don't match the quality of the 60-80 mb. scans from the lab, though are acceptable.
@@stevenbaum3378 Interesting. Do your extension tubes have glass elements? Meaning are they actually doubletree. I've not heard of extending the register distance to distort images, though I'll acknowledge there are lots of things that happen that I've never heard of. This is a fascinating technical problem to me.
Your videos on making digital copies of film using digital cameras are quite interesting! There was a fun moment where you said "we need tin foil for the light!" 😂
Perfect. I'm about to digitize a plethora of old slides and negatives, both color and black and white (yes, b&w slides as well). Looks like I'm pretty safe with my 45+ years-old 105 mm Noflexar (Novoflex) lens head. It's not limited to macro only, will focus to infinity as well if needed. Some accessory for my Ihagee bellows is due to be delivered in the next few days, and I need to DIY-fold some light shading bellows (I don't dig tin foil). The felt recommendation is very much appreciated! As soon as I'm done, my Olympus M4/3 will provide me some 40 MPx-ish digitized RAW results on available light, if I go by (A)parture priority. One thing made me wonder: If I want to establish a really quick setup, I was thinking about some backlit flash light thru an additional diffusion disk behind the negative holder - will this work in terms of "full spectrum" , or would it lean towards the cold wavelengths? PS: If it's of any interest, I'll be happy to share some making-of pictures.
I used to use a flash instead of a full-spectrum bulb. I was never fully happy with the results. Even adjusting white balance to flash and then correcting the color temp in raw the colors were never quite true to my eye. That said, for black and white, a flash will be a-okay. Be sure that it's diffuse, though, or you'll end up with parallel light rays that will catch every single bit of dust on the slide.
I see you're using Adox Scala film, so I assume you have access to Adox films in some way. They recently released a new film called HR-50, which is a high-resolution film (hence HR in the name) which can also be used as an infrared film with a 715 or similar filter. I have no real use for the high resolution part but the film itself is really great to use. Even without a filter it kind of looks IR-ish. And even though it has much more contrast than say Tri-X (I shot and scanned both consecutively with similar conditions) I'm impressed by the amount of highlight and shadow detail I was able to pull out without compromising the tonal quality! It's definitely worth having a look at. Here in Germany it's also one of the less expensive films.
Excellent approach and explaination. I wonder if i use a slide projection lens instead of enlarger lens ( with the appropriate modifications on the rig of course) how it will perform optically. Based on the fact that both types of lenses are made for film projection. What do you think?
Thank you! Protection lenses tend to be significantly optically inferior to enlarger lenses, except the very best. A lot of projection lenses now are used for creative portraiture because they're not perfectly corrected and tend to introduce optical flaws that can be used to creative advantage. So I would avoid a projection lens for digitization.
Hi David, excellent!!!, its the only video found in YT that really match to my need! Looking around for a couple of months t to scan my negatives in a fast and high quality way,I ended up to bellows scanning, so I just bought the asahi pentax bellows & slide copier, via e-bay in a very good price, same model presented in your video. Although I have a full frame body ( Canon 5d clasic) and would skip the enlarging lens/crop factor by just using the nifty fifty Canon lens, I would also like to use my Penat digital aps-c bodies and same set-up as yours. I have some questions so to build your set-up and avoid mistakes. Can use a 75mm enlarging lens or only 80mm (I have found both in e-bay, same model and brand but 75mm is far cheaper, -Europe location only-) ? I found Led bulb 6500k and CRI> 80%, so are they appropriate for the lighting source as per your video? My understanding is that you used 2 m42 macro tubes set, so is this right? PS: a video with full frame body, bellows and slide copier set up with your detailed and expertised info & feed back would be nice to watch.
Thank you, Yiannis. For the 75mm, that should work just fine. If you lose any image area it's going to be insignificant unless you're using a 35mm camera with a 100% viewfinder and completely filling every frame perfectly with image content. And yes, I used the macro tubes (felt lining them is mandatory to avoid hot spots in your images!) and then some step-up and step-down rings to get them onto the lens and slide copier. For lighting, if you only digitize black and white, honestly any bulb will work. If you are digitizing slides, then a full-spectrum bulb will truly improve your results and the color rendition. I will be re-doing my medium- and large-format video at some point and for that I use a full frame camera and a different approach. My K-1 won't mount my macro bellows, unfortunately.
thank you for your inspiration. I've learned so much from this video. After reading some essays about this topic. someone said the enlarger lenses are designed for flat stuff indeed, but not for 1:1 or 1:1.5 magnification like macro lenses. so I'm a little confused about that and curious about your recommendation. Have ever tested these?
I understand that point, but I argue they can still be used that way. My feeling is that if an enlarging lens can take a small object, like a 35mm negative, and blow it up to something like 8X10, then replicating it at sensor size as 1:1 or a reduction will be well within the capabilities. Does that hold true for low-end enlarger lenses, probably not so much. But any reputable enlarger lens -- Nikon, Scheneider, Rodenstock, and Fuji to name some -- can definitely handle this process easily.
Great video, I needed this very much. I have the Olympus OM System Slide copier with rail. I am using the 50mm f3.5 macro lens. The system has been adapted to the MFT camera I own. I am having trouble getting the whole slide image, or 35mm negative in the frame. I also have a Accura zoom duplivar adapted for my Nikon DF, and that works really well. Any suggestions on the OM system would be greatly appreciated. Cheers!
Thank you! You should be able, with that lens, to get the slide to fill the MFT sensor, because the lens goes to 1:2. If you aren't able to get the slide to fill the whole frame, pick up a set of cheap macro tubes off eBay or a macro bellows and see if that works. If the issue is that you can't get the entire frame onto the sensor then you might need a wide-angle lens with a macro bellows or tubes.
