Slide copying

[Ian Loasby]

feedback sought

 

I  would like to digitise my slide archive but have lost all faith in flatbed scanning and 3rd party software.

Question?

Will a Sony FE 50mm F2.8 macro lens work with a NikonES-1 slide copier ( obviously after the correct step up rings are fitted, as the copier is designed to work with a Nikkor 55 & 60mm lens

[thebeardedgroundsman]

I don't see why not - I use my old Olympus fit side copier, which doesn't need a separate lens.

Just be prepared for a load of post production! It's a long old job although you might be able to speed it up with batch processing.

[VTC]

My setup copies 10 slides per minute using the very same lens (no step up rings are needed on my rig) while charging customers 50¢ per scan for both RAW & JPG. (Savvy clients prefer to use their time wisely enjoying or tweaking the images to taste than waste it on ingesting them provided they're given some quality files from the onset. Re: Time vs money factor.) 

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It's best to copy as both RAW & JPG. The reason being RAW will give you trillions of colors to work with as opposed to millions. Some slides will need correcting and you'll need the extra data RAW files give you to pull the colors where they need to be.

The girl with the chicken was shot both RAW & JPG and shows the typical dye shift you'll come across dealing with transparencies. Color corrected the RAW file in Capture One. However, all the adjustments to the image copied to the JPG image illustrates the lack of data (280 trillion fewer colors plus & 1:5 compression) in the JPG to exactly mirror what was done to the larger file. (I show this chicken illustration to customers to demonstrate as to why it's best to have both file types and have the option to do some major correcting.) The airplane image was fine as JPG.

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Edited February 14, 2022 by VTC

[XKAES]

It sounds like a job for a dedicated slide scanner -- and NOT a simple flat bed scanmner -- and there are a ton of great, used ones out there, but since you asked:

A bellows setup with a digital camera can be almost as easy -- and adds some options.  A decent bellows is cheap, but a GOOD macro lens isn't.  Get a bellows lens. 

One way to do it is to use an diffusion enlarger colorhead as the light source instead of a flash -- so you can control the color of the light up front.  You can get used colorheads for less than many slide scanners.

[VTC]

The thing is to be logical and sensible about the project. You can spend the 15 minutes it takes to set up a premium quality scan (Remove from mount. Clean. Sandwich between glass to flatten inherent film curl. Collimate optics with scan bed. Bracket exposures and even sometimes image stacking if you're really obsessed.) but at $40 a pop the image has to be very, very special for that level of attention.

Had a family bring in 46 Carousel trays. They travelled the world and there was no way they were going to take the time (5 hours minimum @ 3 secs/slide) via a projector or light table to sort out the 'keepers' from those less desired. The solution was run all 5500 slides then divvy the cost between four kids & parents. Result was a palatable 10¢ per slide in aggregate with everyone having identical inventory and the ability to color / crop / edit / print at will.

 

[XKAES]

11 hours ago, VTC said:

The thing is to be logical and sensible about the project. You can spend the 15 minutes it takes to set up a premium quality scan (Remove from mount. Clean. Sandwich between glass to flatten inherent film curl. Collimate optics with scan bed. Bracket exposures and even sometimes image stacking if you're really obsessed.) but at $40 a pop the image has to be very, very special for that level of attention.

If you use a slide scanner (not a flatbed scanner) or a slide copier, you don't need to remove the slide from the cardboard slide mount -- what a pain!

[VTC]

2 hours ago, XKAES said:

If you use a slide scanner (not a flatbed scanner) or a slide copier, you don't need to remove the slide from the cardboard slide mount -- what a pain!

Au contraire, Pierre. Unless the film is removed from its holder there will always be cupping to the image.

Early slides were sandwiched between glass held in a two piece holder creating an absolutely flat image but one susceptible to trapping dirt between four surfaces. (Side A & B on the front glass. Side A & B on the rear glass.)

Later cardboard mounts held the image reasonably flat but during projection the film would heat up, creating a 'pop' where the image would need to be refocused when the fore/aft dimension changed. Later mounts forced a preloaded distortion in the frame, preventing the heat induced 'popping' therefore eliminating refocus issues but also now introduced uneven focus across the frame.

I know of no dedicated 'slide' scanner that flattens the film. Even my Hassleblad Flextight (Discontinued. $15k+ new. $2.5k eBay now.) didn't do this and unless you make a 2x2 glass overlay that has a glass insert front and back to mash the film flat in the recess (like I did) you'll never get the sharpest image possible. I abandoned the Flextight to create the transfer station I use now because I can achieve at a minimum 90% the results of the Flextight without burning two minutes per scan. Since abandoning the Flextight I can now generate 20 RAW + 20 JPG files that virtually no one other than another photographer whose looking for a fight can readily distinguish between the two methods.

Looking across the surface of a slide if you notice bending in the reflection there'll be some level of distortion the scan unless you restrict it.

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Edited February 15, 2022 by VTC

[XKAES]

I guess it all depends on how much of a perfectionist Ian (OP) is -- and how much time, effort and money he wants to devote.

I simply rely on DOF -- and have no complaints.