6 ms·

The state of dedicated film scanning is so bad these days, especially for larger than 35mm formats that it seems most people still shooting film are resorting t

The state of dedicated film scanning is so bad these days, especially for larger than 35mm formats that it seems most people still shooting film are resorting to using a digital camera and a macro lens with something to hold the film. Seems a pity.

astrostl 4y ago
Alternatively, the state of digital cameras is so good these days that they can be used to digitize film. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pnqF8G_wiM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pnqF8G_wiM highlights a setup with a Panasonic G9 that features an 80MP in-camera high resolution mode. A used body can be found as low as $500 in the USA, and it's a camera too!
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
I think there are adapters for digicams.
- omoikane 4y ago
  Nikon has one: https://www.nikonusa.com/en/learn-and-explore/a/tips-and-techniques/digitizing-film-using-the-d850-and-es-2-negative-digitizer.html https://www.nikonusa.com/en/learn-and-explore/a/tips-and-tec...
- hotcoffeebear 4y ago
  Here is one from Pentax https://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2014/04/21/pentax-film-duplicator-helps-you-scan-35mm-and-medium-format-film-quicker https://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2014/04/21/pentax-film...
fetus8 4y ago
You're correct. Most people who do their own scans either use a macro lens or a telephoto with extension tubes to create a macro lens of sorts. Then you need a negative holder such as this one: https://www.negative.supply/shop-all/basic-film-carrier-35 https://www.negative.supply/shop-all/basic-film-carrier-35. You need a light table or LED hot light, and a way to hold the camera and you're in business. Personally, I've been scanning my own 35mm negatives for the past few years with both a Full-frame DSLR and an APS-C Mirrorless camera, and get much much better results than I'd been getting via my local film processing lab and their scanning. Scanning negatives with a modern digital camera still retains a lot of the filmic quality that we've come to expect via shooting film. Obviously you lose the "resolution" and ability to blow those images up once scanned, but you can 100% still see the grain, color reproduction, and analog anomalies that we're used to by shooting film.
- keithbingman 4y ago
  Yeah, I have recently switched to "scanning" my 6x6cm and 35mm negatives with a macro lens and digital camera. It's probably not as flat out perfect as a really good scanner, but the end results look amazing and fit my workflow for digital images as well. I recently got a camera with "pixel shift" technology and using that the files have 96mb and really show off the grain. Plus it's just faster than scanning ever was. I am really very happy with the setup.
  - fetus8 4y ago
    Heck ya! How are you processing your negatives? Negative Lab Pro? Manually creating positives in Photoshop?
    - keithbingman 4y ago
      I've just been doing it in Photoshop. I have primarily Black and White negatives with a few E6 slides, so it's pretty easy.
    - lm28469 4y ago
      I'd recommend https://grain2pixel.com https://grain2pixel.com. It's free, works good and the creator answered my emails in less than a day
- magicalhippo 4y ago
  Do you just use the central portion for the negative, or do you correct for optics somehow (ala flat frames in astro)?
  - seszett 4y ago
    If you don't use a planar lens it will never really look good. What I do for my part is just use an enlarger to which I attach my digital camera with various tubes and adapters to get the distances right, and an enlarger lens. These lenses are infinitely cheaper than "regular" planar lenses and they're just made exactly for the job, and the whole assembly is rigid and aligned so it's easy to get the whole negative right.
jrockway 4y ago
I wet scan on a flatbed, though I will admit the process is tedious and holding a negative up to a lamp and taking a snapshot with my phone is 80% as good ;)
- metadat 4y ago
  I'd never heard of this. https://petapixel.com/2017/02/14/wet-mount-scanning-get-highest-quality-film-scans-home/ https://petapixel.com/2017/02/14/wet-mount-scanning-get-high... Can you really get 80% of the detail like with the Hasselblad X1 with your phone? For the wet scanning is it a regular consumer grade scanner or something specific / special? How do the results compare to the X1?
  - NegativeK 4y ago
    I suspect they're referring to "80% of what I want out of it," not "80% of the detail."
  - codpiece 4y ago
    Wet scanning was the default for drum scanners, the gold standard in the 90s. Essentially, you lay a drop of mineral oil on the glass drum, create a bond with the negative and then tape it down for good measure since the drum spun at a pretty good clip. Wet scanning is worthwhile if you have a higher-end flatbed scanner like the Epson V700, 750 and 900(?) because they use higher-quality sensors and real lenses. I almost bought a drum scanner a decade ago but would have to maintain a Mac Quadra for it to run. For large format film, a wet mount scan on an Epson V750 with VueScan software is great.
