One tip for finnicky insertion at the start of the film is to cut the film at an angle so that you don’t have to start with the entire width of the film. Works pretty good!
Thanks for creating a very fair and honest review, Noah. The EFH was designed to be flexible, simple and at the same time affordable. The clue is in the name "Essential", no bells and whistles, no rollers, no brushes, just a solid, configurable, value solution for the film community. I'm honoured that it's still the only film holder to get Amateur Photographer's Gold Award and 5-stars. There is a bit of fiddle with Borders and Sprockets - some other RUclipsrs have ably demonstrated the technique that I recommend for inserting your film and the hassle soon disappears, making things quick and simple. I see a couple of those commenting here have got "the knack". Swapping the 'plates' is simple too - the laser-cut acrylic has a high precision to ensure everything stays aligned as it should with no wobble - from 110 format right the way through to 6x12 - all in one holder. Slippy - yes. Over the last 18-months, on and off, I 've included a set of rubber feet, but they are not viewed as fundamental by the 12,000+ users of the EFH, so currently they are not included. It's simple to hold the unit in place - a small bit of double sided tape, a tiny blob of Blu-Tack, a $3 rubber mat, through to a full alignment mask that I offer to pro-labs - everyone will have their own preference. If you use a Raleno 116 LED panel, for instance, then the EFH sits pretty securely in the borders of the light. Nevertheless, your point is well made. Thnaks for the review - much apprecfiated - love the channel . Andrew C Essential Film Holder www.clifforth.co.uk £90 GBP including FREE worldwide shipping,
Hey Andrew, thanks for the cool gadget you gave the film community. I ordered mine a couple days ago after watching this episode and look forward to scanning my negatives. Question, is a 1:1 macro lens necessary for scanning?
My suggestion in using the essential film holder: If you find it finicky to feed your film through, cut the film on a bit of a bias (like one sprocket hole). The bias makes sure the film feeds and doesnt get caught when feeding the first frame. I also did add rubber feet so that it doesn't slide across the light source. Then, I just need to be careful not to bump the table to make sure the film holder doesn't get shifted. Once I get all this worked out, I can scan a roll of 36 frames with a minute. Fast and high resolution.
Your channel is excellent. I really enjoy your delivery. I sold my darkroom equipment nearly 20 years ago, but channels like yours motivate me to dabble again. Luckily I keep a developing tank, and recently taught my daughter to develop B&W 35mm. Caffenol comes next.
The prices for those film holders are ridiculous. I understand that it is aimed at hipster demographic who pays too much for a badly filtered beer but come on man... 300 something for a 3D printed piece (or stapmed in china) that costs cents to produce. Either our money has less and less value or the emperor has no clothes on. Now where is my beer.
Hey Noah, great video and thanks for always finding new ways to make the art of analog photography more enjoyable. I have to add though that while the product might be a brilliant tool, I do have some troubles with the support/shipment. To keep it short: Andrew Clifford made a mistake by shipping it to the wrong address and was not willing to correct that mistake. This might not be an issue for people within the UK but something to be aware of if you order from europe or even further away. I know you only review the products but I think it is helpful to have some insight on what happens after you placed your order and what support you can expect.
I 3d printed mine from several parts which includes nylon rails, adjustable pressure plate and etc. Makes 35mm film absolutely flat. I'm planning to add stepper motor to automatically move the film and trigger the camera. While building that I came up with another idea of a film scanner based on a piece of anti-newtonian glass and a couple of powerful fans from a 3d printer to push the 120 film against the glass making it flat.
Sweet video! I think, at least for me, scanning and converting process is very rewarding. Moreover, the control over the colors is something I can't not have. I'd like to start developing soon but so far I haven't developed my own film yet. I recently sold my v600 as I primarily shoot 35mm and the v600 is just archaic and doesn't resolve much detail. Plus the noise floor is too high. I got the cinestill cs-lite light source with the valoi film holders and I'm really happy with the results.
So I was actually going to try to make one of these for myself since the design is so simple and I have access to a laser cutter. Honestly, the price he sells it for is pretty good unless you literally have all the materials and equipment already.
i shoot a bunch of 35mm cameras in medium format only 6x6. so i use a enlarger film holder for camera scanning. cheap and efficient. bit more fidly though
First, thank for another great presentation, I've really been enjoying your channel. My problem is I can't find any scanning guide system to handle 120 Medium Format in pano formats like 6x17 and 6x12. I bought into the Negative Supply for 120 film in the common ones (6x6,6x9) and great for that. But I also shoot a lot of 6x17 and 6x12. I am setting up to use a GFX100 as my scanning camera. And for really good shots I want to print to frame (going from 6x17 to 2"x6" prints), I am wanting to experiment with pixel shifting to get 400MP images. With these, I want to get in one shot and have my workflow in C1 in RAW mode for as much as I can. I figure this might rival drum scanning in fidelity. Doing this I will be doing my inverse and color work fully in RAW, manually, not using the programs out there that generate TIFFs, etc. Anyway, I want something that will allow me to shoot pano format 120 Medium film in one shot and not have to stitch things together. I can't find that yet.