For some reason I thought I'd be reverse-mounting the enlarger lens I just bought. It's a 50mm, and the camera is full frame. But after adapting it for reverse mount the working distance for 1:1 is too close, like only 2 inches or so when used with a single extension tube of about 30mm. Using either of the smaller tubes that came in my Pentax S3 kit results in less than 1:1, and my bellows when fully drawn in is too long all by itself. I'll need to get another adapter and just mount the lens conventionally, which gives me about 1/2" additional working space for 1:1. That still isn't enough distance to use my bellows because of the rails. I plan on using a copy stand and slide mount, so that's no great loss. I also have a 105mm enlarger lens, came "free" with the bellows and is oddly enough a M42 mount. Using that I now have a workable working distance using one or more extension tubes + enlarger about 2/3 of the way out ... however that Amar PZO is not as nice a lens as my 50mm Schneider Componon-S.
So reversing a lens dramatically shortens the working distance. Whatever the lens' flange focal distance is, that's the working distance when a lens is reversed. And that also always makes the lens enlarge something well into macro range.
Will this system work for scanning color negatives ? Can I use Lightroom for reversing and color balancing the negative, or is it too hard to do it manually ?
For C-41, it can but you'll need to correct the color for the film base. I don't have a great workflow for that, but in essence I understand that process to require digitizing a blank part of the film, setting the color of the film base to black, and applying the resulting color correction and a color inversion to the film. I've never managed to do it in a way that I find is truly accurate to the film character for any film stock.
@@DavidHancock Thanks ! I've read about some presets for removing the color cast and automaticaly ajust for it. Maybe it's worth trying, since I plan on developing my B&W and C-41 at home, thus it doesn't make much sense to send just C-41 film off, waiting a week for develop and scans.
Yes. With 16mm film you can also project it onto a wall and then using some keystone correction with the scheimflug principle correct for it with the projector and camera angles. Then if you have the projector run at the camera's refresh rate you wouldn't have flickering issues. It's not easy but it's simpler than scanning each frame of a home movie.
@@DavidHancockThanks for the quick reply I will have to look the details on that but it doesn't sound too difficult. The reason I asked is I am planning to shoot a movie with traveling matte effects. I wanted to make it old school via the Dunning Process, shooting black & white film with a Bolex 16mm camera. I imagine the wall color needs to be a neutral white right.
Hey David. Ive been using an old nikkor 85mmf2 on my pb4 bellows with a nikon5300. Works pretty well. Unfortunately my EL-Nikkor 50mm is cropped in too close. I have a querry on lighting. I use a flash but im not sure if its important to adjust light levels for each frame. I find myself adjusting the flash for each frame just so im clipping highlights a fraction. So shooting to the rigjt if you will. But it really increases processing time as each image is different. For film scanning does this make any difference or should i just use a standard exposure across all frames regardless of what the negative exposure is?
So with a flash, you will need to adjust light levels every time for different negative exposures unless you have it talking to your camera and the TTL meter. That's a big reason I suggest using a steady-state light source like a full-spectrum LED. Using aperture-priority mode your camera will be able to record images that correct for some significant levels of exposure error.
Great video. I tried to digitize my negatives once but the resulting raw files were too contrasty and even post processing them did not help. I tried a lot of things but I never got rid of the contrast. In the end I stop digitizing for good. Maybe you could offer some suggestions?
My best guess is that it had to with the negatives. Developing for digital conversion is best done by developing flat negatives and adding contrast in post.
The lens you use to digitize in a setup like I use will not be influenced by the lens you take the photo with. Because I use an enlarger lens on a macro bellows for digitizing, the focal length is determined by your sensor crop factor. The easiest way to ascertain that is to use 50mm and full frame as a reference for that. And because the enlarger lens is being used as a reducing lens on smaller-format sensors, the math will seem backwards. A full-frame digitization of a 35mm negative or slide can be done with full-sensor coverage using a 50mm enlarging lens. To switch to APS-C, you can reduce a 35mm negative to an APS-C sensor size with a 50mm X 1.5 (crop factor) lens of no shorter than 75mm enlarger lens on a macro bellows. For M4/3, which has a 2X crop factor, a 100mm enlarger lens would be needed to reduce the negative to the M4/3 sensor size. The reason that enlarger lenses are being used for reduction here is because digitizing with this setup functionally reverses the traditional darkroom negative-print orientation.
I was planning on using a Minolta 100mm macro lens with my canon m50, a light table and a 120 film mask (as I will be scanning 120 6x7 negs), would this set up work? I believe the m50 is a APSC mirror less camera, I’m not too clued up with the actual terms of digital cameras
It will. That's similar to how I do medium- and large-format digitization. I put some white acrylic between the light and negatives (two pieces) for better light diffusion, which provides more even illumination across the negative. Ensure your shutter speed is no faster than 1/30 if you're using LED lights because a faster shutter speed will almost certainly catch light pulses (which was an early and maddening issue for me.)
@@DavidHancock Okay thanks! That's too bad because I already have the slide duplicator that goes in front of the lens. I think I'm gonna sell it and buy old Novoflex bellows instead. Those have a mounting ring that protudes quite a lot so they should accept my K1.
Does the scan quality matter so much if I use an APS-C cropped DSLR or a full frame DSLR ? I'm now looking for a mid-range cropped DSLR, will they give me enough quality (18 to 24 mp sensor) with this method to make a print, lets say at 8×10" ? Very few scanners for 35mm can get the detail that is actually contained in the film, so it seemed reasonable that for the same price as a mid-range scanner (~$350/$450) I could get a cheap DSLR and get better results.