  - philjohn 4y ago
    And I wonder if this is the scanning equivalent of wet lithography for making microchips?
aplusbi 4y ago
A friend of mine built a device specifically for using a digital camera to "scan" 35mm film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEDWeAbd6J4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEDWeAbd6J4
mmcwilliams 4y ago
Scanning medium format can be a pain but I've had decent results with an Epson V700 for 4x5 film. A lot more cost effective than a Flextight and I maintain some VMs with the firmware on various operating systems that have traveled with me through various desktop builds. I'd like to see some better FOSS options but images are a lot better quality than they were using cheap desktop film scanners in 2005.
BuckyBeaver 4y ago
Another one is that nobody made a feeder for movie film, for ANY of the consumer or "prosumer" scanners at any price. If you want film scanned today to individual files per frame, it's still a bunch of money if you can find someone to do it... and good luck getting it done right.
- dylan604 4y ago
  The movie film scanners that are top notch are easily in the six figure range, and go up depending on the features. In a past life, I was researching a scanner to buy for film restoration purposes, and I can't remember the name of the company or unit, but it would move each frame into place and then "gently" press down to flatten the film, and then triple flash it to monochrome CCD with the appropriate RGB filter. It was a big machine and with the flattening and triple flashing was not real time capable, but not as slow as I would have expected. Somewhere between 12-18fps for 2K and slowed down for 4K+ scanning. The project was never funded, so it was all for naught, but I enjoy getting to research new toys like that while on the clock so to speak.
  - BuckyBeaver 4y ago
    I understand (I work in the industry), but the point still stands that these companies could have added greatly to the appeal of their scanners by offering a motion-picture attachment, no matter how slow. I was considering trying to build one out of an inspection microscope, but gave it up and just had my most-important reels scanned to TIFFs.
    - dylan604 4y ago
      >I was considering trying to build one out of an inspection microscope, but gave it up justifying the cost of the people that did not give up and made an actual product. "if this shit was easy, everyone would do it!" is something i remind myself all the time
      - BuckyBeaver 4y ago
hotcoffeebear 4y ago
My EPSON flatbed film scanner is bad, especially for 120mm film, but… that was cheaper than 10 rolls of film scanned in low res for me.
ezconnect 4y ago
He can even go higher resolution by using microscope.
- ravenhappy 4y ago
  This is a good point. Speaking of points, in the way a laser turntable pickup is noisier than a needle, would an electron microscope scan of a frame of film be best, or is there a sweet spot where the grain noise is at an optimal minimum?
  - ezconnect 4y ago
    His dream scanner is 8000ppi about 3.175um pixel size. A Canon 5DS 50 megapixel has a pixel size of 4.1 microns.
kkukshtel 4y ago
I shoot lots of 120mm on a Mamiya 7 and am currently stuck with an Epson V600 as my best option. Unfortunately, the scanning experience sucks for 6x7 photos because of how not-long the bed is. You can only scan two 6x7 photos at a time, and then have to turn the film around. It's a tedious process that means most of my film remains unscanned. As others have mentioned here I am also looking into trying to fauxscan with a DSLR and a macro lens, but I'm also wondering if there is enough of a market/interest in a more DIY/FOSS scanning project. I've considered trying to build something more standard that could be printed or manufactured, that combines some small pointgrey (CV) cameras and macro lens, a light, and some film rolling mechanism to keep the film tight - the idea being that you could basically "scan" the film as a moving roll, scanning a whole 120mm roll in seconds. Pointgrey cameras also have a great api, so you could actually build software on top of it. I've long thought about putting time to this, but the intersection of pro film shooters and programmers is so small that I'm not sure it would be worth it. If anyone else is interested in the idea, I'd be happy to collaborate on it!

astrostl 4y ago

Alternatively, the state of digital cameras is so good these days that they can be used to digitize film. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pnqF8G_wiM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pnqF8G_wiM highlights a setup with a Panasonic G9 that features an 80MP in-camera high resolution mode. A used body can be found as low as $500 in the USA, and it's a camera too!

