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03-06-2019, 12:21 PM   #31
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If you go the DSLR route the easiest setup is a Pentax macro bellows with the slide copying attachment. The only trick is it was designed to use a 35mm camera (i.e. full frame) with a 50mm lens. If you’re using a full frame camera, an inexpensive manual focus 50mm will work perfectly, but if you have an APS-C camera you’ll have to experiment to find a lens that works. The focal length will need to be closer to 70-80mm. I have a old F-series Takumar zoom (when Takumar meant cheap and uncharted) that works. They cam the attachment a “slide copier” but you can also drag a negative through safely (it will scratch the sprocket holed but doesn’t touch the image area.)

03-06-2019, 02:58 PM   #32
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QuoteOriginally posted by abruzzi Quote
If you go the DSLR route the easiest setup is a Pentax macro bellows with the slide copying attachment. The only trick is it was designed to use a 35mm camera (i.e. full frame) with a 50mm lens. If you’re using a full frame camera, an inexpensive manual focus 50mm will work perfectly, but if you have an APS-C camera you’ll have to experiment to find a lens that works. The focal length will need to be closer to 70-80mm. I have a old F-series Takumar zoom (when Takumar meant cheap and uncharted) that works. They cam the attachment a “slide copier” but you can also drag a negative through safely (it will scratch the sprocket holed but doesn’t touch the image area.)
I did look at them on ebay but I wasn't really sure if they would work and I definitely didn't have a lens for it. I'd also ruled them out on neg grounds because I didn't know if you could put negs through.

I've built half the rig I'm going to use now. I'm just waiting for the macro rail and some nylon spacers for mounting the carriers. The light proved to be a compromise with a colour temp of 5600 but some tests showed I can easily eliminate the slight blue cast in lightroom. It's also not so bright as I'd hoped so f8 1/60th of a second will be my approximate exposure, no wobbling the table. I'd also thought about copying some 120 negs but I totally underestimated how much further back the camera will need to go so I don't think I've built it long enough for that. There's not many so I'll probably find a different method.
03-06-2019, 08:59 PM - 1 Like   #33
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QuoteOriginally posted by 3by2 Quote
I did look at them on ebay but I wasn't really sure if they would work and I definitely didn't have a lens for it. I'd also ruled them out on neg grounds because I didn't know if you could put negs through.
If you find the original docs, they’ll say it’s for slide and “film strips” because back in the day, you wouldn’t use that to photograph negatives, but a film strip is basically unmounted slides. The original purpose of the attachment to to make a negative from slide so you could have them printed (printing slides pos to pos was a much less commonly available process.)
03-07-2019, 06:08 AM - 1 Like   #34
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Here's a few pictures of it nearly finished.

Attachment 443274
Attachment 443273

I have to wait for the spacers so I can add the slides for the carrier in the 2nd picture. Positioning the carrier exactly will be the tricky part. Small movements make for big changes with a macro lens, as you know.

Little bit heath robinson but it looks like it works. I still have to fashion a shade to cover between the slide carrier and the camera. I might have to cut the aperture bigger, not sure if I'm getting shadowing or that's the absence of a shade and being near a window but basically that's it. I hope it works!


Last edited by 3by2; 05-01-2019 at 02:26 PM.
03-07-2019, 07:19 AM   #35
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QuoteOriginally posted by CharLac Quote
Scanners are brutally slow so I made my own contraption. Removed the lens in my Kodak projector, added some milky plastic in the light path, loaded the carousel with the slides in backwards, pointed my dslr (with 100mm macro) into the projector. I can scan 120 slides in less than 5 minutes
I'm setting up the same even though I have and Epson V600. At ~ 15 minutes for 4 slides it'll take too much time to scan 150+ old slides. I think I can get pretty good results using my KP with a Vivitar 100mm 1:3.5 MC Macro with Matched Macro Adapter. I assume that the diffuser you mentioned is to reduce light intensity for more reasonable shutter speed. Any tips are appreciated. So far, settings I'm thinking will help:

2 sec delay
Remote shutter release
Electronic shutter
Pixel shift
ISO 100
f8 to f11

Any comments will be appreciated.