Great video! Could you please offer suggestions for what kind of gloves to use when handling film for scanning and have you come across rubber feet that would work with the Essential Film Holder? Thank you!
I've been using one for the last couple months and its great but with one glaring issue for me - it seems to scratch film easily. I've taken some fine sanding paper to some of the offending edges (which I think weere causing the scractches - just unfinished acrylic rubbing on the film) so hopefully the issue has been solved
I've personally found the Skier Copy Box to be a better bargain considering how expensive some decent light sources required for scanning are... I picked one up with both the 35 and 120 holders and it's been amazing!
I've been shooting 35mm for a few years and want to start scanning my own rolls. This EFH seems like a great place to start albeit pretty finnicky (guess i'll just be patient lol). Thanks for all the coverage and insights Noah!
@@NoviSavvy Not sure about the speed, but there's a review comparing it against a Nikon Supercool Scan 9000 which costs 10x more, and I have to say I was really impressed with the quality!
@@MicrophonicFool Plustek make a scanner for 120 film (the OpticFilm 120 Pro) that also takes 35mm. It's a bit more expensive than the 8200Ai or the OpticFilm 120. It can scan up to 6x12 MF negatives.
The EFH is my entry point into dslr scanning too and for the most part I like it... 120 can be fiddly as you noticed and scanning strips is especially annoying. My other complaint is that in my photos at least there's very often a light leak on the sides, apparently caused by the shadow the square cut sides project on the negative? Need to tweak it out in post so slightly annoying lol otherwise produces great results. Totally on point with the whole 'don't fall into this rabbit hole if you don't need to'. I just already had a digital camera and macro lenses though auxiliary costs like a copy stand do add up.... I still get color developed and scanned by a lab cause I don't c41 and don't use nlb lol
Hello, sorry but I don't understand how I have to go about ordering this product. When I click to order it sends me directly to paypal but does not ask me for the address where the package is to be sent. Is my shipping address from after I paid?
I have to disagree about relying on a lab to scan all your stuff. For beginners, certainly let a lab do your developing and scanning at first because otherwise the learning curve and startup costs are insane. However, not everyone has a local, affordable, and high quality lab to utilize. There is only one local camera store/photo lab left in my area, and while they do fine work and I support them as much as I can, it is starting to become infeasible. It costs over $35 to have ONE roll of black and white 120 film processed and scanned, because they do not process B&W on site. At that price I couldn't afford to shoot more than a few rolls a year. Then when I get my scans back they're only 1500x1500, about 2.3 MP. This is fine for sharing online or whatever but I'd expect far more from a lab quality scanner at that price. I'm looking into home scanning options due to this. While the equipment does cost a lot up front, it will allow me to scan as many rolls as I want rather than paying a fee every time.
This kind of systems is not for me, I've got too many filmformats (in 135, medium format and large format) and no decent digital camera. I use an Epson V850, wich can scan all formats I use.
6x9 as the default medium format frame size is….. odd, given that almost everyone who shoots medium format is going to be using either a 6x6 or 6x7 camera
Forget valoi.. it's too expensive. for it's price, I will rather pick up an epson v850. The Essential film holder is miles better.. Valoi's addons are just superfluous that you can do without.
One tip for finnicky insertion at the start of the film is to cut the film at an angle so that you don’t have to start with the entire width of the film. Works pretty good!
Thanks for creating a very fair and honest review, Noah.
The EFH was designed to be flexible, simple and at the same time affordable. The clue is in the name "Essential", no bells and whistles, no rollers, no brushes, just a solid, configurable, value solution for the film community.
I'm honoured that it's still the only film holder to get Amateur Photographer's Gold Award and 5-stars.
There is a bit of fiddle with Borders and Sprockets - some other RUclipsrs have ably demonstrated the technique that I recommend for inserting your film and the hassle soon disappears, making things quick and simple.
I see a couple of those commenting here have got "the knack".
Swapping the 'plates' is simple too - the laser-cut acrylic has a high precision to ensure everything stays aligned as it should with no wobble - from 110 format right the way through to 6x12 - all in one holder.
Slippy - yes. Over the last 18-months, on and off, I 've included a set of rubber feet, but they are not viewed as fundamental by the 12,000+ users of the EFH, so currently they are not included.
It's simple to hold the unit in place - a small bit of double sided tape, a tiny blob of Blu-Tack, a $3 rubber mat, through to a full alignment mask that I offer to pro-labs - everyone will have their own preference.
