Vintage 35mm digitalized images

[Old school]

Dear Alamy Contributors,

My wife and I are 'old school' photographers with 35,000 or so 35mm color slides using Nikon equipment and lens.  Most are Kodachrome 25 and 64.  We digitalized 1000s with the end result we have images with 150 to 250 megabits...too large to send by email.  Have any other ALAMY CONTRIBUTORS asked about submitting images in such large megabits and if so, what happened?  Also, there is an inherent loss of image fidelity between the original 35mm Kodachrome 25 and the digitalized results.  Any Contributors asked these questions? cheers, Flo and Paul

[MDM]

1 minute ago, Old school said:

Dear MDM,

Our decision NOT TO EDIT via PHOTOSHOP or any other such tools is a conscious one...we simply do not wish to 'learn' the PHOTOSHOP techniques or any other such tools...if that causes us to be doomed, then so be it!  Nor are we inclined to invest additional funds to buy a 'better' scanner or software.  A sizable number of ALAMY CONTRIBUTORS relay they use various 'scanners' and or software...while we can read the text, it has no meaning to us.  Whether the many suggestions are 'incredibly simple process,' for the ALAMY CONTRIBUTORs making the suggestions of 'how easy it is,' that is not true for us. Given our decision NOT to buy additional software or a better scanner, we will follow up with the 'vintage/archival' option with ALAMY.  if that doesn't work, we remain status quo.  Again, our thanks for taking time to recommend solutions.  Cheers, Flo and Paul

 

Your decision of course but you are missing some of the the most fundamental and often simple points about digital imaging.  Anyway best of luck with whatever you do. 

[Old school]

1 hour ago, MDM said:

 

This is your first and most fundemantal problem. Your second problem is that you have used a non-professional grade scanner and scanned a large number of images already without getting to grips with the basics of image editing. This is not manipulation, it is an essential part of the process.

 

It would have been a much more sensible and practical idea to select a much smaller number of slides for scanning (or copying as I said), choosing the best and leaving out similars. Looking at the pictures you have on Alamy at the moment, you seem to have taken a similar approach as with the slides )e.g. your bear shots). You have loads of similars, unedited straight from the camera and many of the pictures look like tourist snapshots which could have been taken on a phone even. A much better approach would be to choose a few of the best and upload them but it would be far better again to learn the basics of image editing which would enable you to greatly improve a small subset of your images and discard the rest in terms of uploading for stock.

 

 

 

You don't need Data Doctors for this. You just need some basic image editing software and a tiny bit of widely available guidance to undertake what is an incredibly simple process. 

 

 

Dear MDM, We are not inclined to 'buy' software that will frustrate us the more as software usage is not in our skill sets...considering we 'researched' scanners more than 10-years ago given the costs, the NIKON scanner was $8000.00 and was out of the question.   And, 'tackling' once again some 35,000 slides is a really really scary project!  Many ALAMY CONTRIBUTORS suggested outside 'guidance' to help us master any 'software,' that costs money we are not interested in paying.  To recover such cost in potential sales with ALAMY or other photo-stock companies is not practical.  So, we wait to see what happens with ALAMY's vintage/archival options.  cheers, Flo and Paul

[Old school]

5 minutes ago, MDM said:

 

Your decision of course but you are missing some of the the most fundamental and often simple points about digital imaging.  Anyway best of luck with whatever you do. 

Dear MDM, Our continued thanks for your time and efforts.  We will wait and see what happens with the archival options.  cheers, Flo and Paul

[spacecadet]

19 minutes ago, MDM said:

 

Copy 100 frames an hour with a camera - perhaps with a team of elves and three or four cameras.

 

That was my figure and it's about right. One camera and no elves. Out of the sleeve (mounted slides, negs in strips of course), blow off the dust, antistatic brush, onto the Illumitran, flash, back in the sleeve, next. Once nailed you only really need to check focus for different brands of mount, but I used to check it now and again anyway. It doesn't include the import or processing because I have only done the full works for a tiny number of images for submission. I worked out an LR import preset that did a decent basic job. 5 or 6000 slides and negs took about a fortnight- so maybe 50 hours copying and the same again importing and processing.

