To photograph or scan, that is the question.

GreenNinja67

GreenNinja67

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Terry
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Hi guys, apologies if this should be in another category. Feel free to move if so.

My problem:
I have thousands of my father's old negatives and slides and have thought of an ingenious way of converting them to digital and it works.
I photograph them on a Cabin lightbox with the D700 mounted on my copystand and use my Nikon 50mm f1.8 with extension tubes.
This way I can get a full frame photo of the slides and negs.

So far so good.

Now my question is would it be worth buying a slide duplicator second hand or is a film scanner much better for this purpose?
I ask this not for the optimum quality but my back is starting to ache as I'm looking down at the LCD in LiveView mode and after an hour of this is really rather painful.

What are your thoughts and has anyone done what I'm doing.
The shots I'm converting are extra special to me now as both my parents have sadly passed away and these slides and negs will obviously deteriorate over time.

I'll try and upload a photo of how I'm doing this in case it helps someone else here who was thinking of doing something similar.

Thanks in advance,

Terry.
 
moved to Film and Conventional - we've LOTS of experience in this sort of query in here...
 
Hi Terry,

To be honest if you have thousands to do then using your DSLR is by far going to be the quickest and easiest option. Scanning at a similar resolution to that your D700 produces will take a looooong time, and unless you have a high end scanner the results are unlikely to be anywhere near as good.

I"d definitely stick with the DSLR option for so many frames if it's already working well for you. :)
 
How's this for an idea?

Set the DSLR up so it's pointing directly down. Make a template out of card so that each negative appears in a window. Focus the DSLR once, then turn off auto focus. Place each neg. in the window. Fire DSLR remotely.

Does that make any sense?
 
What paul said... only thing i'd suggest is to use liveview/shoot tethered in lightroom and save looking down on the viewfinder... sit at the desk and watch it on the screen instead.

Scanning (and the inevitable PP/dust spotting afterwards) will take far far longer than working as you are.
 
Thanks for the advice gents.

Simon ess - That is exactly how I do it. But being a perfectionist I cannot help but check focus is spot on with every slide or neg!!
I drive myself mad.

But the tethering with lightroom is a cracking idea. I'll have to try that Mark.

I may even post some (hilarious) old shots up here.

Many thanks guys.

Terry.
 
Set the lightbox up so it's vertical rather than horizontal (if possible, of course!) then the camera can be used as normal. Make a mask from black card with an aperture for a mounted slide so the swapping is quicker. Use the same card to make a negative carrier for the negs and (if there are any!) other format slides/negs.
 
i tried photographing some 35mm negs with my D800 and tbh found it a ballache for very little gain over a scanner. The huge benefit of a scanner is you can batch scan so just leave it going. If you really have so many to do then you will be going nuts in a short space of time shooting them one at a time.

Better off saving up and sending them off for some poor soul to do them :)
 
GreenNinja67 said:
The shots I'm converting are extra special to me now as both my parents have sadly passed away and these slides and negs will obviously deteriorate over time.
Click to expand...

I think the negs will out live you and your kids and probably your kids kids if stored properly, and definitely your scans of them.
Just chucking that in for the info, I doubt that preserving them is your main reason for wanting to scan them, negs are tough to share as they are :)
 
Right getting there.
Bought a Kaiser slide duplicator from eBay for £9.99 buy it now to see if it's any easier. That's throw away money if it isn't.

Created a private group on Flickr so I can invite just family members to show off these old photo's and slides.

I'll upload some over the weekend.

Thanks for all the help chaps, it's funny that when my folks were alive I wasn't too bothered about looking at these gems in the attic.

Suddenly it's the most important thing in the world that I look at them and treasure them.

Funny old thing life.............
 
GreenNinja67 said:
Thanks for all the help chaps, it's funny that when my folks were alive I wasn't too bothered about looking at these gems in the attic.

Suddenly it's the most important thing in the world that I look at them and treasure them.

Funny old thing life.............
Click to expand...

Sure is, I remember spending a week or more scanning old prints from the massive box of photos after my Dad Died... I burned a full set of the pictures for all the remaining members of family which went down really well - the phone calls I got over the following weeks of "Oh, Mark, I've just looked through those pictures again - never thought I'd see our Rose and Edith again... was wonderful, I've had such a great couple of hours - even if i've now run out of hankies...." made all the messing around worth every second.
 
joxby said:
I think the negs will out live you and your kids and probably your kids kids if stored properly, and definitely your scans of them.
Click to expand...

Exactly this. My advice is just to scan/copy them as and when you need them. Scanning thousands of slides/negatives will quickly become a chore which you will resent doing.

Also, people rarely work out how much time it's actually going to take to finish.

Much better to do one when you need it and make a good job of it than trying to get through the whole lot.

GreenNinja67 said:
Bought a Kaiser slide duplicator from eBay for £9.99 buy it now to see if it's any easier. That's throw away money if it isn't.
Click to expand...
Some advice for people thinking about buying one of these - bear in mind that most (all?) of these duplicators were for 35mm film cameras so they will require a full frame digital camera body.

Steve.
 
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On forums people have mentioned how they have used a DSLR for negs, and some of the results I have seen or very good....but not having a DSLr I don't which is quicker or easier etc but I find scanning with a flatbed is boring and if I did have a digi would be tempted to try it out.
 
It does work rather well Brian, although it is a slow laborious job.

A good one for these cold dreary evenings that's for sure.
 
Cheers Paul,

That's an example of a very clean transparency, some are a little scratched and dirty.

Good old Kodachrome eh? You can't beat it.

My old dad always had a good camera too. That was probably taken on a Pentax of some description or an Olympus OM1 or 2.

Terry.
 
GreenNinja67 said:
Good old Kodachrome eh? You can't beat it.
Click to expand...

Indeed, wonderful stuff! I never had the chance to shoot it unfortunately but I've scanned plenty of it, I really wish it were still around. :(

I hope you don't mind (it said editing was okay so I assume this is alright?) I had a quick play with the colours in the one you uploaded. I'm only on my laptop here but there seems to be a bit of a greeny blue cast, a quick 10 second fiddle gives this which is probably a bit closer to the natural colours. :)

Qm2LpMk.jpg
 
Is that a manual focus tractor or a medium format tractor? :thinking:
 
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