Scanning film with a microscope

[@lait3274]

“There is no comparison when looking at the resolution and resolving power”

[@vladak559]

"There is no comparison when looking at the resolution and resolving power"

[@CherylCole2899]

“There is no comparison when looking at the resolution and resolving power”

[@kendea]

“There is no comparison when looking at the resolution and resolving power”

[@pawetarnawski9532]

"There is no comparison when looking at the resolution and resolving power"

[@VariTimo]

“There is no comparison when looking at the resolution and resolving power.”

[@neutrinissimo5118]

"Physical manifestation of the save icon" 😂 Also, digitising the film with the last two cameras is just hilarious.

[@ramonmartinezcabada6762]

It's crazy how when comparing the resolution and resolving power of the microscope to other scanning methods, there's no comparison when you look at the sheer resolution and resolving power of the microscope.

[@earthcube]

😄

[@darzee8423]

It's hilarious that this is one of your most sensible/understandable projects. The definition of being so preoccupied with whether or not you could, you didn't stop to think if you should.

[@jacobdipietro375]

Sad there were no trichrome examples 😅 Love your videos! Always look forward to getting the notification that you have uploaded.

[@BarsMonster]

Edges are not in focus because microscope lenses you have are not "flat". They are designed to only show sharp image in the center and have severe field curvature. When looking by eyes - they refocus and you can still see everything. But for microphotography more expensive flat-corrected lenses are needed (they often have "Plan" somewhere in their name).

[@sirscorgie]

yeap some fluro coated N-plan objectives are needed for sure!

[@caromac_]

To be pedantic, photomicrography is a picture taken through a microscope, microphotography is taking a very small photograph (small end image, normal subject)

[@turdledive927]

Micrographs! Pedantics! You must work in a lab and use either a zeiss or a keysight!

[@danielalala-s6i]

Well yes but more importantly you need a condenser with proper Köhler illumination. And you need to know how to properly mount your film flat and clean.

[@BarsMonster]

@@danielalala-s6i Köhler illumination is overrated in my experience. If you use simple matte diffuser like here - you loose a bit of contrast, but not resolution (as you illuminate much wider cone of light than needed).

[@cosarara97]

Seems like it woule be really cool to use it to see the structure of grain in different films!

[@joshuagaude6084]

I also kind of want to see the structure of the dye clouds on color film too.

[@kleanish]

gotta compare tmax to trix

[@harken9978]

BABE WAKE UP. ATTIC DARKROOM POSTED AGAIN.

[@thealaris]

The only logical way to scan Adox Cms 20 that I've came up with in my head, and now you made it to life😆

[@CrociDB]

Looking forward to the 110 scan now.

[@pnwsnewton]

I am thinking Minox subminiature.

[@henrahmagix]

Compared to the microscope scan there is no comparison when you look at the sheer resolution or resolving power. Compared to the microscope scan there is no comparison when you look at the sheer resolution or resolving power. Compared to the microscope scan there is no comparison when you look at the sheer resolution or resolving power. I love you

[@punkey0]

On top of being a top tier meme video this is the best demonstration of what you can get with the most common scanning methods so you accidentally taught me something

[@ale_s45]

No way you did this, I had been thinking about this for years. I love this channel

[@Moonstone-Redux]

1:44 What you are seeing is classic flat-field distortion. Your objectives are not plan-corrected. Cheaper objective lens that are not marked Plan will exhibit these distortions that you see in the outer edges. I have an image of an entire mouse brain sample that was taken using multiple images taken with the 20x lens. Even for a sample that is like 10mm by 5mm it took 230 images and would be something I absolutely wouldn't have bothered to do if it weren't for the fact that the microscope had a fully motorised stage. Even so it took over half an hour to complete.

[@atticdarkroom]

Interesting. Like I mentioned, microscopes are so beyond my wheelhouse I'm just happy to get a result. Now I do want to refine it, and it seems like I have to look into getting better objectives. Thanks for the info.

[@dewydddrieux1393]

The first thing that came to me too

[@danielalala-s6i]

His microscope doesn't even have a condenser 😊

[@aheadachewithpictures]

I love your videos so much, I don't study photography anymore but when I did me and my mate would talk about your videos and dumb photography ideas and stuff, I have no one to talk to about it anymore but I still get to enjoy your videos!

