Negatives witha digital back?

[geronimo13]

Hi!

Anyone in here that uses a digital back to photograph their negatives?

 

[DDudenbostel]

I've done it a few times with large format negs to see how it works and it worked very well. I used a hasselblad V body / cfv39 back with Zeiss 120 macro planar. Negs were on a Fuji light box and masked off to reduce scattered light.

 

[geronimo13]

How to do it i know

But how did you whitebalance set curves and so on?

 

[Egor]

I recently did this using a demo Leaf aptus2-12/ DF / 120 macro and the results were outstanding. Not quite as good as on my Heidelberg Tango drum scanner, but pretty durn close and it took a lot less time to setup/ cleanup.
I used a Macbeth 10 inch light box and cut some black paper to mask. With some 35mm trannies and some 6x6 and 4x5 b/w negs, I first established exposure by test shooting until my white point was exactly 255/255/255, then backed off exposure to make it 250/250/250. I then used an old IT8 target to produce a contrast/color curve profile using data color spydercheck software (just to get me in the ballpark)
With the camera tethered and set up down facing in copy setup.
The results were great, but oil mounting has certain advantages on the drum, especially when it comes to dust, scratches, and moire issues. Not that there is any reason why I couldn't oil mount and sandwich these negs for the copy camera, it was just that I was looking for an easier non-invasive procedure to use on old WW2 negs that may not survive the usual oil mounting process and would be quick to cleanup.

 

[Shashin]

How to do it i know

But how did you whitebalance set curves and so on?

Shoot RAW and set those in post. If you are talking color negs, you may find filtering the light table to a high color temperature to compensate for the integral mask--the orange thing. But your might find that the AWB takes care of it.

 

[dougpeterson]

Our Division of Cultural Heritage has a lot of experience in using digital backs to rapidly capture film (rapid relative to film scanners).

In answer to your question about white balance and curves, the most common approach applied to the Cultural Heritage market (Museums, Libraries, Archives, Institutes, Schools etc) is, wherever possible, to shoot a known-test-target using the medium in question (whatever camera+emulsion+developer your items are). This of course has it's limitations (you have to have access to the camera+emulsion+developer, it cannot take into account any changes due to aging in less stable films, etc). Another approach is to use an accepted final-print or other tangible object as your goal.

In the case that a test target is possible to capture on the same medium there are dedicated software packages that analyze the target and can create the proper set of curve and white balance adjustments.

Forgoing those more sophisticated institutionally targeted tools you can use in Capture One (assuming you are using Phase or Leaf) the levels tool can be used to invert the color channels. Just go into each color and drag the 0 black-level slider to 255, and and 255 white-level slider to 0. By further using the RGB levels, and curves you can generally get pretty close.

 

[geronimo13]

Thank you!

Doug, you mean that i shoot a color checker card with the film I will later "scan"?

As this is only my own work and I process my film at the same place this wont be a problem. What kind of software package? I shoot iq140. I know how to invert but its getting the right wb/curves that is hard.

 

[dougpeterson]

Thank you!

Doug, you mean that i shoot a color checker card with the film I will later "scan"?

As this is only my own work and I process my film at the same place this wont be a problem. What kind of software package? I shoot iq140. I know how to invert but its getting the right wb/curves that is hard.

Indeed. There are some software packages for this, but they are all quite expensive (>$3k) as they are designed for institutional use. The exception is the Color Checker Passport tie-in with Adobe products. I've never tried this with a color negative; you'd have to see if it allows such a radical color inversion as part of it's calibration limits. I suspect not.

So unless you're prepared for $3k pricing for software for this project my suggestion would be to shoot the color checker with the film camera, shoot the film with the digital back, bring the raw up on a well-calibrated monitor and compare it (by eye) to the actual color checker illuminated by something near daylite lite, and use Capture One's levels, curves, and color editor to create a style that gets the colors right manually. Use the color pickers if numerical accuracy is important; otherwise just adjust my eye.

This will be much easier (and more comprehensive) than adjusting to a single image.

Unfortunately you may find larger-than-expected variations between various batches of the film, various exposures, and various color temperatures. They may not vary the end-resulting color (with your style adjustment) in a linear/expected way. And of course this will only apply (well) to a specific emulsion.

Let us know the results of your adventures!

 

[Godfrey]

Our Division of Cultural Heritage has a lot of experience in using digital backs to rapidly capture film (rapid relative to film scanners).

...

Do you have a source for these negative holding fixtures? I've been doing this with my home-made fixtures, would love to get something a bit sturdier like these.

thanks
Godfrey

 

[dougpeterson]

Do you have a source for these negative holding fixtures? I've been doing this with my home-made fixtures, would love to get something a bit sturdier like these.

thanks
Godfrey

We (Digital Transitions) are the OEM for the camera body, repo graphics stand, and pattern-holder in those images. They are available exclusively from us.

They are not intended for casual use (nor priced that way). We made them after some of our institutional clients complained the plastic-made ones they had leftover from their scanner days were failing (bowing, breaking, bending, discoloring) after "only" a few dozen thousand captures. These are intended to last indefinitely even under constant heavy use.