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

I think there are adapters for digicams.

omoikane 4y ago
Nikon has one: https://www.nikonusa.com/en/learn-and-explore/a/tips-and-techniques/digitizing-film-using-the-d850-and-es-2-negative-digitizer.html https://www.nikonusa.com/en/learn-and-explore/a/tips-and-tec...
hotcoffeebear 4y ago
Here is one from Pentax https://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2014/04/21/pentax-film-duplicator-helps-you-scan-35mm-and-medium-format-film-quicker https://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2014/04/21/pentax-film...

fetus8 4y ago

You're correct. Most people who do their own scans either use a macro lens or a telephoto with extension tubes to create a macro lens of sorts. Then you need a negative holder such as this one: https://www.negative.supply/shop-all/basic-film-carrier-35 https://www.negative.supply/shop-all/basic-film-carrier-35. You need a light table or LED hot light, and a way to hold the camera and you're in business. Personally, I've been scanning my own 35mm negatives for the past few years with both a Full-frame DSLR and an APS-C Mirrorless camera, and get much much better results than I'd been getting via my local film processing lab and their scanning. Scanning negatives with a modern digital camera still retains a lot of the filmic quality that we've come to expect via shooting film. Obviously you lose the "resolution" and ability to blow those images up once scanned, but you can 100% still see the grain, color reproduction, and analog anomalies that we're used to by shooting film.

keithbingman 4y ago
Yeah, I have recently switched to "scanning" my 6x6cm and 35mm negatives with a macro lens and digital camera. It's probably not as flat out perfect as a really good scanner, but the end results look amazing and fit my workflow for digital images as well. I recently got a camera with "pixel shift" technology and using that the files have 96mb and really show off the grain. Plus it's just faster than scanning ever was. I am really very happy with the setup.
- fetus8 4y ago
  Heck ya! How are you processing your negatives? Negative Lab Pro? Manually creating positives in Photoshop?
  - keithbingman 4y ago
    I've just been doing it in Photoshop. I have primarily Black and White negatives with a few E6 slides, so it's pretty easy.
  - lm28469 4y ago
    I'd recommend https://grain2pixel.com https://grain2pixel.com. It's free, works good and the creator answered my emails in less than a day
magicalhippo 4y ago
Do you just use the central portion for the negative, or do you correct for optics somehow (ala flat frames in astro)?
- seszett 4y ago
  If you don't use a planar lens it will never really look good. What I do for my part is just use an enlarger to which I attach my digital camera with various tubes and adapters to get the distances right, and an enlarger lens. These lenses are infinitely cheaper than "regular" planar lenses and they're just made exactly for the job, and the whole assembly is rigid and aligned so it's easy to get the whole negative right.

jrockway 4y ago

I wet scan on a flatbed, though I will admit the process is tedious and holding a negative up to a lamp and taking a snapshot with my phone is 80% as good ;)

metadat 4y ago
I'd never heard of this. https://petapixel.com/2017/02/14/wet-mount-scanning-get-highest-quality-film-scans-home/ https://petapixel.com/2017/02/14/wet-mount-scanning-get-high... Can you really get 80% of the detail like with the Hasselblad X1 with your phone? For the wet scanning is it a regular consumer grade scanner or something specific / special? How do the results compare to the X1?
- NegativeK 4y ago
  I suspect they're referring to "80% of what I want out of it," not "80% of the detail."
- codpiece 4y ago
  Wet scanning was the default for drum scanners, the gold standard in the 90s. Essentially, you lay a drop of mineral oil on the glass drum, create a bond with the negative and then tape it down for good measure since the drum spun at a pretty good clip. Wet scanning is worthwhile if you have a higher-end flatbed scanner like the Epson V700, 750 and 900(?) because they use higher-quality sensors and real lenses. I almost bought a drum scanner a decade ago but would have to maintain a Mac Quadra for it to run. For large format film, a wet mount scan on an Epson V750 with VueScan software is great.
- philjohn 4y ago
  And I wonder if this is the scanning equivalent of wet lithography for making microchips?