Yes. I had a 75mm Schneider enlarging lens that I used for this for 35mm to APS-C prior to getting the Rodagon and the 75 worked A-okay (I seem to recall a slight light loss in the corners.)
@@DavidHancock Ok, so I was also a bit concerned about the quality and sharpness, since this is a simple 4-element lens, probably not as good as your Schneider. Anyway, it should be good enough for me.
@@DavidHancock Thanks for your thoughts. I also looked for the 80mm f/5.6, but couldn't find many of them used. Thanks for your video, it really made me happy to start my DSLR scanning setup. Happy New Year for you !
Just one more thing : Can't I just move the slide copier further from the bellows to get the full frame in the sensor, with a shorter lens (50mm or 75mm) ?
Nope. An enlarger lens in this configuration is actually a reducing lens because it's being used backward. So you need to reduce a full frame 35mm negative to get it all onto an APS-C sensor and the focal length increase for that is the same as the crop factor. Anything shorter than a 75mm enlarger lens will not reduce the entire film frame onto the APS-C sensor.
I believe you're getting the results you want, but there has to be some difference in configuration between what I have here and the setup you have, because lens physics dictates that a 50mm lens cannot reduce to APS-C in this configuration without cropping the full frame negatives. If you have a standard SLR 50mm lens reverse-mounted as can be done for reverse-mounting lenses for macro work, that might work but the working space on that configuration would be very hard to use and unless the lens is very well corrected optically (most are not to the extent needed for this) that's going to introduce a whole bunch of field curvature (enlarger lenses are engineered to prevent field curvature when copying flat-to-flat.) With a 50mm enlarger lens in the configuration shown in this video, it will project 1:1 when focused on a 35mm negative, which means that it cannot reproduce the entire film negative on an APS-C sensor. A 50mm lens in the configuration in this video when photographing a negative in a slide copier will cover a full frame sensor at 1:1. The first couple thousand negatives I digitized onto APS-C with a 50mm lens were all cropped down to the APS-C image area because of lens physics and the way that optics focus to make 1:1 reproduction ratios (and I didn't realize it until I downloaded them to my computer to start editing and saw that everyone's heads were chopped off.) Now, if you have a 50mm macro lens mounted on your ASP-C camera, that's an entirely different story and that can work to reproduce a 35mm negative onto an APS-C sensor without cropping. And that can be done in-lens without a bellows. The same could be done with any standard lens that has a close enough focus point. The reason that a 50mm macro lens will work is because the negative can be placed further away from the front of the lens. With a slide copier setup, the negative-to-lens working distance for image reduction to APS-C is longer than any slide copier I know of. So the closest data point I have is for a 55mm macro lens. With that lens focal length, to get a 35mm negative onto an APS-C sensor, the lens needs to reproduce it to a 1:1.5 ratio. At 55mm, that's 8.75 inches from the lens to the film negative. So that can work but not with a slide carrier mounted to a bellows. (That data point comes from the micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 manual and some magnification and distance calculations I roughed out while typing this reply.) So yes, it is possible to reduce a 35mm negative onto APS-C by moving it further from the lens than is shown in this setup (and than can be done with any slide copier and bellows I know of), but with a bellows and slide copier with an enlarger lens mounted, that limits the available distance configurations and means that a lens to reduce image size is needed.
Ah, so the slide copier and bellows are the important factor here? Because I use a copy stand, with which I can change the distance between the negative and my camera setup, of course. So yes, I use an EL-Nikkor 50mm/f2.8, a helicoid focus ring and an APS-C camera. So is that the reason, why it works the way I do it? Is the focal length not that important with this kind of setup?
Bingo and yes. The copy stand will allows 35mm negatives to be reduced onto an ASP-C sensor. The key factor is the lens-negative distance because all image focusing is, essentially, magnification. If you set a lens to infinity a thing near you (albeit blurry) will be smaller on the sensor than if you focus at the closest focus point. So as a lens focuses closer, it's magnifying what is in front of it at the same time as moving the plane of focus toward the camera. And yes, focal length is very important here. So let's take your 50mm lens. Let's assume you want a 1:1 (life-size) reproduction on your sensor, that 50mm lens needs to be 100mm from the sensor. Let's assume you have a 100mm lens, too, and that you want a life-size reproduction on your sensor; that 100mm lens has to be 200mm from the sensor. So if you place a lens at a lens-sensor distance that is 2X the focal length, you'll have a life-size (1:1) reproduction on the sensor. Fun fact, that math goes both ways. So with a 50mm lens to get a 1:1 subject enlargement, your lens has to be 100mm from the sensor AND the subject has to be 100mm from the lens. With that 100mm lens, 200mm and 200mm. And a quick correct to my above comment, the 8.75-inch lens-subject distance as supposed to be 8.75-inch sensor-subject distance. I mis-typed the earlier figure. So with my digitization setup, the negatives are around four inches in front of the lens -- 100mm-ish. So if I use a 50mm lens, I can reproduce that negative 1:1 on a full-frame lens, but because of the crop factor of the APS-C format, that 1:1 projection is cropped on the sensor. So that's where the reversed enlarger setup and reduction factor come into play. So yes, your observation about subject distance is spot-on and using the 50mm lens on a copy stand with a focusing helical is also why you're getting less magnification than I am (and can use your 50mm lens on APS-C without cropping. And by the way, also a good way to go about digitizing as long as you can eliminate any stray light in your room (to prevent glare on the negatives.) Good questions and thank you for making me use my brain today. :D
tl;dw? If you felt-line your macro tubes and use a closed system - no light can get in between the film and the sensor which maximises colour transmission when you illuminate the emulsion with a full spectrum light source. Either this method or the simpler route (e.g. Matt Day’s process of pointing a macro lens at a Lomo Digitaliza on a light table) will probably net you better dynamic range than a flatbed scanner. Happy shooting!
