Oly 60mm f2.8 macro - as slide copier

[AlanVia]

I just purchased the Oly ED f2.8mm macro lens. Dual purpose, for close up photography, but also so I can begin digitizing some of the thousands of Kodachrome 25/64 slides I've taken over the years.

Before buying the lens I'd been following threads for a attachement that screws into the threads of the lens and another with an ingenious device they constructed. There are comments about light sources, etc.

I'm sure others will be able to find these, but I've done a number of searches but so far I haven't been able to find the threads.

I'd also be interested in what others think of using the Oly macro lens vs spending for a dedicated slide scanner.

Thanks and sorry for not being able to do the search adequately.

Alan

 

[Ken610]

Many years ago, I needed a portable way to copy large numbers of slides that I was not able to move from their source. I used an old film Oly bellows and a 75mm Rokkor enlarger lens, which should be cheap these days, on a home made adapter. For the light source, I used a color head from another enlarger. I mounted the camera/bellows on a copy stand, pointing down, and made a slide holder to sit on the enlarger head, pointing up, and was able to quickly adjust the color to work well for slide copying. I recorded the best color settings for Kodachrome, Ektachrome, Agfachrome, and Fijichrome. I later enclosed all of that in a wooden box about 10 x 12 x 16 inches high, with built in power cord on a reel. Very portable (by car, not backpack!) I still have that rig, but later replaced it with a Minolta 5400 slide copier. The key is to make sure that you can hold the slide still and normal to the camera/lens axis. have fun!

 

[Horst Kretzschmar]

It works fine for slide copies, I usually use it even for this purpose. I mount it to a magnifier stand, on the plate I've positioned a thin norm light plate like this one. The room should be dark, and you need any frame around the slide to protect it from light from aside the slide. Be sure, the Kamera body and the slide plate are absolutely parallel. By moving the camera with lens up and down you can set the magification factor, because in that way you as well can produce crops like you want. I set the camera to Mode A, and attach a release switch (JJC, for about 6 €) to the USB port. f=5.6 may be a good aperture to ensure, you have enough depth of field if the slide has popped up a bit. Then you now can take pictures like you wand. If you fix a little frame for slides on the light plate, you can change the slides rather fast. On the back screen you can controle results and change time with +/- if necessary.

Another technique may be an addon kit for slide projectors from Reflecta. You have to remove the lens from the projektor and to attach a diffusor plate into the beam of the projetor (instead of another filter). Than you have to fix the camera with lens in direction to the projectors front. Now the projector will produce a picture of the slide, which will be projected sharply to the sensor in the camera, if correct focus is used. You may be able to use an automatic slide projector and and now you only have to switch slide by slide forward, and to take your picture from the slide. Such a kit is cheap, about 80 €, and allows very fast working.

Most important is, to have light source with uniform light over the whole slide.

Attachable slide copy stuff don't have such control, in most cases they als have a very cheap lens build in.

Think about, that slides very offen have strong contrast, but working in Raw it is rather easy to reduce contrast as much it is necessary.

 

[Peter 1745]

Old post about slide copying and 60mm f/2.8

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/52966829

I use the the 60mm f/2.8 + 46 to 52mm step up ring + 70mm length of 52mm diameter extension tube (28+28 +14 mm rings) + Nikon ES-1 slide copier .

I either use daylight or an off camera TTL flash as the light source.

This gives excellent copies.

Manually putting the slides in an out of the ES-1 is easy. I tend to use my tablet and the Olympus app to check focus and trigger the shots.

Note: you don't really need to use the 14mm extension ring as the pair of 28mm rings + the ES-1 at almost full extension makes most slides fill the sensor (the ES-1 extension can be adjusted by 28mm). The extra 14mm extension tube lets me adjust the ES-1 so that all my slides fill the sensor.

--
Regards,
Peter
'Keep taking the photos'

 

[SLOjoe]

AlanVia,

I found an old slide copier in a bin at a camera store (years ago) which allows moving the slide around within the copier for cropping. The slide is held in the copier by spring clips which keep the slide parallel to the film plane (sorry sensor plane). It is attached to the front of the lens by a few series adapters and then to the proper mm step up/down adapter. Looks bad but works quite well.

The camera/ slide copier is on one of those short table top tripods. Very stable.

For light, daylight works coming in a window, and I also purchased a daylight balanced florescent lamp which is then shining through a piece of white paper to even the light.

