RF 100mm macro for scanning negs?

chrisbc said:

I have a lot of unscanned negs and slides, both in 35mm and 120-film, and would like to speed up the process. So far I have been using a Screen Cezanne flatbed scanner. Although the scan quality is very good, the whole process is very time consuming, about 15 minutes per frame including mounting, cleaning and the time it takes to scan. I have the impression the 1.4 magnification and the flat field of focus of the new RF 100mm macro is ideal for the task, or are there any caveats to scanning negs/slides with a macro lens? I would be using it on the R5.

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The subject is covered in this article on digitising which is available over at 35mmc - it might serve as useful background reading.


In general:

• You still need to be scrupulous on cleaning and dust - time spent cleaning a negative will be paid back in not having to 'spot' later on.
• Shoot RAW
• Make sure the camera is square to the negative/slide
• find a good even light source (look for appropriate white balance if copying colour)
• Make sure you are not getting reflections from the top side of the negative/slide.
• Shooting medium format with a 100 macro can leave you with long-ish working distances, so a 50 may work better, but go with whatever dedicated macro lens you have.

tkbslc said:

aut0maticdan said:

J.K.T. said:

That does indeed work (I'm using EF 100 L), but getting the colors right is going to be interesting.

Nikon ES-1 used to be very handy adapter for FF, but now it is only available second hand. The current and more expensive ES-2 would likely work just as well if not better. At least it has holder for film strips. For the large format you'll have to figure out something else, if you want to tie the slide and camera into one solid piece.

If you don't do that, you'll need a good tripod or copy stand. The IS you can forget about.

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I agree completely. The ES-2 is the way to go, however, I don’t think canon makes a lens that will work with it (maybe the extremely expensive 50mm macro). You want something that is 50-60mm at 1:1. I use the Nikon 60 micro (old afd version). You can adapt to r mount. It is cheap and perfect for the task

You should try using negative lab pro on the raw files.

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I would agree, except OP has medium format film to scan, too. The ES-2 only works with 35mm film and slides.

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Ah. Will need a bigger rig, like something from negative supply or a diy. Although likely overkill on an r5 sensor, you can still keep it 1:1 by taking multiple photos to cover larger formats and then stitch with Lightroom (you can still use negative lab as well).

I think I saw grainy days on YouTube cover this approach. His ‘how I scan’ video was solid. He also covers a nice 35mm scanner that is $500 new.

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/danielwharton

J.K.T. said:

Not really. Anything longer works. It is just a matter of finding the right distance and then getting the right amount of threaded extension tubes and step-up / step-down rings.

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this makes sense! I may give it a try once my RF 100 arrives. Pretty inexpensive experiment. Thanks
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J.K.T. said:

Aaah. Lightroom. Never mind...

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I would do a trial of Lightroom and negative lab. While I understand your reservation, it is the right tool for the job. Nothing else comes close on quality (tried lab scans, Nikon d850 jpegs, traditional scanner software). You may think you do a good job inverting a curve (and editing in opposites for 4 hours) until you see what you get with negative lab with a few clicks.

If you are super casual about film and just fool around a little, by all means pass on it, though. It wouldn’t be worth the cost for a few rolls a year. Just use a lab.

Edit: it is worth noting that it works on pre-subscription Lightroom 6. If you track that down, you don’t need to pay endlessly

Edit2: not sure if it is still the case, but you may need to go on the negative lab pro forum to download profiles for the r5/6. I don’t recall if they’ve done an update since releasing those profiles

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/danielwharton

aut0maticdan said:

If you are super casual about film and just fool around a little, by all means pass on it, though. It wouldn’t be worth the cost for a few rolls a year. Just use a lab.

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As far as negatives go, it is the first 13 scrolls I shot in -81... -83. Let's just say the quality does not warrant ANY extra expenses for their sake. :-D Slides are a different story.

Karl_Guttag said:

I'm not an expert on this, but I have been looking into it.

1. As others have said, by definition you need 1:1 or less to scan 35mm film.
2. A photography copy stand or a similar arrangement
   1. It important to have the camera at right angles to the film to reduce distortion and the small DOF.
3. You need a film holder to keep the film flat
4. You want a good, full-spectrum backlight (ones make for photography). Flim/slides only block light, they don't create it. If the wavelengths of light are not in the backlight, they will not make it through to be captured.
5. Shoot around f8

There are quite a few videos and articles online.

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Thank you! Very thorough and helpful answer.

I have now carried out a few quick tests with the Canon RF 100mm f/2.8 L macro. Mounted the camera (R5) on my Peak Design tripod, by reversing the centre column. I couldn't get the camera LCD image to be perfectly parallell to the negs and positives, which I had mounted in the anti-newton glass negative holder, which sat on top of the Kaiser Slimlite Plano light box and keeps the film perfectly flat but is impractical and time-consuming to use. The setup with a tripod would be a very finicky and arduous way to scan considerable amounts of film. I guess it's possible to get everything in the imaging path to line up to be parallell, but I would't wan't to try. After quite a lot of research I have come to the conclusion that a robust and easy to maneuver copy stand like the Kaiser RS1 and the negative supply basic film holders would be the easiest and least time consuming way to get consistently good results.
I inverted the neg manually in DxO photo lab 5 Elite, which was really easy and yields perfectly acceptable results, which can be copied and synchronized to a batch of RAW images in a breeze. I have tried Negative lab pro, but didn't see any meaningful difference or improvement in the end result in my opinion. The neg, taken with a Pentax 67, is not perfectly sharp due to some camera shake.

