Saturday, August 30 2008 @ 11:31 AM EDT
Scanner Alternative - submitted by Dan
The Problem: the company needs a high quality digital slide show and the assignment requires the use of 35mm transparencies or negatives. In addition they don’t want to spring for a dedicated scanner and the in-house scanners don’t do film.
Or you want to make a digital slide show for your family using images that reside on 35mm slides, black and white negs and sometimes color negs (though those get a bit tricky to refine in photoshop).
Or you want a digital image of a slide for your own printing purposes but you don’t want to spend a ton of money on a scanner.
I have a solution (in my hand as I write this). For about $50 you can pick up a Nikon ES-1 slide copying adapter. It works on any DSLR, so if you shoot Nikon or Canon or Oly or Sony or any of the others you are set. And you don’t need a macro or micro lens.
[I mentioned ‘negatives’ above so a caveat is necessary. The ES-1 does not have cut film capability so the negative has to be cut to a single frame and mounted like a slide. I use HAMA DSR slide mounts which are easy to find at camera shops and should cost about $10-12 for a box of 100. The beauty of these mounts is that, while they can be used in mounting machines, they work easily for just hand inserting the frame of film into the mount. And it is a one piece mount making it easy to mount film. Once a negative is mounted it can be treated just like a slide and once the image is in the camera it can be reversed by some cameras and some editing software. Color negative are difficult but patient removal of the orange cast or conversion to black and white can result in a usable image. However, for negatives a scanner is certainly easier.]
The ES-1 is built to fit (like a filter) on a lens with a 50 mm filter thread but using (very inexpensive) adapters it can fit on virtually any lens.
If you don’t have a “Micro” or “Macro” lens (these terms denote the same capability but is a bit of a story why one is used and not the other) you will need a a simple extension tube to go between the camera and the ES-1. This process works with prime lenses (those are single focal length lenses) or zoom lenses. Autofocus should be turned off in the camera or on the lens.
Between the extension tube and the sliding tubes that make up the ES-1, focusing can be achieved across the range of focal lengths.
One other thing is needed: light. The ES-1 has a frosted window for diffusing light entering the unit. It is fine to shoot outdoors using ambient daylight but that creates problems I generally choose to avoid. Specifically the prevailing breeze carries dust and can create camera shake.
I recommend shooting indoors using a tripod for the camera and an electronic flash sitting on top of a light stand. A lamp can also be used as a light source so long as the bulb is at least a foot away or covered by a white shade. An alternative, if tripod and stand are too much trouble or not available, is placing the camera and flash on a table top facing each other.
To dupe a slide choose the highest quality setting within the camera or use RAW which is my preferred (and is now sort of supported in iPhoto) or the highest quality TIFF or JPEG.
The flash is aimed directly at the camera and the frosted diffuser of the ES-1 and I recommend starting in full auto mode, from which adjustments can be made. Zooming and cropping can be done through the lens or later in the photo editing software.
An even less expensive though not necessarily as easy method would involve shooting a duplicate of the slide sitting on a light table using a micro or macro lens. The problem with this method is that light tables, except the most prohibitively expensive ones are likely to have hotspots which would not necessarily be easily visible to the naked eye.
For large numbers of images this method might take an extraordinary amount of time but for the occasional job involving converting a slide to digital this method is superb and very cheap.
If you have questions or comments simply send an email to me through MM.
Or you want to make a digital slide show for your family using images that reside on 35mm slides, black and white negs and sometimes color negs (though those get a bit tricky to refine in photoshop).
Or you want a digital image of a slide for your own printing purposes but you don’t want to spend a ton of money on a scanner.
I have a solution (in my hand as I write this). For about $50 you can pick up a Nikon ES-1 slide copying adapter. It works on any DSLR, so if you shoot Nikon or Canon or Oly or Sony or any of the others you are set. And you don’t need a macro or micro lens.
[I mentioned ‘negatives’ above so a caveat is necessary. The ES-1 does not have cut film capability so the negative has to be cut to a single frame and mounted like a slide. I use HAMA DSR slide mounts which are easy to find at camera shops and should cost about $10-12 for a box of 100. The beauty of these mounts is that, while they can be used in mounting machines, they work easily for just hand inserting the frame of film into the mount. And it is a one piece mount making it easy to mount film. Once a negative is mounted it can be treated just like a slide and once the image is in the camera it can be reversed by some cameras and some editing software. Color negative are difficult but patient removal of the orange cast or conversion to black and white can result in a usable image. However, for negatives a scanner is certainly easier.]
The ES-1 is built to fit (like a filter) on a lens with a 50 mm filter thread but using (very inexpensive) adapters it can fit on virtually any lens.
If you don’t have a “Micro” or “Macro” lens (these terms denote the same capability but is a bit of a story why one is used and not the other) you will need a a simple extension tube to go between the camera and the ES-1. This process works with prime lenses (those are single focal length lenses) or zoom lenses. Autofocus should be turned off in the camera or on the lens.
Between the extension tube and the sliding tubes that make up the ES-1, focusing can be achieved across the range of focal lengths.
One other thing is needed: light. The ES-1 has a frosted window for diffusing light entering the unit. It is fine to shoot outdoors using ambient daylight but that creates problems I generally choose to avoid. Specifically the prevailing breeze carries dust and can create camera shake.
I recommend shooting indoors using a tripod for the camera and an electronic flash sitting on top of a light stand. A lamp can also be used as a light source so long as the bulb is at least a foot away or covered by a white shade. An alternative, if tripod and stand are too much trouble or not available, is placing the camera and flash on a table top facing each other.
To dupe a slide choose the highest quality setting within the camera or use RAW which is my preferred (and is now sort of supported in iPhoto) or the highest quality TIFF or JPEG.
The flash is aimed directly at the camera and the frosted diffuser of the ES-1 and I recommend starting in full auto mode, from which adjustments can be made. Zooming and cropping can be done through the lens or later in the photo editing software.
An even less expensive though not necessarily as easy method would involve shooting a duplicate of the slide sitting on a light table using a micro or macro lens. The problem with this method is that light tables, except the most prohibitively expensive ones are likely to have hotspots which would not necessarily be easily visible to the naked eye.
For large numbers of images this method might take an extraordinary amount of time but for the occasional job involving converting a slide to digital this method is superb and very cheap.
If you have questions or comments simply send an email to me through MM.