ytwong wrote:
I have recommended this method (ES-1 + 60 Micro) to others before but nobody seems to take is seriously..
if you use Kodakchrome ...ICE doesn't work anyway you might or might not miss the ICE of filmscans.
I guess I might get better result doing the duplicating work with NEX-7 than D700 (NEX-7 seems to have better highlight retention) but i haven't done this for a long while.
OK.. filmscan can deal with negatives, not just slides. I briefly tried to do that with negatives but the result doesn't look good.
Yes, I have the ES-1 as well, but the PB-6 is just way more convenient (though significantly more expensive!) for loading slides repeatably and getting everything lined up. This does not mean that the ES-1 can't get as good of results once set up.
John, this is an interesting thread. At the newspaper we had an old slide duplicator that worked like a charm. However, it was using film - and you want to make digital copies - not analog. I have used many film scanners over the years from $10,000 + kodak models to Nikon's first SCSI slide scanner using lcd lighting (the LS1000) + silverfast. I was literally swamped with film I wanted scanned, and it was always in my "round to it" pile of things to do. I'm going to suggest you look into a flat bed scanner - particularly the epson v700 or v750. I was shocked how good the scans can be coming from such a rig + I could set up 20-24 scans (all having individual adjustments), and then go off and do other things with my computer while it plowed through them. I literally scanned well over 38,000 frames in just a few weeks - which, had I waited until I was much older - would never have been completed. I did 4x5, 6x9, 6x6, 6.4.5 35mm...all very easily.
EDIT
Also, I think your test slide is too extreme. I'm sure the density is close to opaque in some areas, and the thinnest areas for film have a fairies breath of detail. For an example like that I would scan/shoot it twice, and combine it in photoshop.
James Markus wrote:
John, this is an interesting thread. At the newspaper we had an old slide duplicator that worked like a charm. However, it was using film - and you want to make digital copies - not analog. I have used many film scanners over the years from $10,000 + kodak models to Nikon's first SCSI slide scanner using lcd lighting (the LS1000) + silverfast. I was literally swamped with film I wanted scanned, and it was always in my "round to it" pile of things to do. I'm going to suggest you look into a flat bed scanner - particularly the epson v700 or v750. I was shocked how good the scans can be coming from such a rig + I could set up 20-24 scans (all having individual adjustments), and then go off and do other things with my computer while it plowed through them. I literally scanned well over 38,000 frames in just a few weeks - which, had I waited until I was much older - would never have been completed. I did 4x5, 6x9, 6x6, 6.4.5 35mm...all very easily.
EDIT
Also, I think your test slide is too extreme. I'm sure the density is close to opaque in some areas, and the thinnest areas for film have a fairies breath of detail. For an example like that I would scan/shoot it twice, and combine it in photoshop....Show more →
Jim
I'm already done scanning all of my slides from years back with my 5000ED scanner and SF-210 slide feeder so a flatbed scanner does not interest me. This setup was just for scanning a few rolls of Provia I have left and for the potential of going back and rescanning a slide or two every now and then.
I also did this to highlight in a controlled way the base ISO DR differences between the D700 and D800. I chose this particular slide because (a) I have quite a few slides like this one with really severe dynamic range and (b) I still shoot digital images of scenes just like the slide where I'm either blowing out highlights or losing shadows.
As far as combining images, I could have done that with the D700, but now I have a D800 which I either don't need to shoot multiple images or I can and will get even better image quality. I purchased the D800 to replace my D700 for dynamic range, viewfinder, and other reasons.
Again, the PB-6/PS-6 and D800 were NOT bought for scanning thousands of slides (they are totally the wrong tools for that), but I have them and wanted to see how good it could be compared to the dedicated slide scanner. Now I can sell my 5000ED and know that I can get as good an image from a slide (minus scratch and dust issues) from my D800 if I need to.
This is an interesting thread. I would like to see it continue. So, what would be some decent and current methods of scanning slides at home now? Most people have a flatbed scanner already. I guess, if the slide is not that extreme, it can be scanned onto the computer with a flatbed. Then, a disc can be made for store prints or your own printer can take it off the computer.
williamkazak wrote:
This is an interesting thread. I would like to see it continue. So, what would be some decent and current methods of scanning slides at home now? Most people have a flatbed scanner already. I guess, if the slide is not that extreme, it can be scanned onto the computer with a flatbed. Then, a disc can be made for store prints or your own printer can take it off the computer.
Well, it depends on how many and what you have to scan. If you have a lot of mounted slides then the CoolScan5000ED + SF210 slide feeder is the way to go, though it will cost $2500 or so (but you can re-sell it and get most of your money back).
If you just have a small numbers of slides you can get just the CoolScan5000ED and scan them one at a time. The CoolScan does a great job with dust/scratches. The NikonScan software works well on Windows XP and can be made to work on Win7 and such with a bit of Internet searching. Vuescan works on any OS and does well too. It also does film strips (negatives) quite easily.
There are other slide scanners out there that are cheaper, but I'm not sure of the quality.
There are flatbed scanners that are not that expensive like the Epson 700 and 750 that do a very respectable job, but can't really batch scan all that well due to having to load less than 36 at a time into the slide frame.
You can also send you slides out for scanning too.
This is by no mean an exhaustive reply to your question and I'm sure others will chime in.
Maybe a bit off topic, this thread seems oriented towards the mechanical aspects of copying an emulsion image. But a very knowlegeable group here. My question is about the processing.
