digitising film

[richardHaw]

anybody knows the best workflow?
i tried using the 55mm on the D750 and I am not getting the results that i wanted.

film scanners on the other hand do not have much resolution,so...

[Merco_61]

I use an old Coolscan LS 4000 ED with Vuescan. It is slow, but has a nice DR and the 4000 ppi true optical resolution doesn't hurt either. LS 4000 ans LS 5000 units aren't too impossible to find used and they work well, for tabletop units.

[pluton]

anybody knows the best workflow?
i tried using the 55mm on the D750 and I am not getting the results that i wanted.
film scanners on the other hand do not have much resolution,so...

You can get OK results with copying via DSLR, particularly with slides and B&W negs.
Assuming you are copying small, 35mm-size originals, my experience is that the very best results are achieved with scanners.  "Real" film scanners, not flatbeds intended for copying printed text.
Color neg film is harder to do, because of the orange mask that differs with the individual film stock and the processing batch. 
Yes, scanners are slow.

[richardHaw]

I use an old Coolscan LS 4000 ED with Vuescan. It is slow, but has a nice DR and the 4000 ppi true optical resolution doesn't hurt either. LS 4000 ans LS 5000 units aren't too impossible to find used and they work well, for tabletop units.

Thanks! just did a price check and the coolscans cost a lot

[richardHaw]

You can get OK results with copying via DSLR, particularly with slides and B&W negs.
Assuming you are copying small, 35mm-size originals, my experience is that the very best results are achieved with scanners.  "Real" film scanners, not flatbeds intended for copying printed text.
Color neg film is harder to do, because of the orange mask that differs with the individual film stock and the processing batch. 
Yes, scanners are slow.

i did not get any results that match that of my index sheet the sharpness was off,etc (on a D750 with an  ES-1)

[BW]

If you use the bellows, PB-4, with a slide copy stand (dont remember the exact name) with a flash behind the slide or negativ, you might get better results?

[pluton]

i did not get any results that match that of my index sheet the sharpness was off,etc (on a D750 with an  ES-1)

If you are using a 55 Micro-Nikkor, you should can sharp results with the ES-1.  However:  The ES-1 is difficult to work with, especially to focus.  The best practice setup is one which allows the camera to be moved for focusing, which, as I recall, the ES-1 allows only through the sliding the nesting tubes, which is fiddly and imprecise....compared to a PS-4 slide copying stage attached to a PB-4 bellows, for example.

[richardHaw]

i have the PB-4 and the BR-2. maybe i can improvise.

one thing i failed to mention is that i am using crappy 400 superia hahaha

[charlie]

i have the PB-4 and the BR-2. maybe i can improvise.

Improvise, of course. You don't need the slide copy adapters, they just conveniently keep the film flat, keep your camera/lens square to the film, and keep light from reflecting off the front of the film.  You can get by with doing all that yourself in a dark room with a smooth/pattern-less white diffusion of some sort such as white plexiglas and a flash.

Somewhere I have Epson V700 scans vs D800+105mm comparisons with slide film, if I remember correctly it was pretty close quality wise. I'd suggest running the negative film "scans" through scanning software to remove orange mask as opposed to trying color correct it manually.

[richardHaw]

Hello, Charlie. i am currently getting used to my ES-1 setup without bellows. now i need the complimentary colour for orange (blue) to counter the orange.
should I buy a blue filter or would a gel on the strobe do a better job? 

[arthurking83]

try to locate a PS-4 film copy attachment for your PB-4.
Simple and easy to use. The bellows between lens and film is all important to maintain contrast in the reproduction.

Took a while to set up a good light balance behind the PS-4, but once that's done, copying each film is quick and easy to do.

I've used both the D300 and D800E on some test Kodak films I exposed just for the sake of testing it all, and there was no real advantage in resolution other than I could resize just a touch more if needed for the films I actually wanted to reproduce.

** the films I wanted to copy were old 50's Kodak slides when they first emigrated here. Turned out that all those films(mounted) were left in a musty corner of the house and they all developed mould!   

While it's nice to have rather large tiff files from a slide scanner, the real advantage in using a camera is the ability to capture the copy in raw format.
The ability to whitebalance "to taste" is worth the effort.

[richardHaw]

Thanks, Arthur!

are you referring to slides or strip film? The PS-4 looks like a slide copier. Is there anything for the PB-4 for use with strip film? Thanks again, Arthur. I do have the PB-4 and this also opens up another way for me to digitise my negatives

[abergon]

FWIW: I use a dedicated film scanner Reflecta RPS 10M. One big advantage is that it accepts to scan rolls of film automatically. I use VueScan to output "raws" (TIFFs actually), as negatives, which I then convert to positives in Photoshop using CFSystems' ColorPerfect plug-in.

I am attaching a couple examples of the final result.

[abergon]

Sorry, not sure if I can post more than one attachement per message.

[pluton]

The PS-4 has a slot for feeding film strips through.