This video also focuses on the reasoning behind using an enlarger lens for this. David explains the physics of the optics and why it works the way it does.
Not related to this vid, why do DSLRs have macro selection in the dial? When selected it at best artificially decreases the final length but the sensor and the lense don't mive further from one another. So js this setting suppose to even work? There was a time in the early 200's it was a selling point "it takes greate macros).
I think it has to do with the idea that camera makers (cough cough Canon) have that entry-level cameras should be jammed with features that are, at best, redundant to basic camera settings and, at worst, so horribly confusing to users as to make camera use off-putting.
@@DavidHancock [cough couch] Nikon D40 mor D70 will not fire with the fash in a pitch black room unless in night mode. And d70 was suppose to be a step up from hobbiest
@@DavidHancock you'll see the red light blink, the lense stop down and then nothing, To verify the camera is working left all setting alone whent out into the light and camera worked fine
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I was always wondering what that bellows with the white plastic attached to it is supposed to do. Got one from my grandpa. Now I know, thank you for explaining this so well!
Holy crap this is awesome, I have been using foam core boards, an ips monitor, parchment paper to diffuse the light from the monitor, and flat black star bucks cup. Man, I love your videos.
Thank you! I do something similar with 120 and sheet film using an illuminated tracing pad, white acrylic sheets, and some bent 35mm film reels as spacers.
I really respect the amount of effort that goes into your videos. They are concise, informative, and offer a different perspective than the majority of videos and articles being produced today.
Thank you!
Another great video, really informative, full of detail and excellent examples. One thing though that has constantly been bugging me while I was watching is why not just use a normal 35mm macro lens? The way I do film digitizing seems much simpler to me - I use a 100mm macro lens, mount the camera on a tripod and point it towards an A4-sized light table that I have (it's actually a LED stencilling board). I always cut my film into 6-frame strips and use a flatbed scanner film attachment to hold it in place. I usually do this in the evenings so I can darken the room somewhat - the light table is so bright that regular household lighting doesn't play a role in the exposure, nor does it lower the contrast of the final image. Results are a fair bit better than what my cheap Pacific Image film scanner can muster plus I have greater control over the final image using RAW. You can probably replace the LED light table with a flash and a diffuser but I found the results are pretty good anyway.
Thanks for the video!
Same here ;-)
Thank you!
Thank you! I do a similar approach for 120 and sheet film, but find, even then, that ambient light does cause glare. I'm also really, really particular about process. Doesn't mean mine is the best or only process, I'm just very particular about my approach. This is part of a larger workflow with raw editing and then some manipulation in Photoshop and for the balance of that workflow I found that this approach helps deliver the best digital files to work from.
@@DavidHancock Maybe the glare problem is more pronounced on the larger film formats, I really haven't noticed anything on 35mm. Your method with the slide duplicator seems faster though and a fair bit more repeatable - I've gone as far as putting paint marker guides on the legs of my tripod so I can rig the whole thing faster :)
Thank you for making a video on this approach. I shoot directly at my negatives using a full frame camera and a 1:1 macro for 35mm, and stich for medium format. I think I will be shopping for enlarger lenses in the coming days though!
I wanted to point out using flat field correction in Lightroom, this can eliminate any effects of a uneven light source or uneven light due to lens imperfections. It improved my scans greatly. I just found this technique the other day and wanted to share.
Thank you! I am not well versed in Lightroom at all and tips on what it can do are always appreciated here.
I also read about using a bellow and a macro lens (nikkor 55mm 3.5) on full frame for this application. What might be the pros and cons between these two options?
Thank you for your time and effort making these videos!
I prefer an enlarger lens solely because they were engineered for flat-to-flat reproduction and not to impart their own image character onto an image. Macro lenses, even great ones like the Nikkor 3.5, have some amount of field curvature and so forth that can impair how well reproduction from one flat surface is made onto another. That said, if you choice is a very good macro lens or a fair to mediocre enlarger lens, go with the macro.
Awesome video, thank you!
Could you please tell how you fight dust and film alignment with this setup.
Thank you!
Thank you! Film alignment is easy. The slide copier and bellows are designed to keep everything aligned. Stopping to f8 eliminates any flex in the film due to lightbulb temperature, and the sight gap between the bulb and copier helps dissipate bulb heat. Dust is a constant, constant battle. I clean the lens, sensor, and slide copier diffusion glass prior to use. Sometimes the diffusion glass is cleaned during digitizing if I have a lot of film. So dust management is just a cleanliness best practice.
Thanks for the updated video.
I see that you gave up with flash as a light source (compared to the old set up). Is it about the spectrum you talk about in the video ?
Did you ever feel the need to make some exposure blending in photoshop or does the bulb light source produces enough "low contrast light" to reduce the overall dynamic range of the film (especially with color slides) ?
Regarding dust spots and scratches, do you have to work hard to remove them in post ?
Thank you and I did drop the flash. I found the light to be too harsh and not well suited for slide digitization. The full-spectrum bulb works great for that. For image blending, not really no. I will do that rarely, like twice a year, with some poorly-exposed slides to recover them, but generally speaking shooting in raw and editing in raw before raster allows for the negatives to be worked with amply.
Great video! Any chance revealing the exact models of the equipment so that we know which one to buy?