I only shot negative film back in the day. Picked up a Besseler slide copier very cheaply that I mounted DSLR to. Does a great job getting an image into the computer. Any tips on a workflow for color negatives. Seems its not very easy.
That is VERY dependent on the film type / DSLR combination...
The film in itself - though it may "look" good - generally has an atrocious color accuracy, and lots of metameric problems. What you do when you shoot a negative film (or scan it for that matter) is to multiply the amounts of color defects in the film with the amount of color defects in the camera/scanner...
There are a few very important things to remember, though - that COULD help a lot.
1) try to shoot in raw, but if you HAVE to shoot in jpg, turn contrast and saturation down a bit.
2) (in raw) - use a very neutral (low contrast, low sat) camera color profile - in Adobe this would be "Camera Neutral". If possible, use "linear" contrast curve...
3) export as tif, 16 bit. Color space isn't really important, since you're going to revert everything anyway. Just keep track of saturation clipping.
4) unless you REALLY need it, don't exaggerate those export image sizes. Half camera res is usually a technically good point (D800 would be export > 18MP images, D700 > 6MP images and so on). You gain very little by doubling the file size (using full camera res) at this point.
Then the goodies start...
There's a simple way to invert slides in Photoshop, but the color almost always needs adjusting afterwards. I'm guessing that you didn't shoot a lot of color reference targets "back in the day", so you'll have to do this by hand.
The reversal, the color adjustments and the curve adjustments and can be saved as an "action" in PS and then be applied in batches to the image folders.
This (the resulting tiff folders) is the base material. As long as you've kept everything at reasonable levels of tinkering (and at 16-bit resaves), you can then load all images into either LR (simplest) or Bridge, and then do individual fine exposure, contrast and sat adjustments.
sertsa wrote:
Maybe a bit off topic, this thread seems oriented towards the mechanical aspects of copying an emulsion image. But a very knowlegeable group here. My question is about the processing.
I only shot negative film back in the day. Picked up a Besseler slide copier very cheaply that I mounted DSLR to. Does a great job getting an image into the computer. Any tips on a workflow for color negatives. Seems its not very easy.
jhinkey wrote:
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I like my CoolScan5000ED - it really does chew through the slides with the SF210 feeder (once you figure out how to avoid jamming it up),
John, thanks for this thread - your results are really quite interesting.
I know you made your original posts a while ago, but this part of your second post jumped out at me. Would you mind sharing how you avoid jamming the SF210 ? I have several hundreds of slides from my Mom's old collection, dating back to the 50's/60's, and have been trying for a while to scan them. But I haven't figured out the jamming issue, and this keeps forcing the project back in my queue of things I can actually work on.
tmark wrote:
John, thanks for this thread - your results are really quite interesting.
I know you made your original posts a while ago, but this part of your second post jumped out at me. Would you mind sharing how you avoid jamming the SF210 ? I have several hundreds of slides from my Mom's old collection, dating back to the 50's/60's, and have been trying for a while to scan them. But I haven't figured out the jamming issue, and this keeps forcing the project back in my queue of things I can actually work on.
thanks - terry
Mark - I don't have the SF-210 anymore (still have the 5000ED though and I need to sell it), but what I did was to take an AA battery and lay it down on it's side between the stack of slides on the in-feed side and the white plastic spring loaded piece that pushes on the slides. No modification of the SF-210 necessary.
This puts all the force along the bottom of the slides - and none in the middle like the spring loaded plastic piece does. The slide getting ready to load is straight up and down, but the slides behind it are pretty loose with slight gaps between them in the middle and the top (so they are a bit angled, but that's ok). What I found was that if the slides, even if they are new plastic ones, get even compression pressure from the plastic piece they will hang up with each other. But if pushed only along the bottom they rarely get hung up. The paper ones will still get hung up every now then, but it's drastically reduced.
On the out load side I did the same thing, but with an AAA battery (for some reason it worked better than an AA).
I still had to make sure that the thin metal piece that only allows one slide at a time to be fed was properly adjusted to be just wider than the width of the slides being used.
Vuescan has the ability to load in camera raw files - NEF ect that are supported by dcraw.
That is one way to process negative images taken with the DSLR. Has a basic amount of film profiles.
I have used Vuescan a lot with my Canon FS4000US film scanner, but have only tried the above method once. I only have 35mm negative film, and no negative slides. With no way to hold any of it infront of my D300s.
I have been wanting to scan my slides too. I just ordered an Artograph LED light pad which is supposed to be more even light than the old light boxes. Will have to use my Nikon 105mm AIS micro lens with a Nikon 3T close up lens. The lens will not meter with my Nikon D 80 camera, so I will have to do it by trial and error. Could I possibly use my Sekonic L 508 spot meter to read the slides?
This is very interesting for me. I've been slowly collecting what I think I need to copy slides. I had the 55 3.5, and just bought a set of Keno auto tubes from Harry.
Last month, I was able to buy at a decent price a SB600. All I need now is
the ES 1, and a way to extend the ES 1 a further distance from my lens, as I am
going to use the D200, of course a crop camera. My idea was to bounce flash off white cardboard stock, such as white school "project' board in front of the ES 1.
I shot a lot of slides years ago, only way I could get consistent processing. So there are some I'd love to digitize.
Appa, I don't think you'll need any extension on the ES-1. If you have the standard PK-13 extension tube for the Micro you'll be fine on DX.
White bounce illumination could work fine, but watch out for uneven brightness on the white card.