[@dieontape]

Always a great day when attic darkroom uploads

[@johnnyswatts]

Microscopist here. Microscope objectives only produce a flat field of focus in the centre of the field of view. And that's for really good objectives from Leica, Mitutoyo, Nikon, Olympus, or Zeiss. The sensor on your DSLR is going to be much larger than that region as it isn't designed to work with a microscope and microscopes aren't designed to work with DSLRs. Due to vignetting on both the imaging and illumination legs of your microscope the brightness of the image will not be constant across the field of view. We generally correct this by taking a picture of a blank region of slide and using this to correct the unevenness.

[@primepiplup]

The film mad scientist strikes again, great work :D

[@LBCRPhotography]

This is the most useful video I’ve ever watched.

[@maxpower7785]

What if you scanned CMS 20 II with the microscope at the highest magnification?

[@atticdarkroom]

I've always wanted to shoot CMS and develop it in Adotech IV. It would be interesting to compare the grain.

[@BasilRoosli-jy9sr]

@@atticdarkroom I would love to see what you do with it! And a little bit of microscope scanning there would be really intriguing and cool

[@maxpower7785]

@@atticdarkroom you now have a nice excuse to try it out and compare it to regular BW films

[@earthcube]

I love everything about this. For scanning, I've always been torn between using my dad's flatbed scanner and shooting negatives with a macro lens, but now I want to try all the other options.

[@ale_s45]

Could you try color film next time?

[@ivereadthesequel]

And with this you've made one of the most in-depth videos involving using microscopy for assessing film resolution or just scanning in general. I was pleasantly surprised to see this come up in my subs as when I've searched before I don't find people pointing microscopes at their film almost at all on youtube. Only time is when it's some video on how it works for a simple demonstration of "look at the silver!" I second the guy that said Minox, but there's a lot more you can do. 16mm and 8mm film, which might not have as high quality because it's constantly moving and uses lower shutter speeds. Still could be fun. B&W will always be better because color dyes always end up being larger. Microfilms like Adox CMS II, Fuji HR-21 (unperfed sadly), and even that Rollei stock that you can still get SPUR is another option (and developer) but I think it uses the same emulsion as Rollei's stock. Another thing is you can try using ultra-fine dry plates in a camera and try scanning those lol

[@TheParker567]

Love the part where you said "oh yeah..... it's time for the attic" and then tri-chromed some film

[@ar5846]

Video idea: develop a roll of film with no timer and you eat 10 edible gummies before you develop the film

[@rh9909]

A Man Shot Trichrome For 3 Years. This Is What Happened To His Brain.

[@awaysounds]

wow cool that someone try to do this. because i am always was wondering. basically it is the same like drum scanner. for stitching you can use PTGui. it can automatically crop unsharp areas, calculate vignetting, geometric distortion, equalize brightness between shots.

[@ethanpschwartz]

"I wonder if I can attach a camera to this" goes through my head almost as much as the O'Reilly Auto Parts jingle.

[@willheur]

I actually believe that with the right lenses and processing power this could be an incredible tool for scanning and preserving films. I'm one of those nut jobs that's looking for efficient DIY motion picture film options and while this is insanely impractical I think you could find a software solution to some of the problems you mentioned. The idea of having a direct film scan in that kind of quality makes me giddy and I want to believe.

[@jakewestbrook3214]

honestly, the old digital camera gags at the end were brilliant- hopefully you can find a tank to develop 110 film

[@AMTunLimited]

You could also try making micro-dots! Thought Emporium put out an awesome video somewhat recently.

[@LoFiAxolotl]

The only thing i want to know.... did you actually say the resolving power and resolution bit 200 times?

[@elliotmarks06]

I could watch you scan film with a string of wackier capture methods all day

[@parkermillican]

this devolved exactly into the place I wanted it to

[@stefanochillotti1726]

I actually did this too at work one time, with both bw negs and color slides, just I didn't scan the whole image. Those unfocused parts of the digital image are probably because of the objective of the microscope not being a real planar obj. If you're interested I can share some grain pics taken with our rig.

[@areelguy]

This is my favourite video by far.

[@joystickmusic]

I have a similar scanner. I 3dprinted film holders for the 4x5 inch and 10x15cm inch negatives. To get them in focus, the film needs to be 2mm away from the glass.