Thank you! The best gear advice I have for you if that if you're already invested in a system, get equipment in that mount. There's good gear in every mount.
I've ordered a 35mm Digitaliza holder and I'm planning on using my Canon to scan a roll of Ektachrome, so these examples are very helpful!
Thank you!
Where did u get your slide film developed?
@@barrydduggan I use Old School Photo Lab in a Dover, NH.
Thank you for sharing your digitizing technique. I have been experimenting with digitizing my 35mm negatives. I found that the negatives digitized at my local lab are significantly sharper and more detailed than those I've digitized myself (using the same set of negatives, for comparison.)
This is my setup: Fuji XT-2 ; Fujinon XF60mm macro lens (1:2); Kaiser Plano light table, masked to cover extra lighting, Kaiser Reproduction stand. The negatives are held in the "Digitiliza" 35mm frame. I work in the evening in a darkened room in an attempt to block any extraneous light. I had been also been using inexpensive "Mieke" extension tubes with the 60mm macro lens, but many of the photos were very soft and distorted along the edges and especially in the corners. So, I'm no longer using the extension tubes, which took care of that problem.
I'm asking for suggestions to improve sharpness and increase detail in in my digital files. Would the digital files be improved by using an enlarging lens in place of the macro lens in the setup I currently use?
Thanks!
I forgot to mention that the camera is set to: F8, 1/4 second, ISO 200 (native), manual focus
Hmm. Do you have a scan online that I can checkout? There are multiple causes of sharpness loss and taking a look at some scans I might be able to provide some better ideas on how to rectify it.
@@DavidHancock I don't have the scans online, but can email a few, if you'd be comfortable with that.
@@DavidHancock The scans improved after I : 1) removed the extension tube from the Fuji 60mm macro lens. I understand extension tubes distort the image with this particular lens; and 2) increased exposure time. However, the scans still don't match the quality of the 60-80 mb. scans from the lab, though are acceptable.
@@stevenbaum3378 Interesting. Do your extension tubes have glass elements? Meaning are they actually doubletree. I've not heard of extending the register distance to distort images, though I'll acknowledge there are lots of things that happen that I've never heard of. This is a fascinating technical problem to me.
Your videos on making digital copies of film using digital cameras are quite interesting!
There was a fun moment where you said "we need tin foil for the light!" 😂
Thank you!
Perfect. I'm about to digitize a plethora of old slides and negatives, both color and black and white (yes, b&w slides as well). Looks like I'm pretty safe with my 45+ years-old 105 mm Noflexar (Novoflex) lens head. It's not limited to macro only, will focus to infinity as well if needed.
Some accessory for my Ihagee bellows is due to be delivered in the next few days, and I need to DIY-fold some light shading bellows (I don't dig tin foil). The felt recommendation is very much appreciated!
As soon as I'm done, my Olympus M4/3 will provide me some 40 MPx-ish digitized RAW results on available light, if I go by (A)parture priority.
One thing made me wonder: If I want to establish a really quick setup, I was thinking about some backlit flash light thru an additional diffusion disk behind the negative holder - will this work in terms of "full spectrum" , or would it lean towards the cold wavelengths?
PS: If it's of any interest, I'll be happy to share some making-of pictures.
I used to use a flash instead of a full-spectrum bulb. I was never fully happy with the results. Even adjusting white balance to flash and then correcting the color temp in raw the colors were never quite true to my eye. That said, for black and white, a flash will be a-okay. Be sure that it's diffuse, though, or you'll end up with parallel light rays that will catch every single bit of dust on the slide.
@@DavidHancock Thank you for these helpful tips.
I see you're using Adox Scala film, so I assume you have access to Adox films in some way.
They recently released a new film called HR-50, which is a high-resolution film (hence HR in the name) which can also be used as an infrared film with a 715 or similar filter. I have no real use for the high resolution part but the film itself is really great to use. Even without a filter it kind of looks IR-ish. And even though it has much more contrast than say Tri-X (I shot and scanned both consecutively with similar conditions) I'm impressed by the amount of highlight and shadow detail I was able to pull out without compromising the tonal quality!
It's definitely worth having a look at. Here in Germany it's also one of the less expensive films.
Thank you! I love Adox films. When I'm able, I'll be checking out HR-50 for sure.
Excellent approach and explaination. I wonder if i use a slide projection lens instead of enlarger lens ( with the appropriate modifications on the rig of course) how it will perform optically.
Based on the fact that both types of lenses are made for film projection. What do you think?
Thank you! Protection lenses tend to be significantly optically inferior to enlarger lenses, except the very best. A lot of projection lenses now are used for creative portraiture because they're not perfectly corrected and tend to introduce optical flaws that can be used to creative advantage. So I would avoid a projection lens for digitization.
@@DavidHancock Thank you David!
Hi David, excellent!!!, its the only video found in YT that really match to my need! Looking around for a couple of months t to scan my negatives in a fast and high quality way,I ended up to bellows scanning, so I just bought the asahi pentax bellows & slide copier, via e-bay in a very good price, same model presented in your video. Although I have a full frame body ( Canon 5d clasic) and would skip the enlarging lens/crop factor by just using the nifty fifty Canon lens, I would also like to use my Penat digital aps-c bodies and same set-up as yours. I have some questions so to build your set-up and avoid mistakes. Can use a 75mm enlarging lens or only 80mm (I have found both in e-bay, same model and brand but 75mm is far cheaper, -Europe location only-) ? I found Led bulb 6500k and CRI> 80%, so are they appropriate for the lighting source as per your video? My understanding is that you used 2 m42 macro tubes set, so is this right?
