help scanning film negatives with a DSLR

10/28/2010 01:17:04 PM · #26

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Since you are going to be travelling for this job, are you planning on setting up a rig at home to work through the details? You can then time workflow and see if this is really a time savings after all. 5000 negatives seems like a huge job.

Good idea. Yes, I'll be estimating ahead of time. I'm fairly OCD, which is mainly why I'm going this (limited) route this time round--I'm considering this trip an opportunity to obtain workable copies of all negatives & catalogue them. In a future trip (if need be) I can take along a dedicated film scanner for select negatives within the batch.
If I were to process the negatives individually like I really wish, the actual estimated scan time per negative is more like 20 minutes (using a Nikon 9000 and possible multiple passes if need be)

Maybe that explains the method to the madness.

Message edited by author 2010-10-28 13:26:25.

Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark III

02/07/2011 11:52:25 AM · #27

haha, I finally returned from Australia & managed to do the scanning with a 5D(II). Once I had a rig constructed & dust proofing, the actual scanning took about 16 hours for 5500 negatives... so I'm pretty stoked that I managed to complete it :-). I'll upload a few pics/results in coming days & lessons learnt. Dust didn't turn out to be too much of an issue after wiping/blowing & dust control. Probably the greater image issues were degradation of the emulsion & some were unevenly faded... More pics to come.

Message edited by author 2011-02-07 13:45:30.

Yo_Spiff

Olympus 12-100mm f/4.0 M.Zuiko ED IS PRO

02/07/2011 11:56:00 AM · #28

Do you have a photo to illustrate the rig you made for the job?

MelonMusketeer

Nikon D7000

Nikon MF 50mm f/1.4

02/07/2011 12:09:12 PM · #29

That's great that you were able to copy the whole lot of the negs in the time you were there.
I'm interested in the details of the copy process and equipment, as I have a lot of negs that I would like to digitize. I can copy slides with the Chroma Pro slide copier that I already have. It has three adjustable color filters in it for color adjustment while copying slides. I am guessing that for copying negs I would have to set it one time, then take a custom W/B prior to shooting the negs, and leave it set that way. I am also interested in seeing how the software that you are using will convert the negs to positive colors.
I have found that the suggestions in this thread about dust control are a good read. I would like to know what you found to work best, and if you changed anything during the course of shooting the negs to improve dust control.

Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark III

02/07/2011 12:13:15 PM · #30

Originally posted by Yo_Spiff:

Do you have a photo to illustrate the rig you made for the job?

if you promise not to laugh :-)

//i1040.photobucket.com/albums/b401/medoomi/BertKryna-1441.jpg

//i1040.photobucket.com/albums/b401/medoomi/BertKryna-1516.jpg

Message edited by Manic - please keep images under 500px and 30kb, or post links or thumbs instead.

Yo_Spiff

Olympus 12-100mm f/4.0 M.Zuiko ED IS PRO

02/07/2011 12:17:39 PM · #31

Interesting setup. I had envisioned something that would attach to the camera lens, rather than a rig that the camera bolted to.

02/07/2011 12:25:45 PM · #32

Originally posted by MelonMusketeer:

Yep. It was an interesting process, that's for sure. I didn't have a dichroic head (three base colors to adjust white balance of the orange base in the color negatives), so I approximated with a couple gels (green/cyan), just so I wasn't over-exposing the orange channel.

For dust control, I tried building a laminar flow rig (using the blower of a Ryobi shop vac, and going through two HEPA filters), but I think the airflow was not quite strong enough. Toward the end, I switched it off, and I don't think the dust became a problem (I'll see once I've looked at the negatives closely). I had my wife helping me... so she did the negative wiping (using the Illford antistaticum cloth. Every now and then, she would keep it wet with some PEC 12 fluid). And just prior to taking the picture, I had a rocket blower I used to dislodge dust at least on the top of the negative.

The biggest help was using the negative film carrier. To get through the job, I had little time to align the negatives, but I could adjust the alignment of the 100mm macro... The film carrier has four protrusions that keep the negative vertically aligned to some extent (depending on how much difference in vertical alignment you might have from using different cameras--I guess each one hits the negative a little different). And for horizontal alignment, I had a desklamp shining from underneath (at least four stops underexposed, maybe more, so it wouldn't affect the photos).

The other biggest help was adjusting the width of the diffuse light (two pieces of diffusion fabric) the flashes were hitting. The light that shines onto the negative from more obtuse angles illuminates dust & scratches badly. But the light that specifically backlights the negative has a nicer, smoother look. I ended up using a patch of diffusion fabric just a little wider than what would backlight only the negative as this seemed better still...

hope that makes sense

Message edited by author 2011-02-07 13:48:49.

02/07/2011 12:26:53 PM · #33

Originally posted by Yo_Spiff:

Interesting setup. I had envisioned something that would attach to the camera lens, rather than a rig that the camera bolted to.

yeah. I contained the light from the flash, so that shone only through the film carrier, and just made sure the ambient light was completely underexposed, so I didn't figure it would need flare protection.

02/07/2011 12:34:16 PM · #34

here's a side-view.

