Building my Perfect Film Scanning Setup - with Kyle McDougall

[@Alymcbil]

Great video, can't wait for the next!

[@MooreBlond]

Really lovely content

[@allinsiteUK]

How interesting.. I am about to setup a permanent digital camera scanning rig along the lines that you outline here.. but with a much lower budget. I currently use a dedicated Jessop 35mm Zoom slide duplicator mounted on a Canon 5D mk2. This I have used for 35mm negatives and transparencies simply holding the rig infront of a Bestlite LED310 with pretty acceptable results (if you don't peer to close the very corners of the frame scans).Software used Rawtherapee 5.9. Total outlay for that kit has been a little under £300. I want to work with my 6x4.5 6x6 and 6x9cm media next.. hence to need for a new rig. I will be trying my Durst 605 baseboard and column fitted with a Manfrotto 3way head.. with either a 10x12in light box with the florescent gubbins removed and one of my Aputure Amaran video lights inserted.. (the latter version with 95 certified colour rating) or the upturned head of my 5x4in LPL colour enlarge. If using the enlarger I can use the film marks that came with it, which I have in all the formats I need. It also provides a dark environment for the digitizing as the bellows of the enlarger and the opening in the lens panel 'may' privide a suitable extranious light shroud. Funilly, the lens I am looking to use for my first tests is a version of the same Vivitar macro primes that I bought in the 80s for my Nikon FM2. It is the 90mm f2.5 version that focuses down to 1:1. I did think that this lens might be the achilies heel of the setup as l thought that MTF results in tests I saw (probably in Amatuer Photographer mag) for that lens were not to hot. But having looked now at a review on Pentaxforums.com of this 'Komine' version, there may be more hope to be had. Maybe the review I recall was actually of the Series 1 35-80mm 2.8 vari focus lens (which I also have). Lets see how things go. 🫡

[@michaelq16000]

POLAND MENTIONED🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱

[@philipau3847]

How is it a downgrade on your lab scans? Is the resolution of your Sony the limiting factor?

[@adeguntoro]

should i use spesific macro lens or "macro-capability" lens ? i own Tamron 17-70 and TTartisan 25mm?

[@randallstewart1224]

No, your lenses are unsuitable for this purpose. A macro lens (if it is really a macro, not just one so labelled as a sales pitch) is designed to have a very flat image field, so a flat subject will focus accurately across the whole image. They also tend to have higher resolution when focused close to the subject. Regular lenses do neither. In the video, his choice of an old Canon short focal length "macro" seriously limited the potential of his result, compared to modern macro in the 100mm or longer range. Generally, all zooms and probably all wide angle lenses are hopelessly inadequate. Before taking the plunge on this type of copy rig, note that the lens is the limiting factor in all of these set-ups, and the better lens is still going to cap your results to less than 20% better than a well focused Epson flatbed scanner for medium format, In 35mm, at least half of all the dedicated, quality scanners made in the 1990s will significantly out-perform this rig. You might want to first consider $300 - $500, less than a quality macro lens, for such an automatic 35mm scanner plus a copy of Vuescan to update its XP drivers to Win10/11. The great misunderstanding in almost all video presenting these "copy-camera" set-ups is that the best close up lens money can buy (excluding multi-thousand dollar commercial lenses) is going to give an image with resolution abut equal to 26 megs. You can use a camera with higher resolution than 26 megs, but the lens isn't going to give you more image data, so the rest of that image file is just noise.

[@QuietCornersPhotography]

Thank you for the video, I'm trying to figure out what process works best for me and I don't really get on with my flatbed scanner so this is really interesting. Maybe a silly question but do you scan/photo a roll with the room overhead light on or off? Does it make any difference to the image? I'm guessing having the light on just makes the process easier and is preferable, but only if it doesn't impact the scan quality.

[@Dewree69]

I have a similar setup (not that overkill in terms of the camera of course) and from my use, I can tell you it's pretty alright when scanning colour negative film, since the light source is pretty bright (15+ EV). If you're scanning slides, though, it's worth thinking about doing it at night, or with your curtains completely shut. Also, if you happen to own any led light strips, don't forget to turn them off completely, as they can give some ugly colour casts.

[@QuietCornersPhotography]

@@Dewree69 Thank you!