PS: a video with full frame body, bellows and slide copier set up with your detailed and expertised info & feed back would be nice to watch.
Thank you, Yiannis. For the 75mm, that should work just fine. If you lose any image area it's going to be insignificant unless you're using a 35mm camera with a 100% viewfinder and completely filling every frame perfectly with image content.
And yes, I used the macro tubes (felt lining them is mandatory to avoid hot spots in your images!) and then some step-up and step-down rings to get them onto the lens and slide copier.
For lighting, if you only digitize black and white, honestly any bulb will work. If you are digitizing slides, then a full-spectrum bulb will truly improve your results and the color rendition.
I will be re-doing my medium- and large-format video at some point and for that I use a full frame camera and a different approach. My K-1 won't mount my macro bellows, unfortunately.
thank you for your inspiration. I've learned so much from this video. After reading some essays about this topic. someone said the enlarger lenses are designed for flat stuff indeed, but not for 1:1 or 1:1.5 magnification like macro lenses. so I'm a little confused about that and curious about your recommendation. Have ever tested these?
I understand that point, but I argue they can still be used that way. My feeling is that if an enlarging lens can take a small object, like a 35mm negative, and blow it up to something like 8X10, then replicating it at sensor size as 1:1 or a reduction will be well within the capabilities. Does that hold true for low-end enlarger lenses, probably not so much. But any reputable enlarger lens -- Nikon, Scheneider, Rodenstock, and Fuji to name some -- can definitely handle this process easily.
@@DavidHancock appreciate your reply which really helped me a lot
Great video, I needed this very much. I have the Olympus OM System Slide copier with rail. I am using the 50mm f3.5 macro lens. The system has been adapted to the MFT camera I own. I am having trouble getting the whole slide image, or 35mm negative in the frame. I also have a Accura zoom duplivar adapted for my Nikon DF, and that works really well. Any suggestions on the OM system would be greatly appreciated. Cheers!
Thank you!
You should be able, with that lens, to get the slide to fill the MFT sensor, because the lens goes to 1:2. If you aren't able to get the slide to fill the whole frame, pick up a set of cheap macro tubes off eBay or a macro bellows and see if that works. If the issue is that you can't get the entire frame onto the sensor then you might need a wide-angle lens with a macro bellows or tubes.
For some reason I thought I'd be reverse-mounting the enlarger lens I just bought. It's a 50mm, and the camera is full frame. But after adapting it for reverse mount the working distance for 1:1 is too close, like only 2 inches or so when used with a single extension tube of about 30mm. Using either of the smaller tubes that came in my Pentax S3 kit results in less than 1:1, and my bellows when fully drawn in is too long all by itself.
I'll need to get another adapter and just mount the lens conventionally, which gives me about 1/2" additional working space for 1:1. That still isn't enough distance to use my bellows because of the rails. I plan on using a copy stand and slide mount, so that's no great loss.
I also have a 105mm enlarger lens, came "free" with the bellows and is oddly enough a M42 mount. Using that I now have a workable working distance using one or more extension tubes + enlarger about 2/3 of the way out ... however that Amar PZO is not as nice a lens as my 50mm Schneider Componon-S.
So reversing a lens dramatically shortens the working distance. Whatever the lens' flange focal distance is, that's the working distance when a lens is reversed. And that also always makes the lens enlarge something well into macro range.
Will this system work for scanning color negatives ?
Can I use Lightroom for reversing and color balancing the negative, or is it too hard to do it manually ?
For C-41, it can but you'll need to correct the color for the film base. I don't have a great workflow for that, but in essence I understand that process to require digitizing a blank part of the film, setting the color of the film base to black, and applying the resulting color correction and a color inversion to the film. I've never managed to do it in a way that I find is truly accurate to the film character for any film stock.
@@DavidHancock
Thanks ! I've read about some presets for removing the color cast and automaticaly ajust for it. Maybe it's worth trying, since I plan on developing my B&W and C-41 at home, thus it doesn't make much sense to send just C-41 film off, waiting a week for develop and scans.
What type of lightbulb are you using, fluorescent, incandescent or LED ?
Full-spectrum no-flicker LED. They are not cheap, but the results are worth it.
I have a question could you apply this same idea to DIY an optical printer for say 16mm film. Also great tutorial on scanning film to digital.
Yes. With 16mm film you can also project it onto a wall and then using some keystone correction with the scheimflug principle correct for it with the projector and camera angles. Then if you have the projector run at the camera's refresh rate you wouldn't have flickering issues. It's not easy but it's simpler than scanning each frame of a home movie.
@@DavidHancockThanks for the quick reply I will have to look the details on that but it doesn't sound too difficult. The reason I asked is I am planning to shoot a movie with traveling matte effects. I wanted to make it old school via the Dunning Process, shooting black & white film with a Bolex 16mm camera. I imagine the wall color needs to be a neutral white right.
Can you recommend a full spectrum light bulb please, I need one
Sure can. This is the exact one I use. FYI, this is an affiliate link:
amzn.to/43OyMAp
Hey David. Ive been using an old nikkor 85mmf2 on my pb4 bellows with a nikon5300. Works pretty well. Unfortunately my EL-Nikkor 50mm is cropped in too close. I have a querry on lighting. I use a flash but im not sure if its important to adjust light levels for each frame. I find myself adjusting the flash for each frame just so im clipping highlights a fraction. So shooting to the rigjt if you will. But it really increases processing time as each image is different. For film scanning does this make any difference or should i just use a standard exposure across all frames regardless of what the negative exposure is?
