Canon slide copying set-up

[M.Chapman]

28 minutes ago, MDM said:

I find it good for softening skin as a local adjustment when used judiciously but a bit too course for global denoise I thinks it destroys detail. It could be handy though for local denoising. 

Yes used with a local adjustment brush on those out of focus background areas where the film grain really shows, it looks quite useful and very interactive (on my system at least).

 

Mark

[Harry Harrison]

Flicked though a review of a new (to me) film holder system for DSLR scanning in Amateur Photographer today, seemed favourable, an alternative to the Pixl-latr perhaps.

 

The EFH (Essential Film Holder) system by Andrew Clifforth:

 

https://clifforth.co.uk/

[M.Chapman]

25 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

Flicked though a review of a new (to me) film holder system for DSLR scanning in Amateur Photographer today, seemed favourable, an alternative to the Pixl-latr perhaps.

 

The EFH (Essential Film Holder) system by Andrew Clifforth:

 

https://clifforth.co.uk/

 

Interesting. I've got some unmounted medium format transparencies and 35mm negative film strips to copy at some time. I like the way it adds space between transparency holder and diffuser. That will help to keep dust and scratches on the diffuser out of focus. I've bookmarked the link. Thanks.

 

Mark

[Harry Harrison]

20 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

I've bookmarked the link. Thanks.

Cheers, I'm surprised I hadn't come across it before, I like the look of how he's designed it so that you can speed through a strip of uncut negatives and he seems to have taken care over the choice of materials. It's just a holder of course, like the pixl-latr, so alignment and light sources have to be dealt with. I see that he promises to describe an easy solution to the alignment problem when you purchase, a mirror perhaps? The standard item comes with borderless masks but I see he also offers oversize ones to show the film rebate.

 

The pixl-latr seems to have spawned a fledgling industry of people designing extra bits for it and either producing them on 3D printers or providing the 3D plans to the community.

Edited August 26, 2020 by Harry Harrison

[MDM]

No doubt the man is very enthusiastic about his product but a quick glance brings up several questions among which are:
 

It’s all very well holding the film flat but it is also critical to align the camera perfectly and he only tells you how to do that after you order. He claims that other solutions are either very expensive or very slow. That is not true and he must know that as he has a D850 so must be aware of the ES-1 which is neither expensive nor slow.  Nor is the ES-2 particularly expensive. These devices completely resolve the flatness and alignment issues for 35mm film. 
 

The idea of copying a 36 exposure roll in well under 5-6 minutes is highly questionable as well. At these distances refocusing is vital and that is time consuming in itself never mind cleaning the film with a blower each time. If he actually advertises with those claimed speeds then it is potentially very misleading. 
 

 

 

Edited August 27, 2020 by MDM

[Harry Harrison]

10 minutes ago, MDM said:

These devices completely resolve the flatness and alignment issues for 35mm film.

For sure, but this is for medium format as well, making a 'universal' holder for 35mm. and medium format is much more challenging, and potentially much more useful for those of us who have an archive (I use that term loosely) of many different formats.

 

Edit:

A high CRI light panel and a copy stand (£200 from Speed Graphic) would really deal with most of the problems that you describe.

Edited August 26, 2020 by Harry Harrison

[MDM]

2 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

For sure, but this is for medium format as well, making a 'universal' holder for 35mm. and medium format is much more challenging, and potentially much more useful for those of us who have an archive (I use that term loosely) of many different formats.

 

Edit:

A high CRI light panel and a copy stand (£200 from Speed Graphic) would really deal with most of the problems that you describe.

 

Yes I know but that brings the price back up into the same range as other methods such as the Novoflex on page 1. I was objecting to the glossing over of certain facts and  that very questionable claim (in my opinion) of copying a 36 exposure roll in well under 5-6 minutes. 

Edited August 27, 2020 by MDM

[Betty LaRue]

Does it work for 35mm slides?

[M.Chapman]

8 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

For sure, but this is for medium format as well, making a 'universal' holder for 35mm. and medium format is much more challenging, and potentially much more useful for those of us who have an archive (I use that term loosely) of many different formats.

+1

 

Mark

[M.Chapman]

5 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

Does it work for 35mm slides?