I shoot raw which allows adjusting color balance/saturation/contrast,etc although it would be quicker to just shoot jpg adjusting as you shoot.

Not as good as a dedicated film scanner but it is far quicker and for most slides it is all I need.

"Can you imagine 4,000 years passing, and you're not even a memory?
Think about it, friends. It's not just a possibility. It is a certainty." - Jean Shepherd - 1975

 

[Guy Parsons]

I'd also be interested in what others think of using the Oly macro lens vs spending for a dedicated slide scanner.

The 60mm plus a 16MP sensor gets all there is to get off a slide. I do have a 4,000 dpi film scanner, but it's not worth the bother to connect any more, the camera copy method does much the same job but at a way, way, way faster speed.

Thanks and sorry for not being able to do the search adequately.

Searching here is always a pain, use Google instead and type a line such as site:http://www.dpreview.com/forums/1041 slide copier or something like that and see what happens.

Anyway, just for fun here's my frankencopier.....



E-PL5 on a cheap macro rail, RC controlled TTL FL-36R flash (flash now moved back another 6 or so inches to better deal with very thin slides). Also have used the FL-300R flash and it works just as well. There's some 1/8 inch thick milky white acrylic sheet for diffusion behind the slide, masked with matt black paint with a 24x36mm window on the slide side.

Rig fits push-pull slide holders from an old medium format slide projector so can handle any size up to 6x6cm slides. Currently seen here with the film/slide holders from my retired Microtek film scanner.

Lens 60mm at f/5.6, AF focus via touch screen shoot on any area of contrast of the slide seen in live view, a small lamp provides weak illumination to allow the AF to work. Also not seen is USB cable to PC to avoid disturbing setup until battery needs replacing.

This gadget milled out of solid aluminium in places because I do have a mill/drill to do that, but I have seen much the same sort of rig made from wood and cardboard and that will work just as well.

Take raw+jpeg and I use auto gradation to better see on review in the camera what the raw file may be able to recover from the shadows.

Regards........ Guy

 

[OzRay]

My slide copier, after some hits and misses: http://australianimage.com.au/wordpress/index.php/the-age-of-imagery/

Some of the results: http://australianimage.com.au/wordpress/index.php/when-i-was-nineteen/

The only thing about copying slides in this way is that it's very difficult to get rid of dust etc from the images. Dedicated slide scanners come with software that removes all, or most, of these marks and imperfections.

 

[Denisio Fabuloso]

I'm with Ozray here. Most slides - especially if they have a few years on them - will be pretty dusty with all kinds of other imperfections. I digitized a huge number of 35mm B&W and colour slides. I used a Plustek 7200i which had a brilliant software package (Silverfast) to help remove the lions share of imperfections before I finished them off in Photoshop. I see the latest one sells for under $400. Way way more practical and better value for money IMHO. The software was a handful in the beginning, but it must be a better and easier task now I'm guessing? Unless you really want that $500 lens I reckon you're going about it the hard way. In fact, if your slides need work and you want them to look good, the lens copier method is going to keep you occupied for a while. Here's a before/after pic from Sumatra in 1979. The colour fading and a few other issues also needed attention. Photoshop was able to bring them back like new. Time consuming but worth it. Taken with my Pentax Spotmatic ll with 50mm 1.4 lens. My only lens.





'To live outside the law you've got to be honest'. R. Zimmerman.

 

[Guy Parsons]

My slide copier, after some hits and misses: http://australianimage.com.au/wordpress/index.php/the-age-of-imagery/

Some of the results: http://australianimage.com.au/wordpress/index.php/when-i-was-nineteen/

The only thing about copying slides in this way is that it's very difficult to get rid of dust etc from the images. Dedicated slide scanners come with software that removes all, or most, of these marks and imperfections.

Often those slide scanners do an IR pass to sort out dust from slides, but IR does not work with Kodachrome or B&W negs. E6 slides and C41 colour negs are OK for IR pass.

Fine dust is like noise, disappears on printing, so only the larger chunks usually need to be eliminated. I used to spend 30 minutes a scan cleaning up scanned 35mm film, but after realising what really matters it got down to 5 minutes a slide for dust.

Preserving the slide is the main thing, the dust fiddles can happen at another time when the image is actually needed.