[@fandyus4125]

It would be great to see some further experiments with this. Maybe with some Adox CMS 20 II with a f/1.4 lens? Or color film? I hear Velvia 50 had extremely high resolution.

[@PendragonDaGreat]

I think the insane thing on the gameboy camera is that as soon as you zoomed it out it's like "oh that's a color test card shot in black and white" the human eye and brain are hecking weird.

[@thecaveofthedead]

This is really interesting. If a person wanted maximum resolution for an image - using something like Adox 20 ISO film, and then set up a little arduino system and stepping motors to move the stage around programatically, with consistent lighting and manual exposure. Using only the sharp centre of the field. It'd be interesting to see the maximum resolving power you could get from the 35mm frame using a modern lens at an optimum aperture with a camera with a mirror lock-up feature and a release on a heavy tripod.

[@lindsaymobil22]

Oh I'd love to see you attempt to scan some APS with the microscope, since APS so rarely gets some decent scans. Of course compared to 35mm there's no comparison when looking at the resolution and the resolving power.

[@SilntObsvr]

What you have there is possibly the optimal tool for scanning Minox negatives. The 8x11 mm image area would only require a few dozen cropped frames, but would easily outperform almost any other method of getting a digital image from such a small frame. BTW, if you find one cheap, you might try the same thing with a lower power objective -- or even with a wide field microscope (they're typically 20x with the eyepieces -- and yes, most of them are stereo). A common 20x should come close to getting a whole Minox or perhaps even 110 frame in a single image (possibly a better chance if you use direct eyepiece projection or even prime focus -- that is, remove both the eyepiece and camera lens and let the microscope objective directly focus the image onto the camera sensor). You might even try that with your existing microscope, with the low power objective and a simple eyepiece tube (you should be able to find those in T mount which then adapts to almost any commercial lens mount). There are also inexpensive mounts that can let your smart phone look into the eyepiece, and the one in this house does a fine job of capturing detail not much larger than that film grain (individual cell structure of corals, from our experience).

[@doriangasseling]

Whenever I see anything from early digital cameras I do really wonder how film ever got replaced haha. I have a couple old Microscope mount Olympus bodies (C35AD I think?) that are more or less an OM1 with no winder/prism/viewfinder etc but has a Nikon style blade shutter built into the mount. If you want one of those for whatever reason and don't mind paying shipping from New Zealand I'll happily send one over!

[@pastedtomato]

Remember those mystery bulk microfilms you had a while ago? I wonder how they would look under the microscope, given those have the finest grain and greater resolving power of any light recording medium

[@SamCyanide]

Pretty good budget entry level film scanning option. However, the Fujifilm GFX produces much higher resolution and resolving power resulting in crisper scans.

[@jcbahr]

Consider the panorama software "hugin" for stitching together the many microscope scans. I think it has some exposure compensation too

[@ianscarborough2357]

take a shot everytime he says “There is no comparison when looking at the resolution and resolving power” ***blacks out***

[@simon8206]

Hey this is really cool, I think it could be possible to do the alignment/transformation automatically, so you don't have to move in perfect increments and could just move the film around while taking as many pictures as you can with the camera. This would also introduce some sampling which could reduce noise / improve sharpness? For example I found this github repo called "image align and average", generally astrophotography deals with this kind of stuff I think

[@declanb6985]

This video was dope! I want to do something like this, but for inspecting laser etched project to fine tune settings. I've though it would be really cool to automate the entire process.

[@CNSFG]

i want that Mavica! it's too cool

[@zjohn6879]

My first thought when you mentioned smaller negatives were 8x11 Minox. I'm guessing here, but the results may be better than 110

[@gabot1983]

Great job. Had you try an digital microscope those of one use in electronic

[@footrotdog]

You are awesome! Just needed to share that. Also, if you want to start shooting 110, I've gotten the best results shooting Lomography Orca at places like wild west museums and steam train museums. The images are so crusty, they look like they were taken in the 1800's.

[@TurquoiseIcy]

I watched this video when it came out and I'm already waiting for another video...

[@TeufortTunes]

you should make a video about shooting IR film and film without a halation layer spooled in the same roll!

[@tonyzhu403]

Quote of the Video: "there is no comparison when you look at the sheer resolution or resolving power."

