Hybrid copy
A simple copying rig using an old copy stand (a favourite because it’s small, light and easy to take to locations for copy work). The slide is placed on an LED video light with a white diffuser, and a film carrier recovered from an old negative analyser. Image © David Kilparick.
Once-forgotten duping systems, twinned with modern-day, high-resolution DSLR cameras, are making a comeback as an alternative to dedicated film scanners. David Kilpatrick provides a guide.
Author: David Kilpatrick
It is getting difficult to find transparency scanners in the affordable bracket between entry-level, five-megapixel frame grabbers and the few surviving higher-end desktop machines such as the Nikon Coolscan 9000. Epson’s V600P is one solution, but most flatbed scanners do not offer anything close to the basic quality required for 35mm slide and negative digitising, or for higher-grade rollfilm conversion.
With some DSLR cameras now matching or exceeding the resolution of most 35mm scanners, and medium-format backs of up to 65 megapixels, the demand for forgotten optical duping systems has surged. Photographers are discovering that, if you have pristine film originals still in their lab sleeves, a device like the old Bowens Illumitran or Elinchrom Dia Duplicator can team up with a Nikon D3x, Canon 7D or similar higher-resolution body.
You can adapt old colour enlarger dichroic heads as light sources only, or complete units with focusing bellows, for the same purpose. The critical requirement is a perfectly even field of light, which means dense opal white acrylic between the source and the film to be copied. The new LED light sources used for video run so cool they can be placed very close to the opal diffuser, and they have the benefit of low infra-red emission with daylight colour temperature.
A copystand from Kaiser (one of the few remaining makers) or Firstcall Photographic, whose model 920 costs only £149.50 including twin tungsten lights for reflective originals, can be used with an opal diffused Litepanel or similar source and a good macro lens.
One problem I have found with the enlarger-type copy lenses originally sold with slide duplicators is that they often don’t work well with a digital body, producing reflection hotspots or very low contrast; all were also made for full frame, and make duping impractical with crop-factor DSLRs.
Modern macro lenses offer a wider range of focal lengths and working distances due to internal focus. The Sony 30mm f/2.8 1:1 macro, with its minimum focus barely 20mm from the lens front and its APS-C coverage, can be used with almost any copy stand or old duplicator chassis.
I’m using a 70mm Sigma macro on full-frame digital, and its working distance for 35mm to rollfilm formats is surprisingly close – much less than my Rodenstock 75mm Apo Rodagon 1:1 copy lens. It also gives much better contrast and colour rendering.
Compared to film scans, which take many minutes to complete and often have a combination of poor shadow detail and obtrusive aliased grain, a 24-megapixel copystand capture has greater dynamic range with smooth detail. The big issue is with dust and scratches. Where the film scanner might have Digital ICE to remove these perfectly, the camera capture needs careful manual retouching. Some well‑worn E6 originals are beyond hope with either.
ICE has never worked with silver negatives (it does to some extent with chromogenic negatives such as Ilford’s XP1). Scans from black-and-white film negatives are rarely good; it’s much better to return to the darkroom, make the best possible hand print in a reasonable size for copying such as 10×8-inch, and scan or re-photograph this. But a DSLR capture from a negative can work well if you are skilled enough to create good custom curves to map a raw conversion to a print-like positive result.
Creating a curve preset to handle copied C41 colour negatives is not easy, but it is possible. Again, making a perfect hand print and copying this is a far more accurate solution.
Testing a few alternatives for copying rollfilm originals, I found that a strong diffuser is needed; depth-of-field is not enough to remove any trace of uneven quality in the lighting. A local signmaker has quoted £25 for half a dozen 5×4‑inch cuts of 3mm opal acrylic. It cost the same for a single one as there is a minimum charge of £25, so a small stock of diffusers will be there for future use.
Colour and tone alike from the DSLR strike me as better than the results from my rollfilm scanner, discontinued and needing a new light source that can’t be found anywhere.
Sharpness is slightly less grain-perfect but looks natural, revealing detail and texture without visible grain. As for dust and scratches, big sky areas need retouching but a 1987 portrait shot (a test of new Fujifilm film at the time, chosen because scanners just don’t handle its red shades well) needed just four dust spots removing.
One surprise was that shots of negatives probably needed far less spotting than used to be the case in darkroom printing. Both black-and-white and colour, kept to the normal standards for more than 15 years, emerged clean. It was possible to use low-density (under-exposed) bracketed examples, compared to the density needed for similar scans or analogue prints.
The file sizes of around 48MB (16 megapixels) from square originals, and anything between that and 70MB (24 megapixels) for rectangular slides and negs are adequate for archiving and most editorial uses, or prints up to around 12×16.
Anything larger and the high-end route of drum scanning would be desirable.
But this costs very little to do, and it can be very fast indeed once everything is fixed down firmly, so film can be fed into a carrier without having to reframe or focus between copies. For strips of negatives a copy every few seconds would be practical, for single transparencies one every minute or so for a batch of matched sizes.
Comments
Thanks for the tips.
A while back I weighed up the pros and cons of buying a neg scanner and ended up buying a macro lens instead, becuase it would be dual purpose: copies of negs and photos of spiders.
