Railfan Technology > Copying slides....

Looking for a bit of feedback on the attached image. I have quite a few boxes of slides but not enough quality ones that I can justify a slide scanner, thus looking at other ways to digitize a few slides to share on the web. I had received a Opteka Slide Duplicator as a Christmas gift a few years, but the lens in it has quite a bit of distortion around the edges. I decided to mess around with it again this weekend and noticed without the lens in the duplicator, that my Canon 50 mm macro would just about focus on a slide held in it. Stopping down a bit brought the image close enough in focus but was still a little off, so then remembered the cheapie extension tube kit I had bought off ebay a few years ago. The attached image is using the front and rear adapter plus a 7 mm extension tube with the Canon f/2.5 50 mm macro on the full frame 6D and the bare duplicator without lens or light diffuser. It was just shot using a blank Word document on a monitor as a light source and I didn't quite nail the color temperature nor remove all the dust, but in general not bad. Thoughts?

---

I am impressed !!
Your photo is sure good enough for a Trainorderd post.

--Jim Baker

Very nice! A little bit of experimentation paid off in spades. That looks better than a lot of the ones I've gotten from a dedicated slide and film scanner.

Old Bob out in Lost Wages

Very nice indeed. I have gotten surprisingly good results with a Nikon ES-1 slide holder coupled to the 40mm f/2.8 AF-G Micro-Nikkor on various Nikon APS-C DSLR bodies. Nothing is going to win prizes, and I've not had time yet to do any significant post-processing. I'm learning that I may have been a better photographer 40 years ago than I gave myself credit for at the time. And they sure bring back a lot of memories, some of which had evaporated entirely.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/03/14 13:53 by atsf616.

JimBaker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I am impressed !!
> Your photo is sure good enough for a Trainorderd
> post.
>
> --Jim Baker

Bingo...!! Jim is right... The photo looks great...

leroy

Your picture looks nice, and sharp.

But, if you are making copies by taking a photo it will not render a "publlish" quality picture. This from personal experience. In other words, (most) print publishers can't use duplicate (second generation) photographs.

So keep that in mind. There is a big difference between 72dpi (Internet) and 300 dpi (print) so when a dupe slide is blown up the clarity of second generation is not as sharp as the native slide.

If you want digital scans but don't have that many slides, consider one of the vendors who offer slide scanning. Then you'll always have a first generation digital copy.

Good luck, digitizing a collection is a way to fall in love with film all over again!

Chico



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/14 06:07 by chico.

Thanks for the comments. I have a few tweaks to make but generally happy with the results. The transparency only makes about 40% of the image so, I have to crop and then process like any other image. Need to mess around with the extension tube length to see if I can make the slide a larger part of the image without introducing much distortion.

Looks GREAT to me!

PowellWye Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thanks for the comments. I have a few tweaks to
> make but generally happy with the results. The
> transparency only makes about 40% of the image so,
> I have to crop and then process like any other
> image. Need to mess around with the extension tube
> length to see if I can make the slide a larger
> part of the image without introducing much
> distortion.

You will need to work on the distance between the lens and the slide. To get more in the frame, you'll have to bring the slide closer, which in turn will require more extension between the camera and lens.

Arved Grass
Fleming Island, FL

atsf616 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Very nice indeed. I have gotten surprisingly good
> results with a Nikon ES-1 slide holder coupled to
> the 40mm f/2.8 AF-G Micro-Nikkor on various Nikon
> DSLR bodies. Nothing is going to win prizes, and
> I've not had time yet to do any significant
> post-processing. I'm learning that I may have
> been a better photographer 40 years ago than I
> gave myself credit for at the time. And they sure
> bring back a lot of memories, some of which had
> evaporated entirely.

Does the 40/2.8 + ES-1 give you full frame copies (on a DX body, I assume)?

Arved Grass
Fleming Island, FL



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/30/14 18:52 by Arved.

chico Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Your picture looks nice, and sharp.
>
> But, if you are making copies by taking a photo it
> will not render a "publish" quality picture.
> This from personal experience. In other words,
> (most) print publishers can't use duplicate
> (second generation) photographs.
>
> So keep that in mind. There is a big difference
> between 72dpi (Internet) and 300 dpi (print) so
> when a dupe slide is blown up the clarity of
> second generation is not as sharp as the native
> slide.
>
> If you want digital scans but don't have that many
> slides, consider one of the vendors who offer
> slide scanning. Then you'll always have a first
> generation digital copy.
>
> Good luck, digitizing a collection is a way to
> fall in love with film all over again!
>
> Chico


I would disagree. If he sets up a true 1:1 ratio macro shot with his excellent Canon 6D, Canon 50mm Macro and extension tubes, that would mean he could shoot the 36 x 24mm slide image at the same size as the 6D's 36 x 24mm 5505 x 3670 sensor. This is comparable to a dedicated 35mm film scanner like the Nikon Coolscans. The Coolscans highest setting of 4000dpi results in a file of 20MP if saved as a JPEG @ 24bit. (It's even more if saved as a TIFF and 42bit which results in 110MP) The 6D sensor also has 20MP thus the numbers are visually the same. With 20MP, you can make take tack sharp 16 x24 prints. That is more than enough for any publisher.

Shooting a slide with a slide duplicator onto film, that indeed is a generational loss and is not good. And certainly shooting copies of small prints, unless done very carefully, will not result in publishable quality. But I think the original poster he is on to something. I think the results speak for themselves.

Dennis Livesey
New York, NY

Arved Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> atsf616 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> > Very nice indeed. I have gotten surprisingly good results with a Nikon ES-1 slide holder coupled to
> > the 40mm f/2.8 AF-G Micro-Nikkor on various Nikon DSLR bodies.
----------------------------------------------------
> Does the 40/2.8 + ES-1 give you full frame copies (on a DX body, I assume)?


Yes, it does fill the DX frame.

chico Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Your picture looks nice, and sharp.
>
> But, if you are making copies by taking a photo it
> will not render a "publlish" quality picture.
> This from personal experience. In other words,
> (most) print publishers can't use duplicate
> (second generation) photographs.
>

Except Morning Sun has been using some duplicate slides in their books for years now. They used one of mine three years ago. When I asked they said time constraints and the duplicate was good enough.....

RWJ

Looks pretty good. Without the ability to see the full size file it appears to be as good as what can be obtained with todays flatbed scanners. And since Nikon's film scanners have been discontinued what other choices are there?

Rich


PowellWye Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Looking for a bit of feedback on the attached
> image. I have quite a few boxes of slides but not
> enough quality ones that I can justify a slide
> scanner, thus looking at other ways to digitize a
> few slides to share on the web. I had received a
> Opteka Slide Duplicator as a Christmas gift a few
> years, but the lens in it has quite a bit of
> distortion around the edges. I decided to mess
> around with it again this weekend and noticed
> without the lens in the duplicator, that my Canon
> 50 mm macro would just about focus on a slide held
> in it. Stopping down a bit brought the image close
> enough in focus but was still a little off, so
> then remembered the cheapie extension tube kit I
> had bought off ebay a few years ago. The attached
> image is using the front and rear adapter plus a 7
> mm extension tube with the Canon f/2.5 50 mm macro
> on the full frame 6D and the bare duplicator
> without lens or light diffuser. It was just shot
> using a blank Word document on a monitor as a
> light source and I didn't quite nail the color
> temperature nor remove all the dust, but in
> general not bad. Thoughts?

LV95032 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And
> since Nikon's film scanners have been discontinued
> what other choices are there?

Plustek.