Thanks
03-07-2019, 08:12 AM - 1 Like   #36
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I've been using a flat bed scanner for years to do that. It's the best way I've found and quick if you have 500 + slides to do. You need a scanner that comes with adapters that fit on the flat bed, that will house 2 35mm film (colour & BW), 2x4 mounted slides, or 6x22 cm Medium-format Film Holders. They do a great job. Epson and Canon do that and I'm sure you can find something on eBay as well.
What you may also need is a light box made of an 18" x 12" x 6" plastic storage box; fit a couple of LED light bulbs inside and a cord with a switch and cover with a 1/4" translucent sheet of plastic. You can lay 50 slides on that and select the ones you want to scan.
Get the best scanned resolution possible right away and finish up the renditions on a computer with PS or even better... LR. Will cost $250 - 300CAN tops.
03-07-2019, 08:25 AM - 2 Likes   #37
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QuoteOriginally posted by rogerstg Quote
I'm setting up the same even though I have and Epson V600. At ~ 15 minutes for 4 slides it'll take too much time to scan 150+ old slides. I think I can get pretty good results using my KP with a Vivitar 100mm 1:3.5 MC Macro with Matched Macro Adapter. I assume that the diffuser you mentioned is to reduce light intensity for more reasonable shutter speed. Any tips are appreciated. So far, settings I'm thinking will help:

2 sec delay
Remote shutter release
Electronic shutter
Pixel shift
ISO 100
f8 to f11

Any comments will be appreciated.

Thanks
I'll share my notes after I get home tonight but a few thoughts.

The light coming out of my Kodak Project was too bright and since I was so close to the negative (and the bulb) with my lens, the images had a halo imbedded in them. I went to a local plastcis store and got a chunk of semi-transparent 1/4"? 1/8"? thick plastic. This I cut to fit in the light path between the bulb and the slide (just before the slide)

I do use ISO100 and f/8 on my D-FA 100mm Macro. More comments on speed later on.

White balance I set to be the temperature of the projector bulb.

I connected my camera via the HDMI port to a computer monitor.

I did not bother with pixel shift or delay as I wanted to create, as fast as possible (and with little to no Post Processing), a JPEG library of all my thousands of slides . My thought, if in the future, a shot really peaked my interest, I would scan it high def with my Epson.

I loaded my slides into the scanner backwards from normal so no post image flipping was required. but all slides "landscape" so 90 degree rotation PP to make any back into portraits. Very quickly done.

And then, once all set, camera remote in right hand, slide project remote in my left and click away....tray of 120 slides in less than 5 minutes.

That is everything off the top of my head for now but I will get back to you later on a few things. If you want, a phone call would not be a bad thing.

Cheers, Charlie

03-07-2019, 08:34 AM   #38
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QuoteOriginally posted by Rnovo Quote
I've been using a flat bed scanner for years to do that. It's the best way I've found and quick if you have 500 + slides to do. You need a scanner that comes with adapters that fit on the flat bed, that will house 2 35mm film (colour & BW), 2x4 mounted slides, or 6x22 cm Medium-format Film Holders.
Thanks, but I already have an Epson V600 that will do 4 slides at once. At 3200dpi, it takes at least 15 minutes of scanning. That's 9+ hours without time for placing and previewing slides, rescanning some slides after finding dust that was not visible in preview mode. Also, the 150+ slides in this batch were selected from appx 1000 that I've already reviewed with a side projector. I'm hoping to save time and get good results.

If it works well, I'll probably do the same with my father's slides from the 50's and 60's. I'll save time culling since I'll be able to review and copy at the same time using wifi commander on my laptop.
03-07-2019, 01:03 PM   #39
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I don’t know if it will be an issue, but you my want to consider a cardboard tube between the lens and the negative to reduce the possibility of reflections on the front of the negative. It wouldn’t be needed if you’re shooting in dim light, but full light might be a problem.
03-07-2019, 04:40 PM - 3 Likes   #40
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QuoteOriginally posted by rogerstg Quote
I'm setting up the same even though I have and Epson V600. At ~ 15 minutes for 4 slides it'll take too much time to scan 150+ old slides. I think I can get pretty good results using my KP with a Vivitar 100mm 1:3.5 MC Macro with Matched Macro Adapter. I assume that the diffuser you mentioned is to reduce light intensity for more reasonable shutter speed. Any tips are appreciated. So far, settings I'm thinking will help:

2 sec delay
Remote shutter release
Electronic shutter
Pixel shift
ISO 100
f8 to f11

Any comments will be appreciated.

Thanks
Okay, so part 2

I set my white balance to 3300k (temperature of the projector bulb)
The colourshift? to natural
Shake reduction off

As for shutter speed, at first I was using 1/200 but found that using the auto shutter speed seemed to work best. 1/200 worked great if the slide was properly exposed but, as that is not always the case, I found that auto worked great.