[@ahaco8734]

Thank You for new episode

[@lait3274]

First. I love you.

[@Fotografia-SimãoPintoCorreia]

I whold recommend to get an Arduino and some stepper motors and a relay and build a "thing" that pushes the film every so slightly and then the relay operates a cable that will release a the shutter on the Canon 5D. Second tip: try a small program called Hugin. I don't know if there is a windows or Mac version but I use it bin Linux just fine. It handles large "panoramic" shots just fine (Hugin did a flawless job on a ~50 shot RAW panorama in an old Celeron PC and faster, than PS did (actually it didn't, it messed up the image, next time...) with the same shot in a i7 mac.

[@Noah-lj2sg]

There's no comparison when you look at the sheer resolution and resolving power of the microscope

[@areallyrealisticguyd4333]

you gotta get yourself a sx-70 microscope adapter so you can get those sick macros on Polaroid

[@floopledoop9492]

this makes me want to see you try out a slide duplicator for scanning, hypothetically its a premade setup

[@ianscarborough2357]

Curious to see what 8mm frames might look with the higher objectives!

[@secretivesquirrelstudios]

I started looking at this for scanning minolta 16 negatives, which is a more realistic use case without automation. I was using an adapter without optics and I got slightly better results than this, but I came to the conclusion that I really needed a 2x planar lens, and the cost of that basically made the project a lot less appealing. Right now I'm using a bellows with a reversed enlarger lens on a 5d3 for that task - less resolution, but I can still get to grain level so I don't see much point in taking it further.

[@sdcorrey]

You could go with Minox and get even smaller than 110.

[@Sisadmin3118]

Sooo... Cross-processing physical manifestation of save icon?

[@AlexB-qf9te]

Would have been very interesting to try this with Adox CMS12, since no regular scanning method can really resolve the sharpness of that film

[@simonjensen596]

would be cool to see what you can get with super high res film stocks (the 25iso or similar stuff)

[@diapozitīvs]

I wonder what those better scanner options are

[@ninjapotato980]

Next logical step would be to spend several weeks attaching stepper motors to the microscopes stage and automate the moving and photographing of the negative. Then somehow automate the stitching of the mosaic, make this your new default way of digitizing negatives and spend thousands on new hard drives because a single roll of film would now need 100+ GB.

[@Mudganon59]

microscope optic are not that good in terms of corner image sharpness generally, since they ment for viewing with naked eye and not capturing entire field. Hence why usually there is a dedicated splitter for camera with different optical path. And on top of that microscope cameras are c mount? which crops all that imperfections out

[@SaitoGray]

I wonder if you can do a comparison when looking at the resolutions and resolving power.

[@OnnieKoski]

Awesome

[@lindltailor]

Next, try a telescope mounted to an X-ray machine

[@salamander462]

You also went back to the first time the 17A picture shown if it's really there

[@Film_Fog]

I also had the idea of using a microscope for film scanning, so i really enjoyed your video. Thanks for sharing it. p.s. the background music is irritating and strangely also used by other film photography youtube channels such as SprocketHoles and several others.

[@tiituspee]

in future I want to see grain test with every filmstock you shoot and how difrent proceses change the grain..

[@6884]

6:05 YES HE SAID!

[@6884]

IT AGAIN!

[@yorgle]

I'd love to also see your comparison with the "Kodak" branded ~$100-$150 home slide scanners (since you kinda went down that path here anyway) -- like the "Slide N Scan" and the slightly older "Scanza" (which i think gives better results from what i've seen?)

[@PrebleStreetRecords]

Now you just have to rig up a couple stepper motors to move the X-Y axis to automate the process, and probably a well-regulated high CRI light to illuminate the film. Then the digital nerds will never be able to talk about megapixel count or resolving power again! I've had the same problem with my Epson though. I wish there was a better option for high-res medium and large format (without selling a kidney). I tried to order one of those BetterScanning holders that are adjustable with grub screws to tune the focus but I think he's out of business.

[@ceber54]

The process can be automatized using robotic micrometers (or rotary mounts), and python. Also, if you are worried about the poor depth of filed, it can be solved using a technique (that is available in PS [I guess]) known as Focus Stacking.