 

2 hours ago, geogphotos said:

Given the ease in which several of you are reporting copying old slides using a camera rather than a scanner ( 100 per hour I see mentioned) can you point to any professional labs or similar  business providing this service.

 

Compared with film scanning I imagine that the prices are much more modest. 

It doesn't compare that well with a true scan- I can imagine a lot of pushback from customers if they did a comparison so wouldn't see it as much of a "goer" as a business. I suspect it can beat some of the lower-end consumer scanners, but that's all. I always point out that it's only good enough for the archival route.

[MDM]

2 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

That was my figure and it's about right. One camera and no elves. Out of the sleeve (mounted slides, negs in strips of course), blow off the dust, antistatic brush, onto the Illumitran, flash, back in the sleeve, next. Once nailed you only really need to check focus for different brands of mount, but I used to check it now and again anyway. It doesn't include the import or processing because I have only done the full works for a tiny number of images for submission. I worked out an LR import preset that did a decent basic job. 5 or 6000 slides and negs took about a fortnight- so maybe 50 hours copying and the same again importing and processing.

 

It doesn't compare that well with a true scan- I can imagine a lot of pushback from customers if they did a comparison so wouldn't see it as much of a "goer" as a business. I suspect it can beat some of the lower-end consumer scanners, but that's all. I always point out that it's only good enough for the archival route.

 

Different equipment. The slide copier that I use is a different animal - positioning the slide alone in the holder takes time if you want to do it properly. 

[spacecadet]

5 minutes ago, MDM said:

 

Different equipment. The slide copier that I use is a different animal - positioning the slide alone in the holder takes time if you want to do it properly. 

That's why I waited for a cheap Illumitran. I reckoned the other duplicator-type setups would be rather slower- seems I was right about that!

[Harry Harrison]

Sharp flat-field lens at its optimum aperture, even illumination, meticulous technique with magnified live view check on each slide for critical focus, good DSLR or mirrorless camera with 25MB+ sensor. No reason why it shouldn't equal any of the good quality 4000 dpi scanners. I'm marking my own homework but I've certainly compared the results very diligently.

[Harry Harrison]

P.S. Why are my posts tagged with "Help me"?

[spacecadet]

1 minute ago, Harry Harrison said:

Sharp flat-field lens at its optimum aperture, even illumination, meticulous technique with magnified live view check on each slide for critical focus, good DSLR or mirrorless camera with 25MB+ sensor. No reason why it shouldn't equal any of the good quality 4000 dpi scanners. I'm marking my own homework but I've certainly compared the results very diligently.

I'm using an old enlarging lens. Hence "it" referring only to what I'm doing- not trying to compete with a scanner, just get some archive images up without much investment. I didn't find it necessary to check focus for every slide.

[MDM]

For what it's worth, here is a link to a folder of 3 images on Dropbox of the same slide copied using a D810 with 55mm MicroNikkor, extension ring and ES1 slide copier. The image names tell their story. The original was a Velvia 50 capture on a Nikon FM2 with probably a Nikkor 28mm AIS (now deceased) from around 2002 I think. The copy exposure is about 1 stop under and I reckon it would have been better if correctly exposed but figured I might as well upload this anyway as it is pretty good overall I think. 

 

BlackheadNov191RawInitial - this is basically the raw copy imported into Lightroom at my default settings - basically Lightroom defaults with sharpening 40-1-25

BlackheadNov191RawProcessed - this is the raw image processed in Lightroom - changed WB and various develop settings including some noise reduction and a bit of additional sharpening

BlackheadNov191PhotoshopFinal - this was processed in Photoshop, did a bit of spotting, added some gaussian blur to the sky to reduce noise and finally downsized to 2000 pixels on the short side. I think it is now a pretty decent image, sharp and no significant noise. 

