Best way to digitise a slide (Heath Robinson style)?

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So I’ve been asked to digitise a few old family slides for use in an online photo book thingy so quality is not a key factor here. I do t want to spend any money (!) and was hoping there’s a way even if it’s just placing the side on a window and photographing it.

I have windows.
I have lighting
I have a D850 and lenses* but no macro lens.

Anyone know which has the best macro capabilities of Nikon 20 1.8, 28 1.4e, 58 1.4e, 105 1.4e, 70-200e?
 
None of those lenses have 'macro' capabilities. None of them can focus close enough to give 1:1 lifesize reproduction, which is what you need.

Sell one of those lenses and get a macro.
 
AZ6 said:
None of those lenses have 'macro' capabilities. None of them can focus close enough to give 1:1 lifesize reproduction, which is what you need.

Sell one of those lenses and get a macro.
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I’m aware they aren’t macro lenses but I’m asking is there one which will do a better job. I know it’s a bit like asking which family saloon will perform better at the F1 but some will invariably do better than others.
 
The 28 or 50mm with a reversing ring should get you pretty close, I haven't used one for years and I cant remember the various close up ranges. Failing that theres some really cheap slide/neg copiers on flebay, some have half decent review on youtube.
Another option is extension tubes, again you can get cheapy sets of flebay.
 
But the OP doesn't want to spend any money. I really can't see how you'd produce anything close to a reasonable result, without spending some money.

As a minimum; reversing ring, bit of black cardboard to make a tube, stick the slide at the end of that, use some sort of diffuser to spread the light evenly.

I have tried various 'Heath Robinson' methods. All of them a bit crap. I have a 60mm macro lens, and a Nikon slide copying adapter on it's way to me, for this very task. I think about £200 would cover the costs of purchasing such equipment.
 
Well with what he has I'd probably go for the 50, or 105 with the slide against a window or white background, masked as best as possible. Does Mark know anybody who will lend up a macro lens, or even pop around and shoot them as a favor? Or can he beg, borrow, or errr "borrow" a close up filter?
 
If you have or can borrow projector, photographing the projected image is reasonably successful.
There will typically be a lot of dust on them.
 
Do you have a phone with a decent camera? There are apps for digitisng negs (or positives) and your phone camera may be better suited. If the images are for digital display anyway (facebook, instagram etc) you're not going to need super quality.

Failing that, blu-tack the slide to a window. Get your lenses out. Put each one on the camera and see which one will fill the frame the most and still allow you to focus. I'm guessing the longer focal lengths will fill the frame but won't focus close and the short ones will not fill the frame but will allow close focus. Probably as Wayne says - the middleground 50 or 105 will end up being the best. If you need to crop into it though, it may be that a phone scan would be better quality.

Cheapest way for me was a 20mm (Kenko) ext tube on a (canon) 50mm lens with an APSC Canon 50D. A bog roll tube is 52mm in diameter which is exactly the same as the filter ring on the Canon 50 f/1.8 and is the perfect length for 50mm + 20mm extension to fill the frame. Can be had 2nd hand on eBay reasonably, but not free sadly.
 
Whichever of your lenses will fill most of the frame at closest focus. The D850 will leave you plenty of MP for the end use after cropping. A sheet of white paper taped to a well (but ideally not full sun) lit window with the slides taped top and bottom to the paper*. Chances are that there'll be some plain paper visible in each shot so any WB issues can be easily taken care of (even if you shoot JPEG for ease and smaller file sizes).

*For speed, you might even get away with simply holding the slides against the paper just by pressing a corner but if doing that, I'd make a simple holding jig to ensure that they're all in the same place and straight, then shoot using a remote release or the camera's self timer.
 
Thanks to all for your comments. I’m not adverse to getting a reversing ring or cheap tubes so may well give that a go but first I’ll try that phone app thing, never thought of that! Cheers all.
 
I’ve just read that the 70-200e has a 0.21x magnification ratio.

Does this mean I’ll fill 0.21 x 47mp so I’ll get a roughly 9.87mp file once cropped?

edit: yes having checked some reviews the 70-200e has 1:4.76 macro capability so this will do nicely indeed!!
 
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Just as an update..:.

well the old slides were square and I only managed to extract a 2meg file once cropped.

Somewhat ironically though 2megs far exceeded the ‘quality’ of the original slides. They would have been taken with a potato compact from the late 60’s using a fixed focus lens.

Glad I didn’t invest any money!!!
 
What, you mean you didn't buy a brand new macro lens, a set of bellows and slide copying rig, and other assorted paraphernalia?

Is disappoint.
 
AZ6 said:
What, you mean you didn't buy a brand new macro lens, a set of bellows and slide copying rig, and other assorted paraphernalia?

Is disappoint.
Click to expand...
Well let’s just say if I had..... the 46.7mp file would be no different quality wise to me upscaling the 2mp file in photoshop!!!
 
If you pay the going rate for a used slide scanner you can sell it at the same price when you're done - costing nothing. They're much quicker and easier to use than Heath Robinson contraptions.
 
I used to have a slide/film scanner, cost me £200 in 1998, bought it with my first ‘proper’ wage packet.

Lent it to a ‘friend’, never saw it or him again, best investment ever!
 
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