The best (and quickest) way to scan (digitalize) your film negatives with a mirrorless camera
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- čas přidán 24. 07. 2024
- The best (and quickest) way to scan (digitalize) your film negatives with a mirrorless camera.
Come follow me on Instagram - / bcapphoto
Check out Sprout Studio - www.GetSproutStudio.com
Some of the items I mention in the video:
Kaiser Repro Kid Copy Stand Kit - www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...
Kaiser Slimlite Plano 5000K Battery/AC Lightbox - www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...
Negative Lab Pro - www.negativelabpro.com
Negative Supply Film Carrier MK1 - www.negative.supply/
Lomography DigitaLIZA 120 Scanning Mask - www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...
Yes and its $500 if you want the mount. Think about it ... it's a little box with a hole in it and a sprocket wheel to pull film through. Also you must provide your own light source & camera mount. I may be wrong, but I believe the technology of a box with a whole and sprocket that pulls film through has been around well over 100 years. Could probably find a Kodak Brownie box camera for $20 and modify it with your preferred tools of dissection and make your own.
no sprocket needed. Just a slide to put the film in so it lines up side to side. then use pegs in holes for sprocket holes when lined up and CLICK ...
A box with a “whole” - a “whole” what?
@@mikefromflorida8357 A whole hole ...
Excellent video! The visual and the sound are both excellent. I learned a lot and am quite grateful.
This is amazing! Negative supply carrier makes the process so much easier! Now all I got to do is save for one
Yea! Totally!
this was sooo helpful, i was getting frustrated with my scanning process, thank you!
Bloody magnificent. I need to switch out my workflow. Soooooo many negatives in my cupboard.
Thank you for sharing.
You bet, thanks for watching!
@Bobby Brady I certainly care about showing dust. Is there another way to do this without the dust showing and do this at home?
Very helpful, many thanks for sharing your workflow!
You're very welcome!
great video. this is exactly the information i needed. super useful. thank you!
You're so welcome, glad it was helpful!
This is really excellent. Thank you.
Thanks!
This is great!! Thank you so much!
Great video with clear instructions! Any ideas for digitizing slides? I have Olympus 4/3 mirror less camera and a 60mm (really 120) and a Peak Design travel tripod. I have ordered the Nikon ES2 slide and film digitizer but it has been on back order. I would appreciate any ideas you might have. Thanks!!
Really nice exposure and color in your vid.
Thank you 🙏
very tidy set-up and great insight
Thanks!
Thank you for sharing ur knowledge.
You bet!
This the best workflow on digitizing film negatives on CZcams. Seen a bunch of videos but this one is the BEST. Thank you 👍🏻😊
thank you for sharing, very interesting and helpful!
You bet, my pleasure! Thank you!
Excellent, very useful, thank you
Very helpful video
Many thanks
Good Stuff. Thank you
Hi Bryan! Great video! I have a few quick questions that I hope you can answer. I have a Sony a7R III and am planning on using the Sigma ART 70mm/2.8 MACRO lens for digitizing my negatives.
Right now, I have the Kaiser Repro Kid Copy Stand Kit and the Kaiser Slimlight Plano sitting in my bhphoto shopping cart, but I'm not sure about one thing regarding the copy stand.
Since the Kaiser Repro Kid Copy Stand is only 23.25" tall, will that be tall enough to digitize 4x5 large format negatives in one shot, or do I need a taller copy stand?
Also, since the negative apparently can't just lay flat against the lightbox, does the negative have to be on anti-newton ring glass or can it just sit "naked," lifted slightly above the lightbox?
Many thanks!
-Kris
A great YT video explaining film digitising. I have a very similar setup and use the XT3. Currently I drectly transfer files to a folder on my laptop for lightroom to pickup and transfer, sort of tethered! Can you please elaborate on your tethered shooting method? A 👍🏻s up
Just the review I needed. Thanks for this. I need to buy one of these now
You bet! Enjoy!
Brilliant solution to problems experienced by many of us amateurs, and I'm sure, some pros as well. Thank you so much. I'd also like your suggestions on copying photos/prints where no negative is available?