If you use a Raleno 116 LED panel, for instance, then the EFH sits pretty securely in the borders of the light.
Nevertheless, your point is well made.
Thnaks for the review - much apprecfiated - love the channel .
Andrew C
Essential Film Holder
www.clifforth.co.uk
£90 GBP including FREE worldwide shipping,
Hey Andrew, thanks for the cool gadget you gave the film community. I ordered mine a couple days ago after watching this episode and look forward to scanning my negatives.
Question, is a 1:1 macro lens necessary for scanning?
Thanks for the Raleno suggestion; but does that unit sit flat on the table?
I'm gonna get the one I need to assemble 😈
My suggestion in using the essential film holder: If you find it finicky to feed your film through, cut the film on a bit of a bias (like one sprocket hole). The bias makes sure the film feeds and doesnt get caught when feeding the first frame. I also did add rubber feet so that it doesn't slide across the light source. Then, I just need to be careful not to bump the table to make sure the film holder doesn't get shifted.
Once I get all this worked out, I can scan a roll of 36 frames with a minute. Fast and high resolution.
Darktable with Negadoctor module is a good alternative to NLP
Your channel is excellent. I really enjoy your delivery. I sold my darkroom equipment nearly 20 years ago, but channels like yours motivate me to dabble again. Luckily I keep a developing tank, and recently taught my daughter to develop B&W 35mm. Caffenol comes next.
The prices for those film holders are ridiculous. I understand that it is aimed at hipster demographic who pays too much for a badly filtered beer but come on man... 300 something for a 3D printed piece (or stapmed in china) that costs cents to produce. Either our money has less and less value or the emperor has no clothes on. Now where is my beer.
Hey Noah, great video and thanks for always finding new ways to make the art of analog photography more enjoyable. I have to add though that while the product might be a brilliant tool, I do have some troubles with the support/shipment. To keep it short: Andrew Clifford made a mistake by shipping it to the wrong address and was not willing to correct that mistake. This might not be an issue for people within the UK but something to be aware of if you order from europe or even further away. I know you only review the products but I think it is helpful to have some insight on what happens after you placed your order and what support you can expect.
I use the EFH and I like it. It’s the best value for performance holder you can get in my view.
I 3d printed mine from several parts which includes nylon rails, adjustable pressure plate and etc. Makes 35mm film absolutely flat. I'm planning to add stepper motor to automatically move the film and trigger the camera. While building that I came up with another idea of a film scanner based on a piece of anti-newtonian glass and a couple of powerful fans from a 3d printer to push the 120 film against the glass making it flat.
Sweet video! I think, at least for me, scanning and converting process is very rewarding. Moreover, the control over the colors is something I can't not have. I'd like to start developing soon but so far I haven't developed my own film yet. I recently sold my v600 as I primarily shoot 35mm and the v600 is just archaic and doesn't resolve much detail. Plus the noise floor is too high. I got the cinestill cs-lite light source with the valoi film holders and I'm really happy with the results.
So I was actually going to try to make one of these for myself since the design is so simple and I have access to a laser cutter. Honestly, the price he sells it for is pretty good unless you literally have all the materials and equipment already.
'He' ....is me ;)
Home scanning is fun, but can be slow ... I actually like doing it and have a few scanners for different formats!!! Great info as usual!!!
i shoot a bunch of 35mm cameras in medium format only 6x6. so i use a enlarger film holder for camera scanning. cheap and efficient. bit more fidly though
Essential Film Holder works pretty well - I've had mine for a year now and nothing better has come along, regardless of price.
First, thank for another great presentation, I've really been enjoying your channel.
My problem is I can't find any scanning guide system to handle 120 Medium Format in pano formats like 6x17 and 6x12.
I bought into the Negative Supply for 120 film in the common ones (6x6,6x9) and great for that. But I also shoot a lot of 6x17 and 6x12. I am setting up to use a GFX100 as my scanning camera. And for really good shots I want to print to frame (going from 6x17 to 2"x6" prints), I am wanting to experiment with pixel shifting to get 400MP images.
With these, I want to get in one shot and have my workflow in C1 in RAW mode for as much as I can. I figure this might rival drum scanning in fidelity.
Doing this I will be doing my inverse and color work fully in RAW, manually, not using the programs out there that generate TIFFs, etc.
Anyway, I want something that will allow me to shoot pano format 120 Medium film in one shot and not have to stitch things together.
I can't find that yet.
Essential Film Holder - has a 6x12 mask about to be released. Either mail me via the website at clifforth.co.uk or sign up for email updates
Great video! Could you please offer suggestions for what kind of gloves to use when handling film for scanning and have you come across rubber feet that would work with the Essential Film Holder? Thank you!
