advertisement


35mm B&W film developing

idomybest said:
If you want fast digital files of 35mm you can use an old enlarger - (I use a LPL 6700 and invert the head 180 degrees - please note I may have been lucky and this would not be possible with some other enlargers) and a mirrorless camera, make an adaptor tube to fit the camera to the enlarging lens and the enlarging head and you are all set. Set the camera to manual, focus the image with the enlarger rack and pinion and click away using the enlargers neg carriers to quickly move to the next frame....once the focus is set it doesn't change much - I use a loop for critical focus on the camera screen.
Takes a fraction of a second and produces raw files that you can digitally develop to your requirements. (You can also use the enlarger for enlarging should you get the urge!)
Click to expand...

This sounds interesting. When you say "invert head 180 degrees," you mean upside-down, right? Can you give more details as to how the digital camera connects to the enlarging lens? Does the digital camera use its own lens, plus the enlarging lens? Thanks!
 
Yes remove the head - turn it upside down.
Add a home made extension tube connecting the mirrorless camera to the bellows so it is solid and central. (The length will depend on the camera you use full frame or not etc)
You only need to use the enlarging lens with the homemade extension tube this gives you excellent quality for very little cost (assuming you have a old mirrorless camera - I bought a cheap 14mb sony online for about £30 years ago...)
I will post a photo if I can work out how to do it - it will make things clearer it sounds messy but it is not it is simple and quite an elegant solution even if I do so myself! But not for a day or so I am just taking my wife out for the day................
 
Ah, I can't turn my enlarger head upside down. It is a Durst 138 with massive condensers, so even if mechanically possible, and even with the help of a very muscular assistant, not a good idea. However, you've given me some ideas. A couple of times I've placed 4x5 negatives on a piece of opal plastic, lit from the back by holding up to a window, and photographed the negative image with my wife's old "Coolpix" hand-held. I got a very rough-and-ready image that I turned into positive just to see how it would look printed.
So what I'm thinking, and maybe what you have done, is to use the enlarger to hold everything in place, lined up and in parallel. So I could put the negative in the negative-holder, a sheet of opal diffuser plastic above the negative-holder, NOT use the enlarger's lens, and stick the lens of the "Coolpix" up the hole where the enlarger lens would be mounted if it were there, which it isn't. Then use the enlarger bellows to set the distance, and let the "Coolpix" self-focus. What do you think?
 
Thanks that saves me photographing it and trying to upload!
Mine is a colour diffusion enlarger although I have only used it for printing b/w:)

Yes that is the exactly the same principle. Make an adaptor to hold the coolpix centrally and securely, the opal plastic will give a nice diffused light for your negatives (or slides)

The only problems I foresee are:

1- Coolpix self-focus can you tilt the screen to see what you are doing without creaking your neck?
2- If you can get the whole neg in shot 1:1 depending on the coolpix focal length, close focusing ability
3. Can you set the exposure manually?
4, Can you shoot in raw for exposure flexibility etc
5, Being able to press the shutter without creating camera shake
6. Quality of the lens may not be good enough - depending on requirements.

In fact if you have a dslr with a macro lens or lens tubes you could try that as well and get better results. Just make sure you have everything well secured!

Or get an old slide copier............
 
All clear now, thanks! I'll try it one of these days. Yes, the Coolpix has a screen you can fold out and turn around. My feeling is that it will be useful to get a quick idea of how the negative would print, instead of making a contact print and having to get all the liquids out. But for a really high quality scan, I'd better take it to the specialist place and pay for it. Also, it would probably work better with big negatives than with 35mm. Regarding the Coolpix, it has lots of buttons, switches and menus, and a manual of about 200 pages. Never learnt to do everything it should be able to do. I do know that very close focusing, as for a 35mm negative, might be problematic. Thanks for the idea!
 
sideshowbob said:
Unless you're planning to make large exhibition quality prints an Epson flatbed scanner is the best affordable option. I have a V700, which is excellent for medium and large format too, but if you're only scanning 35mm something like the V600 will be fine:

https://www.epson.co.uk/products/scanners/consumer-scanners/perfection-v600-photo

Lots of people will chime in that dedicated film scanners like those Nikon used to make are much better than a flatbed, but unless you're making large prints you won't see any difference.
Click to expand...

Thanks again for the advice, and maybe I made a mistake by not following what you said, but I just bought a Plustek. Also bought some bits and bobs so hopefully by the end of this week I'll have developed and scanned something....
 
scotty38 said:
Thanks again for the advice, and maybe I made a mistake by not following what you said, but I just bought a Plustek. Also bought some bits and bobs so hopefully by the end of this week I'll have developed and scanned something....
Click to expand...

I love my Epson V550 but I tend to use it for 120, where I think it really shines. With 35mm, I think it works well, but in my experience a dedicated film scanner betters it. Here's a quick comparison of a 100% magnification of a 35mm negative scan.

Left: Epson V550 (exactly the same innards as a V600)
Right: Plustek 7500i (same hardware as the 8200i, but older software)

Negative is a Fomapan 100 developed by me and scanned in Vuescan.

yDuoiBy.jpg
 
albireo said:
I love my Epson V550 but I tend to use it for 120, where I think it really shines. With 35mm, I think it works well, but in my experience a dedicated film scanner betters it. Here's a quick comparison of a 100% magnification of a 35mm negative scan.

Left: Epson V550 (exactly the same innards as a V600)
Right: Plustek 7500i (same hardware as the 8200i, but older software)

Negative is a Fomapan 100 developed by me and scanned in Vuescan.

yDuoiBy.jpg
Click to expand...


> pretty much mirrors my experience with flatbeds versus my film scanner.
The below comparison is between a Canoscan 8800F on the left and my Nikon 4000ED - also using Vuescan
(noticeable differences despite the jpeg mangling of the originals)
The 8800 manages 6x6 negs just fine but struggles for fine detail on 35mm:

50342716996_c2c115a716_o.jpg



Nearest rival for the Nikon is using a Leica Summicron 50mm with a couple of M4/3 extension rings on my Olympus OMD and a lightbox - a very close call with that combo.
 
I developed a couple of films and scanned a couple of frames. I had to faff about with Silverfast as it wouldn't start up after a while and most of the settings are meaningless at the minute.... This is one that at least seemed to have something other than a washed out sky....

50361883093_dbfeff725b_h.jpg
 
Yes I never got on with scanning seemed to take forever to get a good result - obviously each to their own - at least you are making progress:)
 
Yes when you know it will take ages you want the selected picture to be scanned to be a winner!:)
I never really got into scanning due to all the hassle but you will probably find some films scan better than others also exposure and development of the perfect negative for scanning will also make a huge difference. Keep at it - nothing ventured........
 
The way I used to scan in Vuescan was to set the black and white points to a low value such as .1 or .5. That resulted in a flat looking scan which I then adjusted in Photoshop. I found this much faster than trying multiple scans with different settings trying to find the ‘right’ one, and it meant everything on the film was captured. Oh, and scan as 16 bits not 8.

The above was with a Nikon film scanner.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top