[@sirscorgie]

We have one of these in work as well as a high-grade medical scanner, I've always wondered what scanning film on it would look like! Maybe something to try

[@danielgerry6374]

I really enjoy 110 cameras, but I have absolutely no way I could scan the negatives. They are too small for flatbed scanning so honestly if you made a video scanning 110 film, it would probably be the single most useful video you’ve ever made in terms of the kind of photography I shoot

[@anewlifestirring]

You can find microscope adapters for all SLR mounts without glass elements. I have one for my Minolta mount. This said it would be interesting if you tels us why you undertook this experiment.

[@holyvanguard]

Take a shot everytime he says no conparison when you look at the sheer resolution or resolving power 😂

[@666Tomato666]

for cleaner stitching you may have better results by using nona and enfuse

[@Fat-totoro-cat]

If you get 'plan' objectives you should get better results in the corners. Also I think most objectives are designed to be used with cover glass, so I wouldn't go above 4x objectives anyway.

[@VariTimo]

Now do Kodak Vision3 50D!! With a landscape scene shot with a really sharp lens.

[@BigBenAdv]

Absolutely loved the inclusion of the Mavica. You've a like and sub for it! 😁 I remember my uncle coming around for Xmas party in 97 with the Mavica and it was like magic. He's always been the gadget freak in the family and bought lots of these stuff like the HP Omnibook running Windows 3.1 (albeit in monochrome). Out of curiosity, does the setup work if you sandwich the film in between 2 glass/ plastic plates instead of wet mounting?

[@atticdarkroom]

For film flatness? Sure. But wet mounting helps reduce or eliminate dust and scratches.

[@mz-pv9ki]

Have you considered using a roll of adox cms 20 and seeing how well that emulsion resolves under a microscope?

[@salamander405]

Maybe try it with half frame 35mm film next before 110 as a bit of a test

[@mynewcolour]

_The devil makes work for idle hands_ starts to become clear.

[@BHuij1992]

Aw man now I want to see like TriX in Rodinal vs Delta 100 in XTOL or something.

[@takseo]

Being photo technician myself, I absolutely love your videos and sense of humor. But I wonder, why didn't you trichromed it?

[@acres41]

I wonder how other methods of scanning hold up to the microscope in comparison when you look at the sheer resolution or resolving power?

[@TheParker567]

NEW VIDEO LETS GO

[@yellowcrescent]

Pretty neat. I've thought about doing this with my Amscope stereo microscope (which already has a trinocular port). Although i'd need to cobble together an adapter for my Panasonic cameras -- the dedicated microscope camera I have has kind of crappy image quality (pretty sure it's just digitized video from an analog video module because you can see deinterlacing artifacts.. lol) Also the Epson V800/V850 has two optical paths. The high resolution path has its focal plane a few mm above the glass (used with film holders) and the low resolution path has its focal plane directly at the glass surface and covers the entire scan bed. From the little bit of testing I've done, it def makes a difference to scan 120 and 135 film in a holder versus flat on the glass. Which is very annoying because the assholes decided to make the V850's 120 film holder not able to hold a full strip of (3) 6x7 frames... unlike the V600 which can....

[@cabbelos]

Get two large pieces of antinewton glass and you're off to the races. I bought my V600 that was missing the holders for very cheap and went this route. It took a bit of shopping around, but I found a glass supplier local to my area that did acid etched antireflective glass. You gotta get the etched glass, not the coated one. Etched side faces the film to prevent the newton rings. It was like 20€ for the set + some fiddling around with adhesive closed cell foam feet to get the focus height correct for my exact scanner (was 3,6mm on mine if I remember correctly).

[@OttoLP]

if you motorized the movement of the film and let it take the pictures automatically. This could actually work. And maybe doing the photomerge automatically in one go, if any software supports this many images.

[@atticdarkroom]

I thought about it, but I don't have the skills or means to make it happen. Motorized microscope stages exist, but I also know that I probably can't afford them.

[@counterscam6547]

@@atticdarkroomyou could probably rig a 3d printer to do that for you tbh

[@SchardtCinematic]

How about old Microfiche or old Micro Film. Like libraies story old news papers on them in the past. They were super small yet seemed to have lots of detail. How would that look under a microscope to scan?

[@StephenHoldaway]

After a certain resolution, it seems like you start to run into the problem of which resizing algorithm will give the most accurate results

[@manuelmannymoreno1070]

What about scanning super 8 reels?