I've been using one for the last couple months and its great but with one glaring issue for me - it seems to scratch film easily. I've taken some fine sanding paper to some of the offending edges (which I think weere causing the scractches - just unfinished acrylic rubbing on the film) so hopefully the issue has been solved
What would you use for Kodak 400 Disc film ( little negatives on a disc like a view master). Thanks. Nice clear presentation.
I've personally found the Skier Copy Box to be a better bargain considering how expensive some decent light sources required for scanning are... I picked one up with both the 35 and 120 holders and it's been amazing!
Expensive!🤑
The light sources are like $40
and a Great Choice to scan 55 years😖of 35, 120, & 4"x5" transparencies & negs. Well still got the iPhone 13 Pro Max to back me up 'til September'22😖
I've been shooting 35mm for a few years and want to start scanning my own rolls. This EFH seems like a great place to start albeit pretty finnicky (guess i'll just be patient lol). Thanks for all the coverage and insights Noah!
Used Epson V700 or V800 are still a better purchase IMO. They work for anything between 110 film and 8x10, so there isn't any reason not to get one.
What about scanning for prints? With a 45mp camera can you get better results with 35mm compared to a flatbed?
I love my EFH.
3d printed ones are pretty awesome.
For that price, why not just buy one of those "PLUSTEK SCANNER OPTICFILM 8100 LED"?
I dont think plustek will accept medium format
It is extremely slow and DSLR scanning provides more color depth and resolution
@@NoviSavvy Not sure about the speed, but there's a review comparing it against a Nikon Supercool Scan 9000 which costs 10x more, and I have to say I was really impressed with the quality!
@@MicrophonicFool Plustek make a scanner for 120 film (the OpticFilm 120 Pro) that also takes 35mm. It's a bit more expensive than the 8200Ai or the OpticFilm 120. It can scan up to 6x12 MF negatives.
The EFH is my entry point into dslr scanning too and for the most part I like it... 120 can be fiddly as you noticed and scanning strips is especially annoying.
My other complaint is that in my photos at least there's very often a light leak on the sides, apparently caused by the shadow the square cut sides project on the negative? Need to tweak it out in post so slightly annoying lol otherwise produces great results.
Totally on point with the whole 'don't fall into this rabbit hole if you don't need to'. I just already had a digital camera and macro lenses though auxiliary costs like a copy stand do add up....
I still get color developed and scanned by a lab cause I don't c41 and don't use nlb lol
just ordered, what is the shipping time looking like to get it to the US?
What happen laying the film directly on the light plane?
I found a review from Aug 2020 in which they say non-slip rubber feet are there. Can you confirm that's not true?
He looks exactly like Jay Baruchel
I would really like to know if there's any way that you could use integral film in a pack film camera🙏🏼🥺
Keep an eye on:
newlandcamera.com/
Hello, sorry but I don't understand how I have to go about ordering this product. When I click to order it sends me directly to paypal but does not ask me for the address where the package is to be sent. Is my shipping address from after I paid?
That website took me in circles, round and round, but I finally got through to the end, but it was not easy.
I have to disagree about relying on a lab to scan all your stuff. For beginners, certainly let a lab do your developing and scanning at first because otherwise the learning curve and startup costs are insane. However, not everyone has a local, affordable, and high quality lab to utilize.
There is only one local camera store/photo lab left in my area, and while they do fine work and I support them as much as I can, it is starting to become infeasible. It costs over $35 to have ONE roll of black and white 120 film processed and scanned, because they do not process B&W on site. At that price I couldn't afford to shoot more than a few rolls a year. Then when I get my scans back they're only 1500x1500, about 2.3 MP. This is fine for sharing online or whatever but I'd expect far more from a lab quality scanner at that price.
I'm looking into home scanning options due to this. While the equipment does cost a lot up front, it will allow me to scan as many rolls as I want rather than paying a fee every time.
Ive got an Olympus OM-D E-M10. Can I use this camera for film scanning 120 film? Its only 16MP
Yes. Get a 1:1 macro
This kind of systems is not for me, I've got too many filmformats (in 135, medium format and large format) and no decent digital camera. I use an Epson V850, wich can scan all formats I use.
6x9 as the default medium format frame size is….. odd, given that almost everyone who shoots medium format is going to be using either a 6x6 or 6x7 camera
I shoot 6x9 so works for me!
🖤
Nice! :)
I think I could make one of these in an afternoon with a few nylon bolts and some acrylic sheets.
Forget valoi.. it's too expensive. for it's price, I will rather pick up an epson v850. The Essential film holder is miles better.. Valoi's addons are just superfluous that you can do without.
Yikes!, my comment has been deleted. Apologies if I wrote too much.
geezus...rip off industry...plastic 💩