Copying Slides

[boBquincy]

I have a lot of slides from a previous (non digital) life and would like to copy them at 'screen' resolution (1200x800 or so) for rapid viewing and selection.

I have a Minolta Dimage Scan Dual II which gives good results but is slow. I was wondering if any of the dedicated slide duplicators (such as sold by B&H) would work with a dSLR to quickly copy slides.

With the 1.6 crop factor only the central part of the slide would be copied. I didn't see a copier that went to 0.6x, only 1:1 and above.

Any thoughts?


boB

[PacAce]

bobquincy wrote:
I have a lot of slides from a previous (non digital) life and would like to copy them at 'screen' resolution (1200x800 or so) for rapid viewing and selection.

I have a Minolta Dimage Scan Dual II which gives good results but is slow. I was wondering if any of the dedicated slide duplicators (such as sold by B&H) would work with a dSLR to quickly copy slides.

With the 1.6 crop factor only the central part of the slide would be copied. I didn't see a copier that went to 0.6x, only 1:1 and above.

Any thoughts?


boB

I have a zoom slide duplicator which I bought back during my film days. After I bought my 10D I had the same idea of duplicating my slides to digital using the 10D. As you said, the 1.6x magnification factor cuts part of the slides out but it wasn't too bad considering I always got more in my slides than what I saw in the viewfinder when I originally took the picture.

What I did notice right off the bat was how contrasty the digital dupes were. I'm not sure if it was just the set of slides I was working with or if it'll be like that for all the slides but I'm sure there's a way to correct that with PS. I just haven't gotten that far yet. I'm still waiting for that "rainy day" (or retirement) to really sit down and start working on converting the slides to digital.

[rdenney]

PacAce wrote:

I have a zoom slide duplicator which I bought back during my film days. After I bought my 10D I had the same idea of duplicating my slides to digital using the 10D. As you said, the 1.6x magnification factor cuts part of the slides out but it wasn't too bad considering I always got more in my slides than what I saw in the viewfinder when I originally took the picture.

What I did notice right off the bat was how contrasty the digital dupes were. I'm not sure if it was just the set of slides I was working with or if it'll be like that for all the slides but I'm sure there's a way to correct that with PS. I just haven't gotten that far yet. I'm still waiting for that "rainy day" (or retirement) to really sit down and start working on converting the slides to digital.




You might be able to obtain lower contrast by using a diffusion-style light box, a copy stand, and a macro lens capable of 1.6:1. The 50mm/2.5 will only go to 2:1, which will photograph something 30x46mm. With the 1:1 adaptor, though (or with a macro lens that goes to 1:1 out of the box), you could set this up easily.

Even without the adaptor, the 2:1 50mm macro lens will give you 1600x2400 pixels of a 35mm slide. That is probably enough for many applications, though less than what the film scanner will do.

I find that I can make digital images of photos far easier with this setup than by using a scanner (I have a Minolta Scan Multi), because it takes far less time. Set the camera for the lowest film speed to minimize noise, and use an appropriately small aperture (say, f/11 or f/16). Focus manually. Use a remote switch, because the shutter speed will likely be pretty long. If the shutter speed is at least half a second, locking up the mirror is probably not needed--the vibration from a decent copy stand will contribute too little to the image to matter.

You'll take much less time making the image initially, but you'll have to manipulate each photo after the fact, where a calibrated scanner and really good software might give you a usable image immediately. Thus, it's a trade-off. I think the camera approach is still faster, however.

Rick "who can outphotograph a scanner any day" Denney

[PacAce]

rdenney wrote:
PacAce wrote:

I have a zoom slide duplicator which I bought back during my film days. After I bought my 10D I had the same idea of duplicating my slides to digital using the 10D. As you said, the 1.6x magnification factor cuts part of the slides out but it wasn't too bad considering I always got more in my slides than what I saw in the viewfinder when I originally took the picture.

What I did notice right off the bat was how contrasty the digital dupes were. I'm not sure if it was just the set of slides I was working with or if it'll be like that for all the slides but I'm sure there's a way to correct that with PS. I just haven't gotten that far yet. I'm still waiting for that "rainy day" (or retirement) to really sit down and start working on converting the slides to digital.




You might be able to obtain lower contrast by using a diffusion-style light box, a copy stand, and a macro lens capable of 1.6:1. The 50mm/2.5 will only go to 2:1, which will photograph something 30x46mm. With the 1:1 adaptor, though (or with a macro lens that goes to 1:1 out of the box), you could set this up easily.

Even without the adaptor, the 2:1 50mm macro lens will give you 1600x2400 pixels of a 35mm slide. That is probably enough for many applications, though less than what the film scanner will do.