 

I am pretty confident that the final image should pass QC and I will upload it on its own shortly to check that. If it doesn't it will ruin my QC record which goes back to 2012 for my last failure. 😁

 

Finally it shows some very interesting geomorphological features of the Burren, County Clare, Ireland: a perched glacial erratic limestone boulder carried here by glacial ice during the Ice Age in the foreground. The limestone pavement around it was subsequently chemically weathered by around 40cm or so, leaving the boulder on pedastal above its surroundings. The limestone pavement itself is quite amazing as well. 

[MDM]

24 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

That's why I waited for a cheap Illumitran. I reckoned the other duplicator-type setups would be rather slower- seems I was right about that!

 

19 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

I'm using an old enlarging lens. Hence "it" referring only to what I'm doing- not trying to compete with a scanner, just get some archive images up without much investment. I didn't find it necessary to check focus for every slide.

 

Vive la difference (between you and me) once again 😀. It is fundamental in my nature that I if I am going to do something then I am going to do it as well as I can. I do understand that your motive was different. It probably takes my a couple of minutes to make sure the focus is right and I will probably refocus and go again a couple of time to make even more sure. It would probably take me half an hour or more to process that image that I uploaded. I just did this as an experiment to see what is possible with my copying set up and it is certainly significantly better than what I used to get from my now defunct Nikon LS4000 slide scanner. Sometime in the future I may get around to going back through my collection of slides and negs to digitise them.

[spacecadet]

13 minutes ago, MDM said:

 

 

Vive la difference (between you and me) once again 😀. It is fundamental in my nature that I if I am going to do something then I am going to do it as well as I can. I do understand that your motive was different. It probably takes my a couple of minutes to make sure the focus is right and I will probably refocus and go again a couple of time to make even more sure. It would probably take me half an hour or more to process that image that I uploaded. I just did this as an experiment to see what is possible with my copying set up and it is certainly significantly better than what I used to get from my now defunct Nikon LS4000 slide scanner. Sometime in the future I may get around to going back through my collection of slides and negs to digitise them.

Not sure what makes you think I'm not also trying to do that, unless I've misinterpreted what you're saying. It simply isn't necessary to spend a "couple of minutes" focussing with the setup I have- my copies are all sharp AFAICS (my glasses are up to date now) - and half an hour processing isn't justified by the returns in my book. I do have archival sales- the only restriction is that I can't upload images that are just old rather than old and interesting, but I don't have much of that sort of stuff on film anyway.

The best of mine aren't too far off your example -no Nikkors, of course, at either end of the process- even the ones taken with the Zenit in the 70s aren't too bad.

Edited November 6, 2019 by spacecadet

[MDM]

20 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

Not sure what makes you think I'm not also trying to do that, unless I've misinterpreted what you're saying. It simply isn't necessary to spend a "couple of minutes" focussing with the setup I have- my copies are all sharp AFAICS (my glasses are up to date now) - and half an hour processing isn't justified by the returns in my book/

I didn't find it necessary to check focus for every slide.

 

The last statement is what led me to say what I said. If I did that with my setup they would all be out of focus. We are talking 1:1 macro more or less. 

 

It would be really interesting to see a few of yours at full size if you fancy posting on Dropbox (it's ad-free and free up to 2GB). Would they pass QC? That is what I was aiming at there. As I said I am not intending to do many of these as I am too busy. It was purely an experiment.  

 

[spacecadet]

I don't think they would pass QC, no, so I probably won't bother with that. You can see the archival collection on Alamy, not full size though, the pseudo is "markives". The intention of this was to submit via archival- I didn't have the sort of material on film that might go into the general collection.