Having the monitor to display the last picture taken helps too.

Anyway, that all I have...good luck!
03-07-2019, 06:16 PM - 1 Like   #41
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QuoteOriginally posted by CharLac Quote
I set my white balance to 3300k (temperature of the projector bulb)
The colourshift? to natural
Shake reduction off

As for shutter speed, at first I was using 1/200 but found that using the auto shutter speed seemed to work best.
Thanks, that's very helpful.
03-08-2019, 03:16 AM - 1 Like   #42
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It is helpful. I hadn't even thought about shake reduction and just did some reading around about using it on a tripod. Seems to not be a good idea, so I shall switch it off.
03-08-2019, 07:21 AM - 2 Likes   #43
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Final build pictures

Attachment 443392
Attachment 443391
Attachment 443390

I've now added a cardboard hood as well. Everything is a little loose so framing can be adjusted but basically it works. I'll post a picture of the setup later when I've settled on somewhere with enough space to work.

Initial results are interesting, again I'll try and post examples later. I compared a slide with one first scanned on the Scan Dual some 8 years ago using Vuescan. In all the midtones the Scan Dual is sharper with more detail. In the lighter areas the macro setup does better and it also does better in the shadows where the Scan Dual never managed to penetrate Kodachrome slides and produced a lot of noise which needed work to sort out. With the macro setup there is far less dust. I will hardly have to spend any time with the clone tool and far less time post processing and I think this and the speed I can push the slides and negatives through will make the Macro setup the overall winner. I have yet to work on some negatives but I recall the Scan Dual being an absolute bugger to get the right film profile sorted. In short, this is no substitute for a good scan of a slide or neg, though it's close enough but for digitising a lot of stuff, I think it will work well, with the option to select individual shots for proper scanning should I wish.

Last edited by 3by2; 05-01-2019 at 02:26 PM.
03-08-2019, 02:58 PM - 2 Likes   #44
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Here's the difference. The scanner is the one on the right, 100% crops.

Attachment 443439

So even a 14 year old scanner produces a slightly sharper and more detailed picture. That's not the whole story though. You can also see a lot more noise in the shadows on the scanner shot and on this slide it's not actually so bad. What you can't see is the dust. Lots more on the scan. Easier these days to deal with but when I first did it, there were few plugins and only the manual clone tool to use in CS2.

Speedwise there's no comparison. I went through three slide films in the time it would have taken me to scan and adjust two or three slides. The macro setup produces nearly accurate representations straight off, the scanner always produces a heavy cast and flat colours which need working up. Possibly Vuescan is better these days in its profiles, I don't know.

Overall I'm happy with the compromise. Most of these shots are memories taken on things like cosina 1000's OM10, Om2 and OM1, not all with great lenses and I'm slightly amused at how many I took which where actually not quite in focus or not quite exposed correctly or, still to scan, developed badly by me. Digital is a different world now.

Last edited by 3by2; 05-01-2019 at 02:26 PM.
03-11-2019, 05:42 AM - 1 Like   #45
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QuoteOriginally posted by Russell W. Barnes Quote
I dug out my Elicar zoom slide copier recently. These were a thing back in the 80s and 90s (and possibly the 70s) and were made under different brands. It's a tube with a T-mount on one end allowing different adaptors to marry it to the SLR camera, and a slide-carrier and diffuser at the other. It's a fixed-focus tube with a lens arrangement half-way down: you put a rough setting (1, 1.5, 2X) on the slidey-out tube, lock it, then adjust a barrel accordingly. They're cheap enough on eBay. I use mine on my EOS 5D Mk: 1 with a Canon > M42 adaptor and n M42 T-mount.

For copying negs I remove the slide carrier and simply place the strip of negs on my lightbox beneath a mask cut from single-sided printed circuit board (thin plastic would do), sit the camera and copier tube vertically over the mask, and fire away, moving mask and camera along the neg strip as I go. I use mirror lock-up and a remote shutter release to minimise shake as a slow(ish) shutter speed is called for, and I set my Canon to RAW.

I find this gives better results than my ancient Acer Scanwit WinME-only SCSI-coupled scanner, for which I keep my old PC alive specifically.
--
I found one on ebay a couple of days ago, and won it today as the only bidder (had forgotten all about it). It's a Panagor branded thing, but I'd think it's the same as the Elicar one. It was specified as having PK mount, but am not at all certain that it is. Time will show.

Now I'll have to find a suitable light source.
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