p.1 #1 · Olympus OM 1980s macro stand for film digitizing
I spent a lot of time looking and thinking how to digitize my old films. Part by part components found their way into my possession, often for free. The last mayor part was an affordable high resolution camera which came into my reach when Sony A7R II became old and cheaper. Then some 3D-prints and some turned parts and a lot of final fiddling and my setup was complete and working.
The basis is an Olympus macro stand. It is similar to the stand for their stereo microscopes of the time. Then an illuminated base below and a bellows to mount the camera. The lens is an Apo-Rodagon 50mm 2.8 enlarger lens. I got better results with it than with dedicated Olympus marco lenses for bellows use. Light comes from a Godox tt 350 flash, triggered wireless. Flash has a continuous spectrum which makes scanning easier. There is an LED ring light aroung the flash opening for adjusting and setting sharpness. The negative carrier is a stip sawn from an old flat bed scanner carrier.
I measured a resolution of about 50 line pairs per mm on my colour negatives, about 9 megapixels. So 24 megapixels would give a little overhead, 42 megapixels are plenty. And the A7R II ist very sharp on pixel level.
For the raw conversion I use Silkypix Developer Studio 12 which makes it easy, fast and good. Rawtherapee is a bit more complicated but the results can be marginally better. DXO is not so convenient and the results are a little worse.
First electronic shutter curtain is valuable for this kind of work, it improves sharpness a lot.
The first 35 films are digitized and I'm quite happy with the quality. For medium format I will have to change the setup a little and won't need flash as it is only B/W.
p.1 #2 · Olympus OM 1980s macro stand for film digitizing
How much do you find Electric shutter helps? Do you have a comparison you could upload? I've scanned hundreds of rolls over the past few years but always used mechanical shutter.