 

Yes but Nikon ES-1 or ES-2 type arrangement is better if you have a suitable lens (doesn't have to be Nikon) and adapter. I'm primarily interested in the EFH idea for copying unmounted medim format.

 

Mark

Edited August 27, 2020 by M.Chapman

[M.Chapman]

8 hours ago, MDM said:

At these distances refocusing is vital

 

Contrast based AF works extremely well for me. I find it more accurate and faster than I can achieve manually.

 

Mark

[Harry Harrison]

5 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

Does it work for 35mm slides?

A qualified 'yes', the initial purchase includes holders designed for negatives but he shows a picture of a stage designed to hold 35mm slides and says "Once you complete your main EFH purchase, you will be given the opportunity to add 35mm Slide Masks to your pack – these make it very straight-forward to scan slides."

 

However for 35mm slides only the Nikon ES-1 holder is a much better route and can be made to work with your Fuji. Don't forget that this is just a holder so you need a light panel and also a means of suspending the camera over the holder in precise vertical alignment. 

[Harry Harrison]

8 hours ago, MDM said:

I was objecting to the glossing over of certain facts and  that very questionable claim (in my opinion) of copying a 36 exposure roll in well under 5-6 minutes. 

Oh well, that's marketing I suppose, speaking of which he might want to spend a bit more time on the website now he seems to have got the product sorted. In fact if you could do a whole 36 exp. film in 15 minutes that would be good going, it looks quicker in that respect than the ES-2 but the missing link is a copy stand, that makes it a whole lot easier, and not everyone has got room for a copy stand even if they're prepared to shell out for one. 

 

I note that he too uses Negative Lab Pro for reversing colour negatives. I see that the makers of Colorperfect don't feel that their product is quite ready for 'DSLR' scans  of colour negatives but then they are definitely up there on the perfectionist end of the scale.

 

https://www.colorperfect.com/black-and-white-negatives/digitize/digital-camera/reproduce/

Edited August 27, 2020 by Harry Harrison

[geogphotos]

39 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

 

 

I note that he too uses Negative Lab Pro for reversing colour negatives. I see that the makers of Colorperfect don't feel that their product is quite ready for 'DSLR' scans  of colour negatives but then they are definitely up there on the perfectionist end of the scale.

 

 

 

 

In regards to this subject there does seem to be an element of searching for perfection rather than getting on with what is workable. 

[Harry Harrison]

5 minutes ago, geogphotos said:

In regards to this subject there does seem to be an element of searching for perfection rather than getting on with what is workable. 

Well, not sure if you're 'scanning' colour negatives with your Canon 100mm macro setup, if so it would be interesting if you could post your experience on here. It's not easy to get anywhere near perfection when reversing colour negatives, it's easy to get quite horrible results in fact, whereas the software built into scanners does a good job in the main.

[geogphotos]

18 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

Well, not sure if you're 'scanning' colour negatives with your Canon 100mm macro setup, if so it would be interesting if you could post your experience on here. It's not easy to get anywhere near perfection when reversing colour negatives, it's easy to get quite horrible results in fact, whereas the software built into scanners does a good job in the main.

 

No haven't tried that. I wasn't specifically referring to negs. I have done a few negs in my scanner but would only bother doing it occasionally because by their very nature they aren't great to start with. I did do a few of my pictures of Papua New Guinea - and have sold ones from the summit of Mount Wilhelm. 

 

Jagged arete and clouds in glaciated mountains from the summit of Mount Wilhelm Papua New Guinea 

- Image ID: AC6BFC

 

I'm just suggesting there are always going to some pros and cons to any technique or piece of equipment. Often a 'good enough' technique is good enough especially if the original film isn't that great to start with.

Edited August 27, 2020 by geogphotos

[spacecadet]

10 hours ago, MDM said:

very questionable claim (in my opinion) of copying a 36 exposure roll in well under 5-6 minutes. 

I could see it happening, just, on the Illumitran where refocusing isn't necessary every frame, but you'd need a very solid setup otherwise, not a tripod on a tabletop for sure. And four wingnuts to fasten and unfasten? My home-made carrier hinges and uses lead weights (actually strips of lead came from stained-glass, my other art form).

I find that one wipe each side of the strip with the anti-static brush then a rocket blower blast is sufficient. But I found most of the time isn't in the scanning, it's in file management and processing. That's why most of my scans remain unprocessed.