I've used this setup for that! Only difference is I'll throw a flash on the camera instead of backlighting it with the light table.
Very good tutorial Indeed !
Thanks so much!
Thanks for going through all the steps of your workflow. I've been looking at this exact set-up and nice to see some of the tips you cover like avoiding light leaks etc.
Sweet! Let me know how you end up making out!
Great tutorial. Thanks. Looks like you were shooting emulsion side up?
Great video. But I am looking for an answer which I did not get yet in any of videos till now, when you feed the negatives, it holds on both sides flat. What about the last frame, it must have been not holding on the last frame on one side. Then how does it keep the negative Flat?
Great video. However, I have a question. Do you follow the old darkroom maxim “emulsion to emulsion”? In other words is the emulsion side of the film facing up or down in your workflow?
Thanks for this! So the Fujifilm 60mm macro does cover the whole negative and you don't need extension tubes to get in closer? Why not aperture priority and autofocus? Are you screwing the Kaiser into the bottom of the XT3? I have just ordered the Kaiser and was wondering how to attach a removable plate.
Perfect tutorial!
Thank you!
thanks for fessing up on a common over sight by many
Great video!
Hey thanks Mac! Really appreciate you taking the time to watch it! :)
I am wondering if your camera scanning system can produce exhibit-quality prints. Thanks for the useful video.
A great presentation. Perhaps you should mask out the stray light with black masking paper a tape. I'm a retired scanner operator & thats what I've been doing with flat bed scanning of colour negatives instead of using a Hell drum scanner.
The 35mm film carrier is exactly what I was looking for: Not the price point I was expecting.I'll wait until more competitors come into the field.I'll keep using my home made contraption for now.
Totally! You do what you've gotta do. Hopefully you gleaned some insight from this!
Do you think the Fuji 35mm ff1.4 or 56mm f1.2 + 11mm extension tube will do the job?
Thanks Bryan
That was awesome! Took me forever yesterday! What white balance do you have your xt3 set at?
I leave it around 5000k, but I manually set the white balance off of the edge of the film once I have it in LR.
Excellent Video! The Kaiser Kid copy stand says it can only hold 1lbs. Is that correct because yours looks sturdy enough. I have a canon 6d and just wondering.
Looking to upgrade from my Epson v550. Recently purchased a large collection of 35mm slides and realized how slow flatbed scanners can be.
Great tutorial. Couple of questions I would love to get your input on.
1. Do you find this scanning to be better than what you get from a lab that drum scans?
2. What size print can you make from a 35mm using your technique.
Thanks in advance for taking the time to answer.
I'm not the video creator, but I'd like to chime in on this.
First, processing black and white film is extremely easy. The working temperatures for pretty much all B&W developers are much closer to "room temperature" and these chemicals tend to be very cheap. Labs on the other hand don't really offer you much other than the convenience of not having to develop the film yourself, and they charge more to process black and white films (actual black and white films that is, unlike ilford XP2 which isn't actually a black and white film.) Labs also upcharge for higher quality scanning and negative return shipment, so unless you have a local lab you can go to in person, the costs will very quickly stack up. For the same cost of developing a handful of rolls, you can get all of the supplies you'll need to develop dozens, if not hundreds of rolls yourself.
Now here's the problem with lab scans. Where color scanning from a lab may be the best option available to you, black and white scanning again offers very little. A trained expert in film color science isn't going to be scrutinizing and adjusting all of your black and white negatives. They're literally just black and white images. So what exactly are you paying for? This is especially true if you opt not to get your negatives returned and the lab scans are all you get.
The video creator shows exactly why self scanning is superior when he pointed out the histogram. One of the great advantages of film vs digital is it's latitude, you might get some crushed blacks, but they are going to be textured blacks with smooth roll off into them, even if that roll off is over a short distance. The highlights offer a lot more recoverability over digital since you aren't limited to 256 luminance values, but the entire gamut of light intensity. Except once you scan the image, it's now digital, and you lose all of that latitude. If you're scanning the film yourself, you can bracket your scans just like you would any photo, and then composite them into an HDR image. Pulling details from the highlights and shadows that would otherwise be lost to a single median balanced scan.