Regards..... Guy

 

[Denisio Fabuloso]

My Plustek has two options... one of which I simply couldn't figure the process? (Part of a manual option I believe). I found one option that did the job fine with the aid of SilverFast and stuck with that. You have the option to erase white or black anomalies or both. It works a treat on B&W negs and slides in my experience. Mostly white objects on B&W and black on slides. I found there was a lot of 'spiderweb fungus' growth on my slides - which the SF did a pretty good job with. Still maintain a dedicated scanner with decent software is the way to fly. Especially when there's a lot to do. (I reckon I went through a period where I must have scanned many 100's. Possibly into 1000's).

The latest Plustek has some auto options I believe? Very good quality machine from my time with it. I scanned mostly at 3600dpi which seemed more than enough... tho it will do 7200dpi. If you have mostly dust free images the camera option should be good enough. But I reckon there'd be few than didnt require at least a little Photoshop work? From my darkroom days I know how much dust was the enemy. On a 35mm frame it gets pretty big white and noticeable blown up to 10x8. In the end it depends what you can live with I guess? Dust marks etc annoy the bejesus me... but your mileage may vary. D.

'To live outside the law you've got to be honest'. R. Zimmerman.

 

[CrisPhoto]

I just purchased the Oly ED f2.8mm macro lens. Dual purpose, for close up photography, but also so I can begin digitizing some of the thousands of Kodachrome 25/64 slides I've taken over the years.

Before buying the lens I'd been following threads for a attachement that screws into the threads of the lens and another with an ingenious device they constructed. There are comments about light sources, etc.

I'm sure others will be able to find these, but I've done a number of searches but so far I haven't been able to find the threads.

I'd also be interested in what others think of using the Oly macro lens vs spending for a dedicated slide scanner.

Thanks and sorry for not being able to do the search adequately.

Alan

I used my Oly 60 as a slide scanner. Fortunately I only have about 2K slides from old days, lucky me.

I need 30 minutes for about 40 slides.

The macro lens does a very good job, I compared it with the 12-40mm lens which has impressing close-up properties, but the macro lens does much much better in resolving the film grain.

Here is my setup:

Re: E-M5 – macro lens for film scanning?

If I would have more than 2000 slides I would search for an 100% automated solution.

 

[Guy Parsons]

I used my Oly 60 as a slide scanner. Fortunately I only have about 2K slides from old days, lucky me.

I need 30 minutes for about 40 slides.

The macro lens does a very good job, I compared it with the 12-40mm lens which has impressing close-up properties, but the macro lens does much much better in resolving the film grain.

Here is my setup:

Re: E-M5 – macro lens for film scanning?

Thanks for that link, I had forgotten about my detail shots of my frankencopier there as well as your easier to build setup.

If I would have more than 2000 slides I would search for an 100% automated solution.

In my case I set up on a coffee table and watch TV with one eye and what the camera is doing with the other. That way I don't need to think about how long the slide copying takes as there's plenty of time to waste watching the TV. Maybe do a few hundred per night when I get going properly.

Never counted but there could be up to 10,000 slides in the house and it's time to set down and do the lot again with the latest setup and methods. Not so pleased with earlier efforts via Epson V700 flat bed scanner, or with earlier 12MP efforts. So they need to be redone before the slides really get too awful with fungus and dust.

Regards...... Guy

 

[DrWu]

Pekka Potka wrote a good article exactly about this subject on his blog. Please search Google "Potka 60mm copying slides".

 

[Alex Ethridge]

A slide duplicator that attaches directly to the front of the lens (macro lens preferred but not required) via the filter threads is the fastest and easiest to use for a 4/3 system, in my opinion. Filter thread size of the unit is of little to no concern as filter thread adapters are very inexpensive and very plentiful on e-Bay.

e-Bay prices for this type duplicator start at about $40, are very easy to find and the quality of the results I've seen from mine is more than acceptable

Additional Information about Slide Duplicators:
I own three on-the-camera types: I have Ohnar-branded zoom slide duplicator that will attach directly to the filter threads of almost any camera lens (type mentioned above), 4/3 included.

I have another Ohnar-branded zoom slide duplicator that attaches directly to the body via T-mount and will do the slide's full frame on a half-frame camera (Nikon DX, APS-C, etc) as it has a 0.5- to 2.5x magnification factor adjustment especially designed for DX/APS-C formats. This type duplicator is rare and very difficult to find anywhere.