And the price of that thing is still 2 Illumitrans!

 

1 hour ago, Harry Harrison said:

It's not easy to get anywhere near perfection when reversing colour negatives

I read up on all the complicated ways of doing it- eyedroppers on the mask and all that- and couldn't make them work any better than a plain invert and eyedropper on a midtone in LR. But I agree, they're not easy. The shadows delight in going to pot. I'm quite glad I don't have many that would be suitable for Alamy so I don't have to fret about them looking rubbish.

[MDM]

3 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

Oh well, that's marketing I suppose, speaking of which he might want to spend a bit more time on the website now he seems to have got the product sorted. In fact if you could do a whole 36 exp. film in 15 minutes that would be good going, it looks quicker in that respect than the ES-2 but the missing link is a copy stand, that makes it a whole lot easier, and not everyone has got room for a copy stand even if they're prepared to shell out for one. 

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, spacecadet said:

I could see it happening, just, on the Illumitran where refocusing isn't necessary every frame, but you'd need a very solid setup otherwise, not a tripod on a tabletop for sure. And four wingnuts to fasten and unfasten? My home-made carrier hinges and uses lead weights (actually strips of lead came from stained-glass, my other art form).

I find that one wipe each side of the strip with the anti-static brush then a rocket blower blast is sufficient. But I found most of the time isn't in the scanning, it's in file management and processing. That's why most of my scans remain unprocessed.

And the price of that thing is still 2 Illumitrans!

 

 

 

A 36 exposure roll in well under 5-6 minutes. Even 15 minutes. Perhaps with the aid of some serious performance enhancing drugs. Why would anyone even want to do that? I guess that rare breed that still shoots negatives and wants to digitise them as quickly as possible? I was just really questioning the marketing claims in any case.

 

Yes the processing is far more time consuming (although the D850 does a negative to positive conversion in-camera with JPEG only output). Even if I wanted to digitise a whole roll of film, I would want to use a blower on each frame just before taking the shot. Dragging the roll through a holder brings in a high risk of scratching the film. A film holder such as that for the ES-2 is ideal as moving it does not risk scratching. 

 

If I do ever get around to doing my 35mm BW negs for which I no longer have contact sheets, then I think the ES-2 would be a good way to go perhaps with an initial in-camera conversion to JPEG to check to see what is worth doing properly (reshoot the best in raw). But I won't be racing through them. Why go to all the trouble of copying and potentially messing up at the shooting stage by rushing things,  possibly damaging the film, not at least blowing dust off on each frame and making sure of the focus? 

Edited August 27, 2020 by MDM

[DDoug]

 

9 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

Does it work for 35mm slides?

 

4 hours ago, M.Chapman said:

 

Yes but Nikon ES-1 or ES-2 type arrangement is better if you have a suitable lens (doesn't have to be Nikon) and adapter.

 

Today I received a Nikon ES-2 film digitizing adapter, purchased because the ES-1 with FH-2 film holder was too much bother. A less ham-fisted and more patient person might find it not so difficult to work with. By contrast, the plastic holder for film strips that comes with the ES-2 is easy to use.

 

The ES-2 holder for mounted slides doesn't accommodate thick mounts, but the ES-1 doesn't have a problem with them. Thin mounts work well in either. I was reluctant to spend more money on the project, but the obvious answer was to have both the ES-1 and ES-2.

 

My Fuji kit with Kipon helical adapter and Micro-Nikkor 55mm lens also required around 45mm of extension tubes (52mm screw-in thread) in order to fill the frame with the entire film image area.

Edited August 27, 2020 by DDoug
clarity

[spacecadet]

2 minutes ago, MDM said:

scratching the film

I'm using my old enlarger carriers, which I also built myself- card liners inside the metal holders with tape to tidy up the edges. Even now I lift up the top plate before drawing the strip through. But I don't think I'd trust anything in plastic.

I suppose if you have thousand of the things or you're an employee you might have to be quicker about it. I have 5000-odd slides but individually mounted so no possibility of damage. Negs I do as and when it seems that the scans might be useful. But I still probably have less than 10,000, mostly portraits so no real revenue potential. Anyway I could just scan the transproofs which I haven't had the heart to dispose of.