@@WatchMeSayStuff Interesting . . . . I don't think I have heard anyone else suggest using HDR techniques for film scanning, but it makes sense to me (for the occasional very special image that also has unusually wide dynamic range, at least). But it's a lot more effort.
Great video. Would the film carrier work well with cut strips of four? I'm digitising my parents' old negatives.
No the carrier is meant to use a roll, but the Lomo device he showed can hold up to six negative (of 35mm) and it does a good job. Unless you are developing a lot film the expensive of the carrier is steep in my opinion. It does work great but not for film that is cut...also notice how the roll he was doing was sliding on the table that can introduce dust and dirt. I use the Lomo holder with white gloves and since the negatives are already cut when I am finished I just slide them into a film negative holder and put them away.
Thanks David! It does actually work for strips of 4 - you just need to manually advance the strip by pushing it until the carrier grabs the negative and you can use the knob to advance.
Hey! Are there any drawbacks to using an extension tube versus a macro lens? Thank you so much!
I've heard that a true macro lens will give better results - flatter field of focus so the corners will be much sharper.
Невероятно полезное видео! Вы очень быстро и грамотно всё разложили по полочкам! Интересно то, что я со временем во многом пришёл к похожей системе. Сейчас использую световой стол Kaiser similite plano, Lomography digitaliza 35mm film scanning mask, camera Canon EOS M50 с объективом Canon EF 100/2,8 macro. После экспериментов я также пришёл к выводу, что применение обычных объективов с макро-кольцами, это плохое решение. Всё это на штативе Manfrotto с горизонтальной штангой. Да, каждый раз приходится выставлять камеру на штативе по уровню и устанавливать плёнку отрезками без возможности применять в последующем одни настройки для многих кадров. Теперь, после вашего видео, есть возможность совершенствовать систему. Спасибо вам за это! Просто мне не нравились системы подачи плёнки, которые пробовал. Но я не знал про Pro Film Carrier 35. Да, теперь я буду маскировать неиспользуемое пространство светового стола. К стати, я использую Capture One. Чёрт возьми, мужик, спасибо тебе за это видео!
Would the same process work for mounted slides? I suppose there'd have to be some other masking arrangement for individual slides as opposed to the film Carrier.
Where can I purchase the film carrier you recommend? Will it handle negatives that have been cut into strips of 4?
Hi! Do you also scan 120 film? How do you do that? Thanks !
What other way led light box you recommend? I was using my imac screen but i see the pixel, wo it doesn't work. Tia
it seems like you're getting a little bit of vignetting around the edges, do you think that the lens you're using, or is the negative supply carrier somehow darkening the edges of your film frame, acting as a king of negative fill from every side?
How’s the copy stand holding up? I’ve read that it’s not super sturdy.
Very cool - Thanks for sharing your process!
You are welcome! I know you know all about it - but sharing this kind of stuff online makes it so much more accessible for others who are looking to "up their game" or get into it. Thank you for all that you do, too!
For masking the stray light, maybe a soft black blanket can do the job too
For B&W, I don't fiddle around with NLP. I just invert the tone curve (then save it as a preset called Neative) and click on the tone line where highlights meet whites and drag it to the bottom. Then I just drag left or right depending on how I want it to look. I found doing it this way was a little faster than letting NLP. For color though, I have to use NLP
How does that thing even work if one have regularly cut strips of 6 frames per strip? It seems to need an overshoot of the film window of about 2-3 frames for the roller to work?
It works - you just can't auto-advance it until it grabs on the left side. So not really a big deal at all!
Does that film holder work with cut strips? All of my strips are cut to 6 frames
Yes it does!
Thank you for this.
Which camera is that you are using?