[M.Chapman]

5 hours ago, Old school said:

Dear MDM,

Our decision NOT TO EDIT via PHOTOSHOP or any other such tools is a conscious one...we simply do not wish to 'learn' the PHOTOSHOP techniques or any other such tools...if that causes us to be doomed, then so be it!  Nor are we inclined to invest additional funds to buy a 'better' scanner or software.  A sizable number of ALAMY CONTRIBUTORS relay they use various 'scanners' and or software...while we can read the text, it has no meaning to us.  Whether the many suggestions are 'incredibly simple process,' for the ALAMY CONTRIBUTORs making the suggestions of 'how easy it is,' that is not true for us. Given our decision NOT to buy additional software or a better scanner, we will follow up with the 'vintage/archival' option with ALAMY.  if that doesn't work, we remain status quo.  Again, our thanks for taking time to recommend solutions.  Cheers, Flo and Paul

 

What a bizarre thread this is. I don’t understand why you are so against Photoshop (PS) or using any tools. You have presumably already made a considerable investment in getting so many images digitised and stored and have spent lots of time contributing to this thread. Maybe you don’t understand how easy it is to use PS to convert (not edit) a whole folder of images from one format to another and to resize if needed. There’s no need to learn about “complicated” PS editing or spend lots of money. Just buy a copy of PS Elements (secondhand on eBay for £20-40 if you want to save money) and use the batch convert function. It will take you less time to learn than you’ve already spent participating in this forum discussion. If you are receptive to taking this route then you’ll get help here easily. NB. My “no editing” route assumes you had high quality clean slides and scans which simply need format conversion and downsizing  and don’t need further editing.

 

Mark

Edited November 6, 2019 by M.Chapman

[M.Chapman]

4 hours ago, MDM said:

For what it's worth, here is a link to a folder of 3 images on Dropbox of the same slide copied using a D810 with 55mm MicroNikkor, extension ring and ES1 slide copier. The image names tell their story. The original was a Velvia 50 capture on a Nikon FM2 with probably a Nikkor 28mm AIS (now deceased) from around 2002 I think. The copy exposure is about 1 stop under and I reckon it would have been better if correctly exposed but figured I might as well upload this anyway as it is pretty good overall I think. 

 

BlackheadNov191RawInitial - this is basically the raw copy imported into Lightroom at my default settings - basically Lightroom defaults with sharpening 40-1-25

BlackheadNov191RawProcessed - this is the raw image processed in Lightroom - changed WB and various develop settings including some noise reduction and a bit of additional sharpening

BlackheadNov191PhotoshopFinal - this was processed in Photoshop, did a bit of spotting, added some gaussian blur to the sky to reduce noise and finally downsized to 2000 pixels on the short side. I think it is now a pretty decent image, sharp and no significant noise. 

 

I am pretty confident that the final image should pass QC and I will upload it on its own shortly to check that. If it doesn't it will ruin my QC record which goes back to 2012 for my last failure. 😁

 

Finally it shows some very interesting geomorphological features of the Burren, County Clare, Ireland: a perched glacial erratic limestone boulder carried here by glacial ice during the Ice Age in the foreground. The limestone pavement around it was subsequently chemically weathered by around 40cm or so, leaving the boulder on pedastal above its surroundings. The limestone pavement itself is quite amazing as well. 

 

Fascinating, thanks for posting, especially the Dropbox images. I’ve a  few questions.

 

What light source are you using and what WB are you using as your default in LR?

 

When I copy Velvia with I have considerable problems with the contrasty nature of Velvia. Are you applying any particular adjustment of preset to overcome this?

 

I found WB was a particular problem. If I set WB from the highlights (i.e. basically the film base) the mid-tones came out with a blue or magenta cast. In the end I took a photo on Velvia of my Passport colour checker target in sunlight, digitised the slide (DSLR + macro lens), and then built a preset  (individual adjusted R,G and B curves) to get a neutral and even tonal spread.

 

Mark

 

 

[geogphotos]

5 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

That's a lot of scanner to have lying around, and I don't think that the bulbs have been available for a long time. They still fetch over £1000 on the popular auction site.

 

I keep telling myself that I must dig out my Mamiya 6 and get using some of the Velvia medium format film that has been in my fridge now for over a decade!

[M.Chapman]

5 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

meticulous technique with magnified live view check on each slide for critical focus

 

Autofocus (contrast based) works for me using decent macro lens and mirrorless camera. I restrict AF area to central zone.

 

Mark

[Brian Yarvin]

1 hour ago, M.Chapman said:

 

What a bizarre thread this is.