My last portrait business was about 2012 when I sold the negs and transproofs of a 90s session for what I used to charge for an album- £280.

[geogphotos]

6 minutes ago, DDoug said:

 

 

 

Today I received a Nikon ES-2 film digitizing adapter, purchased because the ES-1 with FH-2 film holder was too much bother. A less ham-fisted and more patient person might find it not so difficult to work with. By contrast, the plastic holder for film strips that comes with the ES-2 is easy to use.

 

The ES-2 holder for mounted slides doesn't accommodate thick mounts, but the ES-1 doesn't have a problem with them. Thin mounts work well in either. I was reluctant to spend more money on the project, but the obvious answer was to have both the ES-1 and ES-2.

 

My Fuji kit with Kipon helical adapter and Micro-Nikkor 55mm lens also required around 45mm of extension tubes (52mm screw-in thread) in order to fill the frame with the entire film image area.

 

 

Thanks for confirming that.

[MDM]

1 minute ago, spacecadet said:

I'm using my old enlarger carriers, which I also built myself- card liners inside the metal holders with tape to tidy up the edges. Even now I lift up the top plate before drawing the strip through. But I don't think I'd trust anything in plastic.

I suppose if you have thousand of the things or you're an employee you might have to be quicker about it. I have 5000-odd slides but individually mounted so no possibility of damage. Negs I do as and when it seems that the scans might be useful. But I still probably have less than 10,000, mostly portraits so no real revenue potential. Anyway I could just scan the transproofs which I haven't had the heart to dispose of.

My last portrait business was about 2012 when I sold the negs and transproofs of a 90s session for what I used to charge for an album- £280.

 

I used to live on (more or less) a sandy beach where I learned the hard way just about everything there is to know about sand, film and cameras. One thing I learned was never drag film through anything (holder, squeegee etc) and make sure there is no grit inside the camera when loading the film. Developing a film and finding a scratch along the length was a very disheartening experience. It made me develop some very fastidious habits that I have retained in relation to my photography. 

[spacecadet]

1 minute ago, MDM said:

 

I used to live on (more or less) a sandy beach where I learned the hard way just about everything there is to know about sand, film and cameras. One thing I learned was never drag film through anything (holder, squeegee etc) and make sure there is no grit inside the camera when loading the film. Developing a film and finding a scratch along the length was a very disheartening experience. It made me develop some very fastidious habits that I have retained in relation to my photography. 

I latterly replaced squeegee with fingers for that.

In the film industry when very occasionally still using film, they always check the gate after every take.

Perhaps I need to. I have a set of slides of Barcelona with a black smudge on quite a few of them. There was a hair in the mirror box.

[Harry Harrison]

21 minutes ago, MDM said:

Why would anyone even want to do that?

I think that products like these are mainly aimed at the growing groundswell of enthusiasts who like to shoot film.  In fact new films are coming to the market and darkroom equipment seems to be escalating in value on ebay, as are film cameras, at least the good ones. There are many websites dedicated to this area and rather gratifyingly it seems to be driven by the young who want something analog, and maybe somewhat less perfect and predictable than digital offers, rather like the surge in sales of vinyl records.

 

Now, if you shoot colour negative then mainly you will send it off to get it processed and probably get a CD of low res images at the same time. You could do the same with B&W but a big part of shooting B&W film has always been processing it yourself, it's a very rewarding thing to do, but back in the day a contact sheet was a very easy, routine operation with standard wet chemistry. However now that is impractical for most people it's actually quite difficult to do anything similar, a contact sheet if you like, just in order see what you've got on the film. So if this holder allows you to this (and yes the ES-2 does also) then I think there is a demand, of course it must do so without any risk of scratching the film. There is another holder that  picks up on the sprockets so you can wind the film through, can't remember who makes it, and some, particularly in the USA, have made use of a holder designed for Beseler enlargers that does the same.

 

 

[Harry Harrison]

2 hours ago, spacecadet said:

four wingnuts to fasten and unfasten?

Actually he does seem to have put a lot of thought into the channel through which the film slides in terms of the materials used, the wing nuts are just for initial assembly for that particular format. The film is supposed to slide easily from one frame to the next within a channel 0.5 mm thick, impossible to say how well this works and if there is a real risk of scratching the film in doing so.