I ended up keeping the support for the film negative carrier adjustable in height/alignment. As it turned out, I needed to adjust the height to within a range of about 1mm (to get the crop on the negative right--1mm further down ended up taking a pic of the film carrier a bit too wide).

The other thing I would probably change, is keeping the diffusion fabric at least 3 inches away from the film. Shooting at around f7.1, the fabric wasn't bokeh'ed as much as I would have liked.

The flashes have gels curved over them, so they're not too obvious in the pic.

//i1040.photobucket.com/albums/b401/medoomi/IMG_0245.jpg

Message edited by Manic - please keep images under 500px and 30kb, or post links or thumbs instead.

MelonMusketeer

Nikon D7000

Nikon MF 50mm f/1.4

02/07/2011 12:46:53 PM · #35

Thanks, and that's a great suggestion about using the filters to reduce the orange and level out the colors to prevent overexposure in the orange/red. I would have never thought about doing that.
The rig that you built is quite similar to the Chroma Pro machine in the way that it is set up. If I use the Chroma Pro again, I may set it up on a stand so that the negs will be vertical, and the camera in a normal shooting orientation, both to help with dust settling on the negs and to make it easier to use the viewfinder.
A right angle viewfinder would make the process easier the way you have it set up. I found that manual focusing is one of the tricky parts of getting good copies, so for some that I could not find a spot that allowed precise focusing, I shot a brackets of 3 with the focus rocked slightly one way then the other.
Tethered shooting with a monitor would work good for this too, so you could preview the shot on screen for focus and coverage.
There are some goodies in this article, down loadable as a PDF.
Slide Collection Copying/ film to film
There is a rig like the one I use on page 636 in the PDF. It's not the whole book, only one chapter so it's not all that big to download.

bspurgeon

Fujifilm x100

Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM

02/07/2011 12:46:55 PM · #36

I'm quite impressed by your motivation!

I'm not sure if it will matter, but I'm quite interested in having a look at your original scan/digitized negative. I've been rather disappointed with my film scans, so I may give this a try. I probably scan a dozen a month at most.

Can you comment on your light source as well? How many flashes? Would you have preferred a constant light source from a strobe?

Here is another DIY scanner for those interested.

02/07/2011 01:15:41 PM · #37

Originally posted by MelonMusketeer:

Thanks for the link--I didn't know there was a machine you could use that would be similar :-).

In terms of orientation, personally, I would stick with the vertical, only to maintain speed--I was averaging about 6 seconds per exposure (lifting the film carrier & adjusting the negative film to where it needed to be--I never actually looked through the viewfinder. Focus was approximated for me, and I figured/hoped I had a depth of field of 1mm in front, and 1mm behind the negative--I just set it as accurate as possible using liveview & re-adjusted only a few times. Being on f7.1, and using the minimum focusing distance of the 100mm L macro, I used //www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html to calculate what I would probably get. Only thing was, when I put the rig together, the front of the lens was more like 15cm from the negative, rather than the spec for the lens of 30cm, so maybe the focusing distance is measured from the sensor(?) dunno. I haven't found any out of focus negs yet, so that's helpful)

Speed was my over-riding consideration (being an overseas trip). For quality, a dedicated film scanner would definitely do a better job (they have an extra infra-red channel, so dust removal can be automated better). And yes, I was shooting tethered too, so every now and then, I could check approximate exposure.

Originally posted by bspurgeon:

Here's a fairly average one: link As you will see, the negative wasn't aligned particularly well. I tolerated a quite a bit of variation just to keep the speed up.

Originally posted by bspurgeon:

Can you comment on your light source as well? How many flashes? Would you have preferred a constant light source from a strobe?

My first reaction is I wouldn't go with a constant light source. As it stood, I was shooting through two layers of diffusion fabric, and I wanted to stay on ISO200, f6.3-8.0, 1/200. But that said, if you had a strong enough light source (I suppose you could lower the shutter speed to 1/20th being on a stand and all), it might have helped for alignment.

Originally posted by bspurgeon:

Here is another DIY scanner for those interested.

Samsung Galaxy S24, S24+, S24 Ultra

02/07/2011 01:24:50 PM · #38

I just checked out the negative I uploaded & from the looks of it I had a bit of vignetting going on--probably on my light source & the way the flash hit it :-(. Might have needed three layers of diffusion (?). I should be able to construct a fairly accurate vignette correction though as I have a few blank negs I included :-).

Message edited by author 2011-02-07 13:25:27.

Bear_Music

Sony Vario-Tessar T* FE 24-70mm f/4 ZA OSS

02/07/2011 01:29:30 PM · #39

Originally posted by Medoomi:

Only thing was, when I put the rig together, the front of the lens was more like 15cm from the negative, rather than the spec for the lens of 30cm, so maybe the focusing distance is measured from the sensor(?) dunno.

That's correct, focusing distances are measured from subject to film/sensor plane. There should be a little line-through-a-circle mark on the side of the pentaprism to show you that plane.

R.

Message edited by author 2011-02-07 13:31:02.

Bear_Music

Samsung Galaxy S24, S24+, S24 Ultra

Sony Vario-Tessar T* FE 24-70mm f/4 ZA OSS

02/07/2011 01:30:33 PM · #40

oops

Message edited by author 2011-02-07 13:30:49.