Copying photographic prints

I want to copy B/W prints made from film negatives taken years ago. I have both prints and the negs, Does anyone do photo reproduction with their MFT kits? I'll be using an Oly E-PL1 with 60mm f/2.8 macro. I own several tripods with reversible center posts. This seems my best option for the time being. Any suggestions? The prints are either 11"x14" or 8"x10". My printing technique was rather dense. I may have lost too much shadow detail, but  how do I extend tonal scale to its absolute limit? Part two of this question is about copying negs. First of all - how do I get reversals using LR5 or Aperture? Can this be done with these - or should I consider yet another editor? Once converted to positive images, what is best for obtaining long tonal scale prints and anything else I've forgotten toask about? All suggestions will be greatly appreciated. THANKS!!!!

gregbartgis wrote:

I want to copy B/W prints made from film negatives taken years ago. I have both prints and the negs, Does anyone do photo reproduction with their MFT kits? I'll be using an Oly E-PL1 with 60mm f/2.8 macro. I own several tripods with reversible center posts. This seems my best option for the time being. Any suggestions?

I think getting the camera level enough to have optimum edge-to-edge resolution for copying negatives will be near to impossible in this case, unless you've got a really nice geared head. You'll want a cable release or to use the timer on your camera to make sure you're not shocking the camera from pressing the shutter button. You also need a backlight source for copying film. Your best bet would be a copy stand paired with a daylight balanced lightbox (for this purpose I've used my GH2 with an OM 50mm f/3.5 macro and gotten printable results off silver negative and slide film, though I wouldn't recommend anything but a dedicated scanner for color negatives).

OM-1, 50mm f/1.8, Tri-X 400 downrated to 200, negative copied using the above method.

OM-1, 28mm f/3.5, Velvia 50, slide copied using the above method.

To reproduce prints, you need even, soft, color balanced lighting across the frame. I use two strobes with umbrellas at 45° angles to the subject. The first copy stands you'll find in an internet search actually include the light sources, but the setup I use also works for reproducing larger format artwork.

The prints are either 11"x14" or 8"x10". My printing technique was rather dense. I may have lost too much shadow detail, but how do I extend tonal scale to its absolute limit?

Make use of the histogram or shadow/highlight blinkies. The white of the paper needs to be the brightest thing there, perhaps backed off just slightly from being blown out.

Part two of this question is about copying negs. First of all - how do I get reversals using LR5 or Aperture? Can this be done with these - or should I consider yet another editor?

Inside Lightroom, there's an area to adjust the tone curve. Start with a neutral tone curve, click the button for point curve, drag the top left corner all the way down, and the bottom right corner all the way up. From there, season to taste.

Once converted to positive images, what is best for obtaining long tonal scale prints and anything else I've forgotten toask about? All suggestions will be greatly appreciated. THANKS!!!!

Of course, with negatives, the thinnest part of the image with the least information will be the shadows, so be careful not to overexpose your capture. And you'll need to find a way to control flare- I actually use a large cardboard tube as well as a negative carrier from an enlarger to accomplish this.

Here's a basic look at what my setup looks like for slide copying (from when I had it set up on my E-520):

Hot shoe bubble level for level, the cardboard tube in the background would go between the lens and the negative carrier and would keep light from the rest of the light box from causing flare. Giottos rocket blower 'cause dust will happen.

I never photographed the setup as used on my GH2, but instead of the ball head I used a macro focusing rail (modern copy stands have macro rail functionality built in).

If you use a fluorescent lightbox, be mindful of the power grid you live in. You'll want to make your shutter speed multiply evenly into your power frequency or else you'll get uneven brightness across the frame. so if you're on a 60Hz grid, you'll want to shoot for shutter speed of 1/60, 1/30, 1/15, 1/8, 1/4 and so on--not the steps in between--if you're on a 50Hz grid, you want 1/50, 1/25, 1/13, 1/6, etc.

BillJolly wrote:

Klarno and Guy Parsons have both suggested that you not try to copy color negs with your camera. I copied my old slides, color negs and bw negs with my GH2 and 50mm lens. The process for color negatives is a little different, but simple. In short, I did a custom white balance on a blank negative first. Then just copy the neg as usual, use the 'negative' operator in any graphics program and adjust the levels ( because the results are usually quite thin ). My results look fine to me. Hope you have good results.

Perhaps I should clarify the reasons why photographing color negatives is less than ideal-- with dedicated flatbed scanners you're getting 16 bit output (65,536 levels per channel), as opposed to 12 bit RAW on your camera (4096 levels per channel is the best the vast majority of cameras can bring to bear). This means that you have that much more leeway to work with things like the orange mask on color negative film-- you'll notice the 12 bit image getting pulled apart at the seams a lot faster than you'll notice the same thing happening to the 16 bit image. Some cameras offer 14 bit (16,384 levels per channel), but such things haven't worked their way into MFT yet.

The orange mask isn't a constant density filter; it actually forms in the development process in proportion to the other color dyes (it's there to correct for the inherent blue sensitivity of all color emulsions in color process papers). So I've actually found it to be nearly impossible to get accurate colors out of using a blank negative or film leader as a calibration step. You can get close, but I've found not close enough.

Your best bet to copy negatives with a camera is to use a dichroic enlarger head as your light source; a dichroic head is a special kind of enlarger that's used for optically printing color negative film. With that kind of head you can actually adjust the color balance of the light source quite precisely, which would make a great difference in getting more information in your images, leading to less noise and finer tonal gradations. You still need to boost contrast a lot though, because dye-based C41 films lead to very, very thin images.

Many thanks to all for your suggestions. The only color work I'll be copying will be chromes - bot E-6 and Kodachrome. I have a Phillips head for color enlargements that I can somehow adapt to use here. The light source has a dial control for balancing color. Most of my earlier work was done in B/W. Thanks for the book suggestion. I'd like to get it! Sounds like a really good read!

Thanks again everybody!