I find that I can make digital images of photos far easier with this setup than by using a scanner (I have a Minolta Scan Multi), because it takes far less time. Set the camera for the lowest film speed to minimize noise, and use an appropriately small aperture (say, f/11 or f/16). Focus manually. Use a remote switch, because the shutter speed will likely be pretty long. If the shutter speed is at least half a second, locking up the mirror is probably not needed--the vibration from a decent copy stand will contribute too little to the image to matter.

You'll take much less time making the image initially, but you'll have to manipulate each photo after the fact, where a calibrated scanner and really good software might give you a usable image immediately. Thus, it's a trade-off. I think the camera approach is still faster, however.

Rick "who can outphotograph a scanner any day" Denney

Hi, Rick,

Thanks for the advice. I'm going to give it a go but first I'll have to find me a good macro lens. So, the question is: Canon's 50mm macro (1:2) or 100mm macro (1:1). With the 10D's 1.6x mag factor I don't really need the 1:1 of the 100, right? You think the 50mm will do just fine with a little bit of cropping out of the sides?

[rdenney]

PacAce wrote:

Hi, Rick,

Thanks for the advice. I'm going to give it a go but first I'll have to find me a good macro lens. So, the question is: Canon's 50mm macro (1:2) or 100mm macro (1:1). With the 10D's 1.6x mag factor I don't really need the 1:1 of the 100, right? You think the 50mm will do just fine with a little bit of cropping out of the sides?


It depends on how many pixels you need. The 50mm lens will spread 3000x2000 pixels over an area 30x46mm (1:2 means the field of view is twice the size of the 15x23 sensor frame). If you photograph an image within that field that is 24x36, then you'll have 24/30 times 2000 pixels, or 1600 pixels vertically (and 2400 pixels horizontally). That would be enough to make, say, an 8x10 print without pushing the envelope too much.

The Minolta scanner mentioned earlier has a resolution of around 2800 pixels per inch, as I recall. That would provide an image around 2650x4000 pixels. That's much more than the 10D could do even at 1:1.6, where the slide frame filled the 10D frame.

But 1600x2400 is roughly 4 megapixels, and that's plenty for many applications.

I like the 50 because it does double-duty as a portrait lens and also as an extremely sharp short telephoto. The 100 is too long to be as versatile on the 10D. If I photoraphed bugs instead of doing copy work, however, the longer macro lens would definitely be preferred.

The 100mm macro would also allow you to fill the frame with the slide image, and even fill the frame with a 15x23 portion of that slide image.

It just depends on what you need.

Rick "who usually does copy work with larger subjects" Denney

[openspace]

I started with a small light box, and then cut out a template from heavy card stock that completely covers the light box except for one small opening that is the size of one 35mm transparancy - but smaller than the slide mount.

Using this system, I shoot my slides in a darkened room, one at a time using a 10D and a Tamron 90mm macro. It works great. Some of my best selling images are from slides copied with the 10D.

The only adjustment I occassionally have to make is reducing exposure by 1 - 2 stops. I leave the white balance on auto regardless of the image, shoot in RAW and Adobe RGB.

[PacAce]

rdenney wrote:

It depends on how many pixels you need. The 50mm lens will spread 3000x2000 pixels over an area 30x46mm (1:2 means the field of view is twice the size of the 15x23 sensor frame). If you photograph an image within that field that is 24x36, then you'll have 24/30 times 2000 pixels, or 1600 pixels vertically (and 2400 pixels horizontally). That would be enough to make, say, an 8x10 print without pushing the envelope too much.
...
I like the 50 because it does double-duty as a portrait lens and also as an extremely sharp short telephoto. The 100 is too long to be as versatile on the 10D. If I photoraphed bugs instead of doing copy work, however, the longer macro lens would definitely be preferred.

The 100mm macro would also allow you to fill the frame with the slide image, and even fill the frame with a 15x23 portion of that slide image.

It just depends on what you need.

Rick "who usually does copy work with larger subjects" Denney

Rick, I finally got around to ordering my macro lens and a lightbox. I got the Sigma 50mm 2.8 EX lens and the Hakuba 5x7 lightbox. They arrived yesterday and I didn't waste a moment trying out your suggestion. The slide duplicates came out great! They looked a lot better than when I was using the slide duplicating tube.

I also tried copying color and b/w negatives and converting them to "positive" images. The b/w was a cinch but the color required quite a bit of tweeking of the colors to get it just right.

Thanks again for your great suggestion. Now I'm off to my sister's house to pick up those old negatives of pictures my father took when we were itty-bitty tikes in a far-away tropical island. :)