So with a flash, you will need to adjust light levels every time for different negative exposures unless you have it talking to your camera and the TTL meter. That's a big reason I suggest using a steady-state light source like a full-spectrum LED. Using aperture-priority mode your camera will be able to record images that correct for some significant levels of exposure error.
Wouldn't telephoto 1.7 and 2x adapters do the same as the macro tube, with the same 1 and 2 stop of focusing loss?
No, I don't think so because they would alter the lens' focus distance and I think they would make it an unworkable setup.
@@DavidHancock thank you for saving me the frustration of trying to make it eork
Great video. I tried to digitize my negatives once but the resulting raw files were too contrasty and even post processing them did not help. I tried a lot of things but I never got rid of the contrast. In the end I stop digitizing for good. Maybe you could offer some suggestions?
My best guess is that it had to with the negatives. Developing for digital conversion is best done by developing flat negatives and adding contrast in post.
How does the end result compair to scanning negs on a flatbed scanner with negative holder?
WAY better. Scanners can't even compare. The noise level is far higher and the colors aren't as good.
Just to be clear...the "normal" lens is always a derivative of FF 50mm or is it whatever lens I shot the negatives on?
The lens you use to digitize in a setup like I use will not be influenced by the lens you take the photo with. Because I use an enlarger lens on a macro bellows for digitizing, the focal length is determined by your sensor crop factor. The easiest way to ascertain that is to use 50mm and full frame as a reference for that. And because the enlarger lens is being used as a reducing lens on smaller-format sensors, the math will seem backwards. A full-frame digitization of a 35mm negative or slide can be done with full-sensor coverage using a 50mm enlarging lens. To switch to APS-C, you can reduce a 35mm negative to an APS-C sensor size with a 50mm X 1.5 (crop factor) lens of no shorter than 75mm enlarger lens on a macro bellows. For M4/3, which has a 2X crop factor, a 100mm enlarger lens would be needed to reduce the negative to the M4/3 sensor size. The reason that enlarger lenses are being used for reduction here is because digitizing with this setup functionally reverses the traditional darkroom negative-print orientation.
@@DavidHancock thank you :)
I was planning on using a Minolta 100mm macro lens with my canon m50, a light table and a 120 film mask (as I will be scanning 120 6x7 negs), would this set up work? I believe the m50 is a APSC mirror less camera, I’m not too clued up with the actual terms of digital cameras
It will. That's similar to how I do medium- and large-format digitization. I put some white acrylic between the light and negatives (two pieces) for better light diffusion, which provides more even illumination across the negative. Ensure your shutter speed is no faster than 1/30 if you're using LED lights because a faster shutter speed will almost certainly catch light pulses (which was an early and maddening issue for me.)
Do you know if those bellows would work on a K1? I read that they wouldn't because the rear standard would bump against the pentaprism.
The specific model of bellows that I have will not mount on the K-1 for exactly that reason. Other bellows might.
@@DavidHancock Okay thanks!
That's too bad because I already have the slide duplicator that goes in front of the lens.
I think I'm gonna sell it and buy old Novoflex bellows instead. Those have a mounting ring that protudes quite a lot so they should accept my K1.
Can I use a 105 mm enlarger lens on a 35 mm slide? (with an APS-C camera)
You can but you will need a lot of bellows length.
Does the scan quality matter so much if I use an APS-C cropped DSLR or a full frame DSLR ?
I'm now looking for a mid-range cropped DSLR, will they give me enough quality (18 to 24 mp sensor) with this method to make a print, lets say at 8×10" ?
Very few scanners for 35mm can get the detail that is actually contained in the film, so it seemed reasonable that for the same price as a mid-range scanner (~$350/$450) I could get a cheap DSLR and get better results.
I use a Pentax K-3 for 35mm and can easily print 16x20. So 18-24mp will easily print 8x10 will if you have good digitizing practices.
@@DavidHancock Thanks
So according to the crop factor, an El-Nikkor 75mm f/4 enlarging lens should work for an APS-C DSLR in scanning 35mm film ?
Yes. I had a 75mm Schneider enlarging lens that I used for this for 35mm to APS-C prior to getting the Rodagon and the 75 worked A-okay (I seem to recall a slight light loss in the corners.)
@@DavidHancock
Ok, so I was also a bit concerned about the quality and sharpness, since this is a simple 4-element lens, probably not as good as your Schneider. Anyway, it should be good enough for me.
@@Ryan-lu9km I would have confidence in a Nikkor enlarging lens. They're very good, too.
@@DavidHancock
Thanks for your thoughts.
I also looked for the 80mm f/5.6, but couldn't find many of them used.
Thanks for your video, it really made me happy to start my DSLR scanning setup. Happy New Year for you !
Just one more thing : Can't I just move the slide copier further from the bellows to get the full frame in the sensor, with a shorter lens (50mm or 75mm) ?
So scanning a 35mm negative with an APS-C sensor won't work with a 50mm lens?
Nope. An enlarger lens in this configuration is actually a reducing lens because it's being used backward. So you need to reduce a full frame 35mm negative to get it all onto an APS-C sensor and the focal length increase for that is the same as the crop factor. Anything shorter than a 75mm enlarger lens will not reduce the entire film frame onto the APS-C sensor.
@@DavidHancock But that's the exact configuration I've been using for the past few months and so far it has worked just fine.
I believe you're getting the results you want, but there has to be some difference in configuration between what I have here and the setup you have, because lens physics dictates that a 50mm lens cannot reduce to APS-C in this configuration without cropping the full frame negatives. If you have a standard SLR 50mm lens reverse-mounted as can be done for reverse-mounting lenses for macro work, that might work but the working space on that configuration would be very hard to use and unless the lens is very well corrected optically (most are not to the extent needed for this) that's going to introduce a whole bunch of field curvature (enlarger lenses are engineered to prevent field curvature when copying flat-to-flat.)