I have another left over from the days of film and since it was designed for a 35mm camera AND since all full-frame cameras still use a sensor the same size as the 35mm negative, will work on any full-frame digital camera via a T-mount mounted directly to the camera body. Since I have a full-frame Nikon D800 camera, this is my preferred device as the D800's 36-meg sensor is far more than sufficient than is required to record the information in a 35mm slide.

I have never seen a reason to compare the results between any of the types mentioned above or the brands as quality never was an issue between any of them -- at least not in any I have seen.

Slide scanners are anachronistic: In my opinion, they never were practical. After seeing the "speed" of a good slide scanner (or severe lack thereof) compared to the speed of duplicating slides with a camera, I chose to use the camera method. Scanners, high quality or cheap, can take a few minutes each to render a single transparency while I can "render" a dozen or more in that same time using a camera.

In my opinion, because of their snail's pace, slide scanners were obsolete before the design engineers even got the idea to make one.

 

[OzRay]

Scanners, high quality or cheap, can take a few minutes each to render a single transparency while I can "render" a dozen or more in that same time using a camera.

I tried using a Panagor branded copier, which is ostensibly the same as the one you mentioned and didn't find it all that great. That's why I built my own, which follows the same principles, but there is no way that I could do a dozen or more slides a minute.

I also suspect that part of the scanning time involved with slide/film scanners is taken up with the digital ice or similar dust/scratch removal process. Add the cleaning process to your camera based slide copying and I suspect that it'll add more than a minute to each slide copied.

 

[SLOjoe]

For serious or perhaps I'll call it critical work a dedicated, quality

film/slide scanner will deliver improved dynamic range (d max) and get more

out of film or slide. However, for me the duplicator in front of my macro lens

is sooooo much faster that for most of my work it serves the purpose quite well.

Depends on what you consider important, max quality vs max speed. Still, as I said

above, the film dup on front of the lens works well enough for most of my digitizing.

 

[Alex Ethridge]

I tried using a Panagor branded copier, which is ostensibly the same as the one you mentioned and didn't find it all that great. That's why I built my own, which follows the same principles, but there is no way that I could do a dozen or more slides a minute.

I also suspect that part of the scanning time involved with slide/film scanners is taken up with the digital ice or similar dust/scratch removal process. Add the cleaning process to your camera based slide copying and I suspect that it'll add more than a minute to each slide copied.

Now, if everyone would just be reasonable and just blindly agree with everything I write, without comment . . . ;-)

Several years ago, I had opportunity to watch slides being digitized in the back room of a local camera store chain. Best I remember, the scanner was a Nikon, cost about $2400 and they were scanning at its then-available highest resolution. Best I remember, it took just over two minutes for each scan to appear on the computer screen. and another second or two to make the necessary clicks to save it.

That was my only experience with a slide scanner; but, since it was a Nikon and since it certainly wasn't a cheap one, I considered it at or at least near state-of-the-art.

Again, that was my only up-close-and-personal experience with a slide scanner; but, knowing I had about 15,000 personal family slides to digitize and having only a couple of hours a week to spare for the project at the time, it would take easily five years to complete the task.

But, maybe there are scanners that can do high-quality scans in bulks of a hundred or so in one sitting and average one minute per slide, still though, at one per minute it would still have been nearly three years.

 

[Guy Parsons]

In my case a Microtek 4000 dpi film scanner, SCSI connection. Terribly slow, maybe 5 minutes or more per slide but not sure now as haven't used it for a while. One initial pass sets an "AF map" as it seems to allow the real scan pass to have best focus on all the slide surface as it passes. It can be set to multiple passes that help with very dense slides to make it even slower. Results excellent but a 16MP copy using the 60mm macro lens does just as well to get all there is to see off a slide in a tiny fraction of the time.

Use the raw file and drag detail out of the shadows that was not really evident when the slide was projected.

Regards.......Guy

 

[AlanVia]

I have around 13k slides, mostly Kodachrome 25s or 64s. Included are a few hundred Kodachrome slides, family shots, from the 40s and 50s. Still in perfect condition saved in a slide safe.

I've been following the thread closely and would love to live in Guy's neighborhood so I could swap adult beverages for a couple of weeks with his great looking setup. Unfortunately I don't have the talent to build something like that so I'm looking at some of the other great options offered in the thread, including the one with step up and step down attachments. I may have to learn how those work.

Thanks all so very much,

Alan

 

[ken davidoff]

I have a Cannon 9000F Scanner that works just fine.