[HOW TO] Digitize film negatives with your u4/3 or DSLR camera

thx, i'm very interested in the outcome. Please post an example of the results...

 

Making a thread for this is a very good idea. Recently I spent two evenings searching the parts for a cheap&working setup.

I found a similar setup, maybe it is a tad easier:

1. mFT camera (of course)
2. Olympus 60mm/2.8 macro
3. Stepup ring 46mm->52mm
4. "52mm Tele Metal Lens Hood" (ebay 4$)
5. Stepdown ring 58mm->52mm
6. Nikon Nikon ES-1 52mm slide adapter (50$)
7. flash in RC mode (fl600r)

Biggest problem was to wait three weeks until the lens hood arrived from HongKong. But quality was good, especially the 52mm and the 58mm windings had good quality.

The setup looks and works quite good. I use auto focus and f8. I can see sharp film grain in the resulting photo.

Maybe I post a photo if someone is interested.

 

I am! Looking for the most efficient way to digitize my negatives, so I'm loving this thread.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Mu-43 mobile app

 

I'm also interested in this approach, although most of my images are slides.

 

Hate to quote my own post, but meanwhile I took a photo of my setup and I have to correct the one or other detail.

Here is my actual setup, I have a 58mm LensHood, not a 52mm one. With the lens hood you get the working distance for 1:2 magnification, otherwise the slider would be cropped:

1. mFT camera (of course)
2. Olympus 60mm/2.8 macro
3. Stepup ring 46mm->58mm
4. "58mm Tele Metal Lens Hood" (ebay 4$)
5. Stepdown ring 62mm->52mm
6. Nikon Nikon ES-1 52mm slide adapter (50$)
7. flash in RC mode (fl600r)

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I have a similar setup for slides, using the Nikon ES-1 adapter, but I haven't tried digitizing negatives because I was afraid the adapter would scratch the film. Have you had trouble with scratches, or do you take any precautions against them?

 

Or you could use a flatbed scanner like an Epson 4870/4990/700 which will allow you to scan upwards of twenty at a time without sitting there and aligning every one. You will get better results with negatives too as you will be working in 16 bits without needing to convert raw files.

This topic comes up on the internet with regular occurrence. Heck 10 years ago Nikon even sold attachments for digital cameras to do it.

If your issue is the difficulty of coming to grips with a scanner then I have guides on my blog for that:
http://cjeastwd.blogspot.com/search/label/scan tips

 

 

Hi,

I followed the above-mentioned description by Christof, but important parts of the slides are cut off (maybe a third of the original slide). What can I do?

Thanks for your advice in advance

Erwin

 

You need more distance between the lens and the slide holder. @christofp is evidently using a "Tele Metal Lens Hood" for the purpose. I use two 52mm x 28mm filter extension tubes, as described here: Macro lenses (Nikon and Olympus) for slide copying

 

So one thing that doesnt make sense to me... Why F8? That isnt a comon sweet spot for M43 and your target appears flat?

Looking for clarity.

 

The small aperture is for depth of field, to keep the image sharp corner-to-corner even if the film is not completely flat. An aperture smaller than f/8 starts getting softness from diffraction. I use f/5.6. The idea is just that there's no need to soften the image by using maximum aperture. Even if you don't use a flash, the subject is firmly mounted to the lens so there's little danger of blurring from camera shake during a long exposure.