@3:11
This seems pretty awesome. But aren't there batch scanners for way less than this entire setup? The xt3 plus lens alone is over a grand. The scanning thing is another 400 plus light etc is almost another grand lol. You can get a batch scanner from b&h for around 4 to 500 that removes the dust and scratches for you for the most part. Am I crazy here? Mind you, I was really considering this method...
Thanks for sharing your technique! I went ahead and ordered a full setup from Negative Supply... I have so much film to digitalize... Awesome tutorial!!
Ouuu, amazing! Negative Supply is truly amazing, and the company (and people behind it) are amazing, too. Welcome. You'll love it!
What microphone were you using great tutorial ?
It was an old Senheiser wireless lav mic. I think the gain was turned up too high. I'm a photographer not a videographer haha.
What’s your shutter speed set at?
You're an excellent teacher, & your video content was like a great & healthy '3 course meal'! You've got my subscription.
It looks as if you have emulsion sideup. Won't this give you a flipped image when you photograph it?
Hi, do you think a 14mp camera would be sufficient for this? (Sony A7Siii)
Hi! That should be more than enough. It's more in the quality of your lens. Just make sure to have a close focusing macro lens that doesn't distort the image. I recommend at least a 60mm focal length.
Thanks a lot for the helpful video! The negative holder looks great. However, I have to digitize negatives that are cut in stripes (most of the time 6 negatives), does the negative carrier also work with stripes and if yes, is there a minimum of negatives the stripe must have ? I hope you or anybody can answer the question - it is the only one that holds me back, even if the price seems to be pretty high...
Look into the Nikon ES-2 for 35mm film tht has been cut into strips.
Just curious, is your version of the Keiser led panel uniformly lit? Especially the top side. Is there noticeable intensity change horizontally where the leds are? I realize the episode is mostly about negative supply, but It would have been more informative if the light panel wasn’t overexposed? Also, do you think that manual focus ring would have work better compared to focus by wire? And finally can you rescan cut and sleeved negatives with the film holder? Thanks !!
Can the negative Supply cope with pieces of 6 frames (35mm)? Thanks !
Yeah, it can! :)
Sprout Studio great !! Thanks !
How about doing slides?
Excellent tutorial, probably the best on film digitization. All I'm going to do is use a different film carrier.
Thanks Sammy! Glad to hear that you enjoyed it!
Rational was to be able to use B/W or color film..... very clean
Woo! Thanks for the comment!
great tutorial man! very informative and helpful. quick q: i’ve been missing focus with my nikkor micro lens and have been having a bit of trouble focusing on the grain. do you happen to have any tips? I’m using the exact same setup but with a 55mm nikkor micro and xt-3.
Most digital cameras have a live focus mode where you can zoom in and focus precisely. You will of course not be using any kind of autofocus for this.
I put a macro focusing rail between the camera and tripod, and focus manually with that.
Genuine question: Is this a look into your workflow or a advertisement for the negative supply carrier?
100% my workflow. I paid for both the Negative Supply Mk1 and the 120 version that's on Kickstater now. I have no affiliation with them - just wanted to show my workflow b/c photographers seem to struggle with it! :)
@@Getsproutstudio Thanks for clarifying. You just seemed overly positiv about a tool that has far better and cheaper competitors like the Kaiser FilmCopy Kit oder the Skier CopyBox. Nice vid nonetheless!
@@jarequemetabolski Yeah, there are lots of choices! I love the Negative Supply products. I love the guys behind it (AJ and Saxon) and I love that they're innovating in this crazy niche of film photography. I like to support folks like that with my money :)
@@Getsproutstudio I appreciate your love for them but their products are not innovative. they are just expansive and mostly worse then already existing options.
Sprout Studio Thank you for this great tutorial. I would be happy to see the 120mm version in action.
Could you do a review of negmaster for negative conversion? Gives me best results!
This is exactly the kind of film carrier I've been looking for... but then I saw the price... Almost 400 bucks for a carrier... GOOD LORD.
guess I'll be sticking with the digitaliza for a bit longer.