aplusbi 4y ago

A friend of mine built a device specifically for using a digital camera to "scan" 35mm film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEDWeAbd6J4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEDWeAbd6J4

mmcwilliams 4y ago

Scanning medium format can be a pain but I've had decent results with an Epson V700 for 4x5 film. A lot more cost effective than a Flextight and I maintain some VMs with the firmware on various operating systems that have traveled with me through various desktop builds. I'd like to see some better FOSS options but images are a lot better quality than they were using cheap desktop film scanners in 2005.

BuckyBeaver 4y ago

Another one is that nobody made a feeder for movie film, for ANY of the consumer or "prosumer" scanners at any price. If you want film scanned today to individual files per frame, it's still a bunch of money if you can find someone to do it... and good luck getting it done right.

dylan604 4y ago
The movie film scanners that are top notch are easily in the six figure range, and go up depending on the features. In a past life, I was researching a scanner to buy for film restoration purposes, and I can't remember the name of the company or unit, but it would move each frame into place and then "gently" press down to flatten the film, and then triple flash it to monochrome CCD with the appropriate RGB filter. It was a big machine and with the flattening and triple flashing was not real time capable, but not as slow as I would have expected. Somewhere between 12-18fps for 2K and slowed down for 4K+ scanning. The project was never funded, so it was all for naught, but I enjoy getting to research new toys like that while on the clock so to speak.
- BuckyBeaver 4y ago
  I understand (I work in the industry), but the point still stands that these companies could have added greatly to the appeal of their scanners by offering a motion-picture attachment, no matter how slow. I was considering trying to build one out of an inspection microscope, but gave it up and just had my most-important reels scanned to TIFFs.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    >I was considering trying to build one out of an inspection microscope, but gave it up justifying the cost of the people that did not give up and made an actual product. "if this shit was easy, everyone would do it!" is something i remind myself all the time
    - BuckyBeaver 4y ago

hotcoffeebear 4y ago

My EPSON flatbed film scanner is bad, especially for 120mm film, but… that was cheaper than 10 rolls of film scanned in low res for me.

ezconnect 4y ago

He can even go higher resolution by using microscope.

ravenhappy 4y ago
This is a good point. Speaking of points, in the way a laser turntable pickup is noisier than a needle, would an electron microscope scan of a frame of film be best, or is there a sweet spot where the grain noise is at an optimal minimum?
- ezconnect 4y ago
  His dream scanner is 8000ppi about 3.175um pixel size. A Canon 5DS 50 megapixel has a pixel size of 4.1 microns.

kkukshtel 4y ago

I shoot lots of 120mm on a Mamiya 7 and am currently stuck with an Epson V600 as my best option. Unfortunately, the scanning experience sucks for 6x7 photos because of how not-long the bed is. You can only scan two 6x7 photos at a time, and then have to turn the film around. It's a tedious process that means most of my film remains unscanned. As others have mentioned here I am also looking into trying to fauxscan with a DSLR and a macro lens, but I'm also wondering if there is enough of a market/interest in a more DIY/FOSS scanning project. I've considered trying to build something more standard that could be printed or manufactured, that combines some small pointgrey (CV) cameras and macro lens, a light, and some film rolling mechanism to keep the film tight - the idea being that you could basically "scan" the film as a moving roll, scanning a whole 120mm roll in seconds. Pointgrey cameras also have a great api, so you could actually build software on top of it. I've long thought about putting time to this, but the intersection of pro film shooters and programmers is so small that I'm not sure it would be worth it. If anyone else is interested in the idea, I'd be happy to collaborate on it!