Slide copying with a 4/3 camera & macro lens

Sully45

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What type of equipment do I use to make this work on 4/3 Gh5. What tubes, adapters, products work with this equipment? Using a 60mm f2.8 macro OM

I am finding devices that work on full frame cameras, but not necessarily on mirror less cameras

I am wondering if a Pentax bellows system would work along with the Pentax slide holder. I believe Nikon has a system. ES 1 but again I’m not sure if that would work because it’s a 4/3 format (camera)

I’m in quite a dilemma trying to figure out what I need. I’m looking for the best solution that will give me good results. If you have any ideas or suggestions I would so much appreciate it.

Thank you for your expertise!
 
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I've been doing this a LOT lately; copied >1100 old slides pretty efficiently using a FF mirrorless camera. About all you might need to change is the macro lens focal length.

You could try a commercial setup like this:


...and add a light source. Or you could make something like my setup:

EOS R5—12mm extension tube—100mm Macro lens

The tube allows the lens to magnify more than its native 1X, which allows me to get the entire slide frame to fill my camera's frame. Because your camera's sensor has different length x width ratio than 35mm slides, you're going to end up including the slide mount to fill the frame. This isn't a problem if you use batch processing software like Lightroom or Capture One, as you can easily crop the same on multiple images as long as the slides are all aligned the same to the camera.

Similarly, if you can't get to ~1.1X with your macro lens, you'd just crop a bit more to include only the slide area. Or, if you go through the laborious process of removing the slides from their mounts, you'll have to deal with the film surrounding the image.

I chose to not remove the films. Reason: my mounts are plastic and haven't appreciably distorted the film. I use Capture One for processing and found that it's trivial to create an elliptical gradient mask and apply whatever corrections are needed (typically Sharpen and Exposure). I'm also able to remove dust and do all of the normal pp corrections one might do with a fresh image. The results, while not perfect, end up looking better than the original slides in most cases.

That's the camera bit. Two other things are needed: a way to hold the slides perfectly parallel with the camera and aligned with the lens axis...and a way of illuminating the slide.

I mounted a piece of window glass in a plastic holder that I made. Easy jig to make if you've got a saw and means of holding the plastic. The glass dimensions just need to be bigger than the slide mount, and the entire thing must allow you to easily swap slides.

I have a diffuser attached to the back of the glass to ensure good lighting. The diffuser's nothing special: I cut it from a spare filter case.

To accommodate slight variations in slide-to-camera distance, I have the holder mounted on a rail like the ones here:


Next, you need a light source. Any kind of light panel should work as long as it's bright enough and is about daylight temperature.

I found it inconvenient to compose through the EVF/LCD, so I've connected a CamRanger and display the working image on a computer monitor; that's all optional.

The entire thing works very well, and it's much easier than it sounds to get it all setup.

Previously, I used a bellows setup, but found that the lens I had resulted in unacceptable spherical distortion; hence the "kludge" above.

Whatever you do, be prepared for lots of repetitive work, and you'll likely want to process the digital image if you want to bring them closer to what your camera could do today.
 
This one works well for me. It is pretty simple and easy to use. One cravat is it is made for a 50mm Macro lens. I put together an extension tube for use with a 100mm macro. To get color accuracy with a slide I use a one of a kind (in this solar system) full wave high CRI RA light source that works very well for me... a sheet of ultra-white copy paper reflecting the sun from about 18" away. LED's fluorescents, incandescent don't do nearly as good of job with full spectrum color reproduction.

Bellows usually go between a standard lens and the camera to move the lens further from the sensor to make a sudo-macro lens. Old cheap used macro lenses specifically designed for macro work will almost always do a better job than a non-macro lens on bellows. For slide / negative duplication I always use manual focus... so no need to purchase an AF macro if you don't already own one.

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P.S. This screws into the filter ring of a macro lens. Mine came with several adapters for different filter ring diameters.

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I like the tube style copiers because they keep stray light out of the lens.

If I where going to buy a new one this is the one I think I would buy:

 
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I have the Pentax bellows and slide copier. All you would need is a 4/3 to m42 adapter and an m42 to 4/3 adapter for the camera. Note that it will be strictly manual, with no electronic focusing or aperture. On lenses with aperture rings (mostly vintage and some new), you can just set the f/ stop, so I mostly use vintage lenses.

The Nikon bellows has more movements available at the film gate, which should be nice for cropping. You could also use Nikon F mount lenses, although you'd still need an adapter for the camera.
 
The Nikon bellows has more movements available at the film gate, which should be nice for cropping. You could also use Nikon F mount lenses, although you'd still need an adapter for the camera.
I initially tried a Nikon PB-4 bellows + PS-4 Slide Copy Attachment, with an appropriate Nikon F-Canon EF adapter. Noteworthy: it really needs a flat field lens like a Micro Nikkor. I tried both Nikkor-H and Nikkor-S lenses (both are regular 50mm FL), and the edge distortion was bothersome. That problem was eliminated when I switched to a Canon macro lens, which unfortunately doesn't adapt to the Nikon bellows...hence my DIY solution described above.

I believe that if you found a Micro Nikkor, the Nikon setup would be fine.
 
The Nikon bellows has more movements available at the film gate, which should be nice for cropping. You could also use Nikon F mount lenses, although you'd still need an adapter for the camera.
I initially tried a Nikon PB-4 bellows + PS-4 Slide Copy Attachment, with an appropriate Nikon F-Canon EF adapter. Noteworthy: it really needs a flat field lens like a Micro Nikkor. I tried both Nikkor-H and Nikkor-S lenses (both are regular 50mm FL), and the edge distortion was bothersome. That problem was eliminated when I switched to a Canon macro lens, which unfortunately doesn't adapt to the Nikon bellows...hence my DIY solution described above.

I believe that if you found a Micro Nikkor, the Nikon setup would be fine.
I mostly use a 75mm Rodenstock Apo-Rodagon-D1x f/4, which has a flat field, and is optimized for 1:2 to 2:1. There was a whole bunch on eBay when I bought mine; I think they were take-outs from some obsolete machine vision system.
 

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