Yeah - it's expensive, no doubt, but the time it saves you makes it worth it, in my opinion!
stick with the digitaliza or get the skier if you want to upgrade. both are better, a lot cheaper and you are maybe spend 2 minutes more per roll then with the NS tool. shooting film nowadays is never about speed.
@@jarequemetabolski Yeah - there are lots of solutions out there! I'm definitely not saying that this is the only one, it's just the one that I chose!
@@Getsproutstudio This one is similar to the negative supply one and you can 3D print it for cheap: www.thingiverse.com/thing:3985120
@@HansBaier thanks for the link!
Interesting product but cannot afford to be the early adopter with that price tag. Have to wait for the price to drop or a new competitor to come into the market.
Odd that you never mention about emulsion side of negative up or down in setting up the film holder.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻🙆🏻♀️
Take a look at the Beseler Negatrans. $30 on ebay
I 'm no photographer but I understand some film shooter shoots film because of the look that is very different from bayer filter look. So why then subjecting your film to the bayer filter interpolation instead of buying or using affordable full rgb color dedicated scanner.
Great!, will try
Just a quick question if I may: Are you capturing in JEPEG or Raw?
Thanks
- Caula
Hey! I capture them all in RAW!
0:45 from start to scratch?
Bahaha - silly goof up. I didn't have this scripted or anything, so I was just going off the cuff. Thanks for pointing out the mistake, though!
Why not just get something like an epson scanner?
Epson scanner takes a loooooooooooong time to scan. And depending on which model you buy its fairly annoying. Have to keep switching out the film and maintain the glass so its not dusty. Scanning with DSLR saves a bunch of time
Oh okay! I’ve been looking into it so thanks!
@@ChristopherMichaelRI just purchased an Epson V600 & use the rather great SilverFast 9 SE software to color correct & balance a frame or sets of frames, prior to making the actual scan. (By the way, free download with the V600 purchase from any seller). The process done correctly, nearly ever needs further work in PS or LR. But it is true. It can be modestly to very time consuming! One good thing is that each 135 or 120 frame can be individually edited, then the total set can be batched processed, so you can go off & do other tasks. As well, SilverFast allows a scan to be in the works, while changing to a different frame for editing at the same time.
BUT... I have tested your process & it definitely has it’s advantages, I use a Nikon D5200 with the 'normal' 18-55, 1:1.35-5.6G VR zoom lens, & had EXCELLENT results! First of all, even with the most basic of film holders & tri-pod, the process was very fast. I teather either with a windows computer using the free & excellent software, digiCamControl, or to a Mac with a very solid free software called Sofortbild. Both allow ‘electronic’ shutter release from the computer. The light table was an iPad with the ‘MyLight’ free software (there are many free offerings via the Apple store). Must use a diffusing / frosting glass or plastic, if you lay the film strip directly on the iPad glass - or raise your film holder up an inch or so, so that the focus plane to the film is different that the distance to the light table.
The rendition (with no reversing / inverting in the camera) yields excellent results. Can make exposure adjustment on the fly; instant capture!!!; pixel rendition seems MUCH better than (~3200ppi lets say) on the flatbed scanner.
I have made a very, very good PhotoShop Action for accurate reversing of the negative to a positive as well as for Level, Curves, etc. AND Dust & Scratch Removal - all in one smooth working Action. I will add a link to the Action soon or just email me at charles@charmar.com.
Nice, those nearly kissing people standing on your head
I'm sorry? LOL
@@Getsproutstudio One of the first things I learned, starting as a photographer over 40 years ago was not to grow items (in the background) out of someones head. I just saw those persons on the poster behind you, it was a recall.... ;-)
@@marcovellinga8976 Bahaha gotcha. That's hilarious! I definitely didn't put much production value into this - it was a quick 1-hour project one afternoon to share some of my experience with scanning/digitizing film. I tried to put my energy into creating a helpful tutorial vs. it being perfectly polished. But - my (nearly) bald head does make a nice mountain for that couple to stand on, doesn't it? Haha
This process is deemed the "best", because (I assume) it is based on techniques required for new equipment. Better results and more convenient process can be had with equipment from the past which was designed to do the job. Any decent film scanner will give a better result and be far easier to use. Another option would be to replace the film holder and stand with a 35mm dichroic copy stand commonly available in the 1980s. Durst made a particularly nice version; mine cost me $50. It is a much more solid stand. The film carrier is specifically designed for the purpose. It has a light source built in, which can adjust source color to do color corrections or zero white balance. You still provide a camera and lens, but most of your money goes for the lens rather than $300 for a silly little film holder. These rigs were made to copy film slides and make positives from negatives. Scans like this are nothing special for such equiupment, but they were expensive new and now hard to find.