I've done this years ago with my slide film. 100mm macro lens, aimed straight at slides on a light table. Works quite well.

[ATTACH]3072554[/ATTACH] chrisbc said:

I have a lot of unscanned negs and slides, both in 35mm and 120-film, and would like to speed up the process. So far I have been using a Screen Cezanne flatbed scanner. Although the scan quality is very good, the whole process is very time consuming, about 15 minutes per frame including mounting, cleaning and the time it takes to scan. I have the impression the 1.4 magnification and the flat field of focus of the new RF 100mm macro is ideal for the task, or are there any caveats to scanning negs/slides with a macro lens? I would be using it on the R5.

Click to expand...

So here's how I work making slides digital.

under the desk is a 5500KV daylight source. there is a ca 10cm hole in the table.

R5+EF100/2.8 macro.

in the past I alway's used a Nikon scanner, but the results with this combo is better and much, much quicker.

chrisbc said:

The neg, taken with a Pentax 67, is not perfectly sharp due to some camera shake.

Click to expand...

It looks a lot better if passed through Topaz Sharpen AI

chrisbc said:

I have a lot of unscanned negs and slides, both in 35mm and 120-film, and would like to speed up the process. So far I have been using a Screen Cezanne flatbed scanner. Although the scan quality is very good, the whole process is very time consuming, about 15 minutes per frame including mounting, cleaning and the time it takes to scan. I have the impression the 1.4 magnification and the flat field of focus of the new RF 100mm macro is ideal for the task, or are there any caveats to scanning negs/slides with a macro lens? I would be using it on the R5.

Click to expand...

The Epson V850 is half the price of a RF 100 and will do 12 or 18 slides or negatives at a time. It has dust removal and is really fast, the order of 2 mins per image at 3200 DPI. That really is all the usable resolution. It is also quite tedious, but in my opinion not nearly as tedious as using a camera.

I have a full Olympus bellows setup, macro lens with slide copier,that I can use on my R5 but always choose to use the scanner.

In the end it really depends on how you want to use the results. For family stuff, the scanner wins, for archiving, maybe the camera method, but will still take a lot of time.

A digitized 35mm Fuji Prova 400X positive from the Contax G2 and Planar 35mm, scanned with the same setup (R5 and RF 100mm macro). I was quite pleasantly surprised by the amount detail (focus is on the nearest windows) despite the poor setup I was using.

Guus54 said:

[ATTACH]3072554[/ATTACH] chrisbc said:

I have a lot of unscanned negs and slides, both in 35mm and 120-film, and would like to speed up the process. So far I have been using a Screen Cezanne flatbed scanner. Although the scan quality is very good, the whole process is very time consuming, about 15 minutes per frame including mounting, cleaning and the time it takes to scan. I have the impression the 1.4 magnification and the flat field of focus of the new RF 100mm macro is ideal for the task, or are there any caveats to scanning negs/slides with a macro lens? I would be using it on the R5.

Click to expand...

So here's how I work making slides digital.

under the desk is a 5500KV daylight source. there is a ca 10cm hole in the table.

R5+EF100/2.8 macro.

in the past I alway's used a Nikon scanner, but the results with this combo is better and much, much quicker.

Click to expand...

Smart solution to be able to move your film holder to the next frame, be it at the cost of the copy stand base plate. The copy stand looks like the Kaiser RS1 with the RA1 arm, am I correct?

davidwien said:

chrisbc said:

The neg, taken with a Pentax 67, is not perfectly sharp due to some camera shake.

Click to expand...

It looks a lot better if passed through Topaz Sharpen AI

Click to expand...

True. I have sent it to Sharpen AI also, from a virtual copy, and it looks much sharper and cleaner. At the same time the character of the film easily gets lost the more the file is processed and becomes the look of a photo taken with a digital camera.

chrisbc said:

Guus54 said:

[ATTACH]3072554[/ATTACH] chrisbc said:

I have a lot of unscanned negs and slides, both in 35mm and 120-film, and would like to speed up the process. So far I have been using a Screen Cezanne flatbed scanner. Although the scan quality is very good, the whole process is very time consuming, about 15 minutes per frame including mounting, cleaning and the time it takes to scan. I have the impression the 1.4 magnification and the flat field of focus of the new RF 100mm macro is ideal for the task, or are there any caveats to scanning negs/slides with a macro lens? I would be using it on the R5.

Click to expand...

So here's how I work making slides digital.

under the desk is a 5500KV daylight source. there is a ca 10cm hole in the table.

R5+EF100/2.8 macro.

in the past I alway's used a Nikon scanner, but the results with this combo is better and much, much quicker.

Click to expand...

Smart solution to be able to move your film holder to the next frame, be it at the cost of the copy stand base plate. The copy stand looks like the Kaiser RS1 with the RA1 arm, am I correct?

Click to expand...

Yep. Correct. Didn’t use the Kaiser anymore so now it lives a second life in my archives

I find the Sigma 50mm 2.8 macro equivalent to my EF Canon 100mm macro. Got it used for less than $200. In addition to use out in the woods for macro, I use it for digitizing BW negatives and color slides.

My set up is very simple. Light source is my smart phone. Take pic of white sheet of paper. In phone image edit get it white as possible. Then turn up display brightness, lay it down, and you have a light table. Got a $9 negative holder from Amazon. With the R5 and Deep Prime denoiseing I can shoot at high ISO, allowing faster and deeper field shots. Just bracing myself and the camera can yield fairly good results without use of a tripod.

Carl