I use a Nikkor 60mm macro and an enlarger, rotated 120 degrees, with the lens removed - I poke the marcro through the hole.
The results are pretty good, OK for everyday printing purposes.
Though it isn't a particularly compact set up.
Funny, just two months ago I did a story on exactly this topic in the Dutch magazine Professional Photography.
For slides: make a pure white slide, and a copy of a macbeth color checker, then make whitebalance in camera and a camera profile: perfect colors without work.
If you make a fixed position for your slides, you can do at least 5 per minute.
Black-and-white negatives, just as easy, and just as easy as making a good scan of them, as long as you do the reversal in Photoshop, not in the scan software.
Colour negative: Add an extra tungsten-to-daylight conversion blue filter to your lightsource, then you can do a whitebalance on the negative and then make it positive.
Do it all in RAW, store as DNG, saves a lot of archival space. Fot making negatives positive: just reverse the curve in Camera RAW or Lightroom.
I've been using this method for a couple of years now though it did take some time to find the best lens combination for the job as I don't have a specialist macro lens. I settled for an EOS to FD simple adaptor from eBay and a f3.5 35mm FD lens with a reversing ring on the front to flip for copying part of the negative.
Obviously, an even light source is a must and I use an old battery (daylight balanced) lightbox from the 1980s which is fine for 35mm or smaller but for medium format film I have to use the lasso in Photoshop to correct a little unevenness.
Black and white negatives are the easiest to copy followed closely by colour negatives because of the compressed dynamic range which can be expanded in a controlled fashion during RAW processing. I use Canon Digital Photo Professional software for this which I keep up to date with downloads from the Canon UK website.
I do a final levels adjustment in Photoshop before I invert the negative to a positive image.
Slides are more difficult because of the original contrast so low contrast slides are easier with high contrast slides being the most difficult. For treasured slides I would recommend taking three different exposures and using HDR techniques to control the contrast. I haven't done this as yet because of the sheer volume of slides that I was copying.
So like all good people I bought that Ultra High End Epson scanner. Eson makes the technology so accessable and a joy to use. Epson has wonderful installation for all components and with their own Epson software your moving along so well.
BUT... that SILVERFAST software [included] is a clunker when it does not work. It is hard to upgrade [REPEATEDLY SO] and the accuracy of their contact information is of VERY POOR VALUE especially when you need help.
Their over all web site experience is a distain for the educated consumer or business person.
From what I have read here, I can see that the use of these methods.... would become a reproducers dream senario.
Thank you for the wonders of Non-Scanner ideas!
I have just read this article and it certainly offers an option for those of us who prefer the colour and tonal gamut of film over digital. My caveat, as a serious amateur is that the colour gamut of affordable digital cameras offer typically only 12 bit colour, though the Nikon FX cameras and their new D7000 do offer 14 bit colour. For those of us who do landscape and macrophotography with large format film, as well as medium format, the Epson scanner remains the preferable option combined with scanner colour profiling when scanning transparency film.
Are there any light tables or such with built-in strip holders?
I accept the easiest is just to place a strip holder from a scanner or such on a light table. However, make the digitizing more efficient it would be better to have a fixed position of the image so that one won't have to tweak the placement before each photo.
Cheers and thanks for your suggestions
Philip
hello,
Thank you for this article. I live in France and I would like to ask you a favor: I need a copy stand idantique to the stand present in the picture of this article. Because I saw it at a friend 10 years ago and I would like to get one. If you have any information about where I can buy it, I would delight and I thank you in advance. Thank you contact me on this e mail address: ialhussa@yahoo.com
hello,
Thank you for this article. I live in France and I would like to ask you a favor: I need a copy stand idantique to the stand present in the picture of this article. Because I saw it at a friend 10 years ago and I would like to get one. If you have any information about where I can buy it, I would delight and I thank you in advance. Thank you contact me on this e mail address: ialhussa@yahoo.com
hello,
Thank you for this article. I live in France and I would like to ask you a favor: I need a copy stand idantique to the stand present in the picture of this article. Because I saw it at a friend 10 years ago and I would like to get one. If you have any information about where I can buy it, I would delight and I thank you in advance. Thank you contact me on this e mail address: ialhussa@yahoo.com
Related Articles
BJP Daily
Most Popular Articles
Don McCullin to headline Visa pour l'Image's 25th edition
Image Singulières festival presents Cédric Gerbehaye's Winter in Sète
12 photographers selected for 2013 World Press Photo's Joop Swart Masterclass
EyeEm photo-sharing app aims to enable photographers to sell their images
British Journal of Photography unveils new, enhanced iPad and iPhone apps
Beyond the Pulitzer Prize, the realities of covering the Syrian civil war
Updating your subscription status 
About us
British Journal of Photography is the world’s longest running photography magazine, established in 1854, and online since 1997. A high-quality monthly printed edition is available as a subscription or from selected newsagents in the UK and around the world.
Jobs
Key Account Manager
We have a vacancy for a Key Account Manager working on The British Journal of Photography
Head of Photography
Magnet Harlequin, one of the UK's leading Creative Production Agencies is seeking a new Head of Photography.
Photographic technical support officers
We have opportunities for two experienced photographic, audio or video technicians.
Popular Topics