'Digitize' not 'Digitalize'. The former is a conversion. The latter is a process transformation (e.g from an film camera based business to a digital camera based business).
Thank you for correcting me 😊
Why not take a Pentax camera which reverses the colors directly without having to go through photoshop ... There are some not too expensive second-hand (K-01, K3, K5 IIs, K1 etc ...)
Hey - to each their own! Lots of ways to approach it, this is just how I chose to do it with the equipment I have. AFAIK, when you use Pentax's reverse colour, you don't get the RAW, which I would want for maximum quality and flexibility.
the problem i really noticed with the negative supply carrier is that it seems like, because the sides of the film carrier is black where it comes closer to the sides of negative, that black is acting as a negative fill onto the film - making the edges of the film slightly underexposed - and then when you convert it almost looks like there's flaring on the edges. I think i'm noticing that on your black and white negative as well. painting the inside of the carrier white or taping white paper to the insides might help scatter the light coming up to the film more. --- for now i'm going to prefer putting the film onto the light source and just taking my time with masking to get the cleanest results possible.
FYI........I couldn't understand what you said "Spro.....Studio". You said it 3x and I still couldn't get it. Then I scrolled down and saw the name "Sprout". Maybe if you said it slower with sharper elocution might help.
Thanks for the feedback!
Yeah, don't think I'm willing to spend $650 just to digitize some negatives. That's just too much. The negative supply film carrier is outlandish in price too. I guess for all those professionals watching it's maybe worth it. But I don't shoot film THAT much to justify this cost. Better off to make your own negative mask with anti newton glass and maybe a tablet for the backlight.
The absolute easiest way to digitize slides and negatives is a Nikon ES28 and a Coolpix 4500.
Lots of options, for sure! Just sharing what I found to work for me! :)
Sprout Studio, I’ve been using mine for over twenty years. The program in the Coolpix cameras preset for slides or negatives with the proper exposure compensation for either. The rotating body is also a plus.
@@arttafil6792 Awesome! Like I said - lots of options! Just sharing what I have found to work well for me!
This was the way I use to digitise with great success. However digitising as per this video along with the use of negativelab pro gives far better results and greater control of colour balancing.
Yes but, 100$ for a light box? 😟
Yeah - it's well worth it! :D
You can pick up the exact same lightbox at various craft stores for about half that price, even cheaper without the battery option. Kaiser are just buying these and rebadging them.
@@JohnDavidsonjohnd Hey man - do what you've gotta do! Whatever gets the job done, right?!
Bobby Brady not sure if it is all that even. Seems like there is a significant variation in the intensity where the leds are.
Everything is too damn expensive.
B+W is elementary, Color is where it's at.
I do both :)
“Digitalising”? Try, digitise, digitisation, digitising and digitised!
Thanks for the correction 🤗
Do I look like I'm Bloomberg? I would never pay the price they want for that.
Hey - to each their own! There are many options out there on the market. I chose to pay for convenience, quality and for the time I save using it!
great tutorial... just a quick suggestion... use "digitizing" instead of "digitalizing". There is no such word (digitalizing). You want to be a credible presenter and correct grammar helps. Something sorely lacking with today's production standards. No offense meant. Keep up the good work and be safe!
Thank you for your feedback
And yet the title still says "digitalize"
A wedding photographer...how sad.
Thanks - not sure what you mean though 🤷♂️
DIGITALIZE????
Damn, this is a good tutorial 👌
Hey thanks so much! 🙏