[Christopher Sanderson Gold Member Posts: 362]

Film and Photo Digitizing

on: January 3, 2021 at 3:28 pm

This forum is intended for discussions related to digitizing film, negatives or printed photographs using scanner or camera.

Here are links to articles and forum topics on digitizing already on the site:

The Scanning Project – Part 1 and Part 2 by George Schaub

MF Scanner Braun FS-120 

Color Perfect scanning

 

[Mark D Segal Silver Member Posts: 951]

Re: Welcome to Film & Photo Digitizing

Reply #1 on: January 3, 2021 at 5:10 pm

Thanks for creating this Forum Chris. As we head into the third decade of the 21st century, the dilemma faced by countless numbers of people about how to digitize their collections of slides, negatives and paper photographs is increasingly pressing, as the number of high-quality scanning devices on the market dwindles and the software options for driving scanners are limited (but eminently usable). Therefore more and more people have been turning to alternative solutions for digitizing their analog media, mainly being the use of digital cameras set-up in a variety of ways and using quite a range of software options for processing the digitized results. A number of these options can deliver excellent quality and greater efficiency than using scanners. They range from the very high-end solutions such as those offered by Phase One (Cultural Heritage) mainly for museums and similar archiving establishments, to more economical and make-shift set-ups that meet the needs of those not needing the ultimate Phase One solutions. This Forum should be an interesting and useful outlet for describing and discussing the options people have been developing and using.

[Mike Nelson Pedde Participant Posts: 641]

Re: Welcome to Film & Photo Digitizing

Reply #2 on: January 4, 2021 at 7:53 pm

Much appreciated, Chris. I haven’t yet done any serious digitizing, but I have several thousand slides and negatives so there might be something in there of value.

Mike.

_____
Mike Nelson Pedde
Victoria, BC
https://www.wolfnowl.com/

[Daniel Teoli Jr. Participant Posts: 2]

Re: Welcome to Film & Photo Digitizing

Reply #3 on: March 5, 2022 at 4:42 pm

.

Hello to all!

I found this forum by coming across Mark D. Segal’s article on camera scanning. I looked at his earlier article on the same topic he had written way back when. This was before his copy stand days, when he was using a tripod. What a difference he had made in refining his setup…he really breastfeeds it all to you!

I’m just getting started with camera scanning. I’m a photographer and archivist and also work with audio and cine’ film. I’ve been doing scanning for years (sheetfed) / decades (flatbed), sometimes making 20K -30K sheetfed scans year along with a thousand or two flatbed scans of paper.

A while back I tested a camera scan of a chrome. This was before I read Mark’s article. I had been hearing about camera scanning on forums, so gave it a try on my copy stand.

This was shot with an old Fuji 16mp camera. Heavily cropped, not anywhere near macro. But it clued me into the possibilities of camera scanning encouraging me to study camera scanning further.

 

 

I’m just working slow and testing things as I go. It is not like the old days when money was not an issue, and I could just throw money at a thing to learn. Nowadays, budget is tight, so try to avoid the school of hard knocks with the education.

I had heard that scanners have different focus points for film, so first test I did was to compare my V500 to the V600 scanner.  (Still need to try my V700 scanner.)  The scanners don’t resolve all that much in fine detail when you get down to it. Kinda sad.

Here are a few of the tests looking for focus points on the V500 using the area in red.

6400 dpi scan is at glass level using an Epson V500 scanner.

 

Resolution target was raised .225mm above the scanner glass using a Epson V500 scanner at 6400 dpi.

…I kept trying different focus points. I won’t post them all here, but they went up to 3mm above the glass in various increments.

Resolution target was raised 2mm above the scanner glass using a Epson V500 scanner at 6400 dpi.

Looks like the V500 did best at glass level. I still need to crop up the V600 scans. It is a harder scanner to use than the V500 with trying to do on glass scans with no holders. (But there may be a trick to it…dunno?) The Fuji 16mm camera was not that impressive. Still need to post process the photos of that. From rough quick sees, with the macro lens and a 11mm tube, it looks like the Fuji 16mm compares somewhat to the Epson V55. (But don’t hold me to it…I said quick look.)

Now, if you ever wondered how well a sheetfed scanner works, here is an old post I did on it comparing sheetfed scanner to copy stand to flatbed scanner.

nsfw

SHOOTOUT…Flatbed Scanner vs. Sheetfed Scanner vs. Copy Stand Photography – Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Archival Collection – II (home.blog)

 

16mm IBT Dye Transfer Technicolor Lab Head

That is all I got for now to share. Thanks for everyone’s participation here!

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