 

Mark

 

Mark, it's one of the strangest I've ever seen and I can't keep away from it.

[MDM]

1 hour ago, M.Chapman said:

 

Fascinating, thanks for posting, especially the Dropbox images. I’ve a  few questions.

 

What light source are you using and what WB are you using as your default in LR?

 

When I copy Velvia with I have considerable problems with the contrasty nature of Velvia. Are you applying any particular adjustment of preset to overcome this?

 

I found WB was a particular problem. If I set WB from the highlights (i.e. basically the film base) the mid-tones came out with a blue or magenta cast. In the end I took a photo on Velvia of my Passport colour checker target in sunlight, digitised the slide (DSLR + macro lens), and then built a preset  (individual adjusted R,G and B curves) to get a neutral and even tonal spread.

 

Mark

 

 

 

I used an Icelight 2 LED (purchased at a bargain price just after they launched) very close in to the copier and auto WB on the camera but warm it up a lot as the D810 as well as a lot of other Nikon cameras default to a very cool WB. You can see the difference in colour between the unprocessed raw and the other two images. I actually took the WB in this case off a neutral grey patch of limestone as I recall visiting the same spot a few years ago and shooting a grey card which gave a very similar reading to the limestone - in other words, unweathered Burren limestone is pretty much a neutral grey.

 

The absolute WB values are not really relevant as they will depend on the light source as well but for what its worth the as shot WB was 4800, +4 and the value I got from using the eyedropper on the limestone was 5900, -11. The Icelight has a temperature around 5000 I find. I didn't use any presets. 

 

 

Edited November 6, 2019 by MDM

[MDM]

31 minutes ago, Brian Yarvin said:

 

Mark, it's one of the strangest I've ever seen and I can't keep away from it.

 

🤣

[Harry Harrison]

It is a very strange thread in may ways. For one thing it's quite common for us not to be able to contribute because we're too busy shooting, but it's not normally deer.

Edited November 7, 2019 by Harry Harrison

[spacecadet]

11 hours ago, M.Chapman said:

When I copy Velvia with I have considerable problems with the contrasty nature of Velvia. Are you applying any particular adjustment of preset to overcome this?

 

I'd read all sorts before hand about transparencies exceeding the capabilities of sensors, and of course one was always supposed to kill some contrast when duplicating slides, but it proved not to be a problem. No Velvia though, but a bit of Fuji in there somewhere. But in my case it was probably flare in my setup that took care of it- not something you'd expect from a Nikkor, I dare say. In some cases I even had to increase contrast to get a bit more "snap"- especially with b/w negs, but that's not what you asked about.

 

 

Edited November 7, 2019 by spacecadet

[MDM]

 

11 hours ago, M.Chapman said:

 

When I copy Velvia with I have considerable problems with the contrasty nature of Velvia. Are you applying any particular adjustment of preset to overcome this?

 

 

 

 

28 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

 

I'd read all sorts before hand about transparencies exceeding the capabilities of sensors, and of course one was always supposed to kill some contrast when duplicating slides, but it proved not to be a problem. No Velvia though, but a bit of Fuji in there somewhere. But in my case it was probably flare in my setup that took care of it- not something you'd expect from a Nikkor, I dare say. In some cases I even had to increase contrast to get a bit more "snap"- especially with b/w negs, but that's not what you asked about.

 

 

 

The slide copier has a diffuser between the slide and the light source which I have used in really close as well so flare is not an issue at all. The D810 sensor has huge dynamic range and I have been able to capture a lot of detail in the highlights and shadows, much better than I expected and I think a lot better than from the LS4000 (which did in fact have a great reputation for high dynamic range when it was released. I did shoot raw of course. I uploaded that particular picture as an example of a very contrasty slide to show how capable the setup is. Anyway it has just gone to QC.

[Old school]

3 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

It is a very strange thread in may ways. For one thing it's quite common for us not to be able to contribute because we're too busy shooting, but it's not normally deer.

Great reply.  Nice buck...4-point weighing about 250 pounds.  Cheers, Paul