With a 50mm enlarger lens in the configuration shown in this video, it will project 1:1 when focused on a 35mm negative, which means that it cannot reproduce the entire film negative on an APS-C sensor. A 50mm lens in the configuration in this video when photographing a negative in a slide copier will cover a full frame sensor at 1:1. The first couple thousand negatives I digitized onto APS-C with a 50mm lens were all cropped down to the APS-C image area because of lens physics and the way that optics focus to make 1:1 reproduction ratios (and I didn't realize it until I downloaded them to my computer to start editing and saw that everyone's heads were chopped off.)
Now, if you have a 50mm macro lens mounted on your ASP-C camera, that's an entirely different story and that can work to reproduce a 35mm negative onto an APS-C sensor without cropping. And that can be done in-lens without a bellows. The same could be done with any standard lens that has a close enough focus point.
The reason that a 50mm macro lens will work is because the negative can be placed further away from the front of the lens. With a slide copier setup, the negative-to-lens working distance for image reduction to APS-C is longer than any slide copier I know of.
So the closest data point I have is for a 55mm macro lens. With that lens focal length, to get a 35mm negative onto an APS-C sensor, the lens needs to reproduce it to a 1:1.5 ratio. At 55mm, that's 8.75 inches from the lens to the film negative. So that can work but not with a slide carrier mounted to a bellows. (That data point comes from the micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 manual and some magnification and distance calculations I roughed out while typing this reply.)
So yes, it is possible to reduce a 35mm negative onto APS-C by moving it further from the lens than is shown in this setup (and than can be done with any slide copier and bellows I know of), but with a bellows and slide copier with an enlarger lens mounted, that limits the available distance configurations and means that a lens to reduce image size is needed.
Ah, so the slide copier and bellows are the important factor here?
Because I use a copy stand, with which I can change the distance between the negative and my camera setup, of course.
So yes, I use an EL-Nikkor 50mm/f2.8, a helicoid focus ring and an APS-C camera.
So is that the reason, why it works the way I do it? Is the focal length not that important with this kind of setup?
Bingo and yes. The copy stand will allows 35mm negatives to be reduced onto an ASP-C sensor. The key factor is the lens-negative distance because all image focusing is, essentially, magnification. If you set a lens to infinity a thing near you (albeit blurry) will be smaller on the sensor than if you focus at the closest focus point. So as a lens focuses closer, it's magnifying what is in front of it at the same time as moving the plane of focus toward the camera. And yes, focal length is very important here.
So let's take your 50mm lens. Let's assume you want a 1:1 (life-size) reproduction on your sensor, that 50mm lens needs to be 100mm from the sensor. Let's assume you have a 100mm lens, too, and that you want a life-size reproduction on your sensor; that 100mm lens has to be 200mm from the sensor. So if you place a lens at a lens-sensor distance that is 2X the focal length, you'll have a life-size (1:1) reproduction on the sensor.
Fun fact, that math goes both ways. So with a 50mm lens to get a 1:1 subject enlargement, your lens has to be 100mm from the sensor AND the subject has to be 100mm from the lens. With that 100mm lens, 200mm and 200mm. And a quick correct to my above comment, the 8.75-inch lens-subject distance as supposed to be 8.75-inch sensor-subject distance. I mis-typed the earlier figure.
So with my digitization setup, the negatives are around four inches in front of the lens -- 100mm-ish. So if I use a 50mm lens, I can reproduce that negative 1:1 on a full-frame lens, but because of the crop factor of the APS-C format, that 1:1 projection is cropped on the sensor. So that's where the reversed enlarger setup and reduction factor come into play.
So yes, your observation about subject distance is spot-on and using the 50mm lens on a copy stand with a focusing helical is also why you're getting less magnification than I am (and can use your 50mm lens on APS-C without cropping. And by the way, also a good way to go about digitizing as long as you can eliminate any stray light in your room (to prevent glare on the negatives.)
Good questions and thank you for making me use my brain today. :D
tl;dw? If you felt-line your macro tubes and use a closed system - no light can get in between the film and the sensor which maximises colour transmission when you illuminate the emulsion with a full spectrum light source. Either this method or the simpler route (e.g. Matt Day’s process of pointing a macro lens at a Lomo Digitaliza on a light table) will probably net you better dynamic range than a flatbed scanner. Happy shooting!
This video also focuses on the reasoning behind using an enlarger lens for this. David explains the physics of the optics and why it works the way it does.
Thank you!
Matt's approach is also good and similar to what I use for 120 and sheet film.
Not related to this vid, why do DSLRs have macro selection in the dial? When selected it at best artificially decreases the final length but the sensor and the lense don't mive further from one another. So js this setting suppose to even work? There was a time in the early 200's it was a selling point "it takes greate macros).
I think it has to do with the idea that camera makers (cough cough Canon) have that entry-level cameras should be jammed with features that are, at best, redundant to basic camera settings and, at worst, so horribly confusing to users as to make camera use off-putting.
@@DavidHancock [cough couch] Nikon D40 mor D70 will not fire with the fash in a pitch black room unless in night mode. And d70 was suppose to be a step up from hobbiest
LOL, I didn't know that. I haven't use a D40 in years and never a D70.
@@DavidHancock you'll see the red light blink, the lense stop down and then nothing, To verify the camera is working left all setting alone whent out into the light and camera worked fine
O8:18 Ok so your data frame is the meta data for the reproduction your are preforming.
It's the metadata for the film, correct.