But that said, if budget is not a big concern and you'd like the very best film holder made (for scanning with a camera) please email me your contact info to [email protected] and we'll send you a quote.

DT Film Scanning Kit

 

[EH21]

Doug,
I'd also be interested in those film holders.
Eric

 

[Analog6]

I have some 6 x 6 trannies I would love to get onto digital and cannot afford to get scanned. Would it be best to use a 'standard' lens - ie 80mm? And could I adapt an old enlarger to hold the camera over the trannies, do you think?

 

[geronimo13]

I have some 6 x 6 trannies I would love to get onto digital and cannot afford to get scanned. Would it be best to use a 'standard' lens - ie 80mm? And could I adapt an old enlarger to hold the camera over the trannies, do you think?

I would get a macro = better corner sharpness and you can get closer to achieve maximum resolution.

 

[Egor]

Some recent tests with a Leaf Aptus2-12/120Macro vs Heidelberg Tango Drum Scanner (pretty much the finest drumscanner on the planet)
Leaf Captures on Left, Tango Drumscans on Right
The contest is NOT FAIR in that the drumscans were oil mounted on an icc profiled system, vs a DF/120Macro looking down onto a slide suspended above a lightbox. Totally "ghetto" but effective copy setup.
Dont read much into this, but thought it interesting how much better the drumscan is PMT vs CCD, and how good ole film still can rock.

http://www.eprepservices.com/public/Leaf_vs_Tango_1.jpg
http://www.eprepservices.com/public/Leaf_vs_Tango_2.jpg
http://www.eprepservices.com/public/Leaf_vs_Tango_3.jpg

 

[geronimo13]

Very impressive! The Digital back wins in speed though and with acceptable quality that is the winner for me.

 

[dick]

Some recent tests with a Leaf Aptus2-12/120Macro vs Heidelberg Tango Drum Scanner (pretty much the finest drumscanner on the planet)
Leaf Captures on Left, Tango Drumscans on Right
The contest is NOT FAIR in that the drumscans were oil mounted on an icc profiled system, vs a DF/120Macro looking down onto a slide suspended above a lightbox. Totally "ghetto" but effective copy setup.
Dont read much into this, but thought it interesting how much better the drumscan is PMT vs CCD, and how good ole film still can rock.

I have macro systems which I will soon use for 66 transparencies.

I have a Hasselblad transparency copy holder (came with the bellows a few decades ago).

I could also use my Bessler enlarger as copy holder and for illumination.

I think MFDSLR "macro" lenses are less than ideal as, at 1:1 they are right at the end of their "optimal" range.

...better to use a purpose built "macro only" lens optimised for around 1:1 and not created for the convenience of compactness.

I have a Sinoran 120 macro, optimised for 2:1 magnification to 1:5 and an SK macro 120... OK for about 3:1 up to A4 or A3. (I also have a set of Zeiss Luminar macro lenses for up to 40:1).

I can use the Sinar rail as an optical bench, so I do not need a stand. The subject to sensor dimension for 2:1 for the Sinaron is, I think over 500mm!

 

[Egor]

Very impressive! The Digital back wins in speed though and with acceptable quality that is the winner for me.

I know, right?
Start to finished file time with Drumscanner: 1-hour (includes mounting and cleaning tranny)
Start to finished file time with Leaf Capture: 1 minute ( took 30 sec to focus)
From that perspective, the Leaf Capture is pretty durn close, eh?

Dick: I do not believe the difference you are looking at is a lens issue. I think its a refractive index issue and pmt vs ccd issue! And never forget that the Drumscanner does not interpolate color, doesn't even know how ...I think I could have gotten closer to the drum quality if I had oil mounted and built a proper shield around stray light from the soft box. Also, a proper profile or curve for the setup would have improved things, as would perhaps more time spent processing in C1. The drum can also scan up to 50 of these 35mm trannies per drum unattended ( after major setup time). I have three drums. Back in "the day" I would do over 100 scans a day, now down to about that per year, but holding onto ole "Heidi.." hoping hipsters get some money and start a film comeback!

Your tranny holder idea should work great, wish I had one, or had saved any of my old 4x5 enlarger stuff from those days! No substitute for oil mount though.

 

[robertwright]

what interests me is the backlight used in the dt package- how do you get smooth tone with no trace of detail, meaning, so often I have seen with epson scanners in sky areas you can see the texture of the backlight diffuser patterned subtly on areas of continuous tone. Is the backlight sufficiently behind the neg/pos to be very out of focus? In 35mm the problem is gross enlargement of the diffuser pattern, in 8x10 the problem is often it is in focus at the same distance, so it needs to move farther behind to be out of focus. Or that in the 8x10 scan the light is just not even enough.

I've often thought of taking a colour enlarger and turning it sideways as a neg holder/light source, plus you can dial in the mask colour on the colour controls.

anyone done this?

 

[Egor]

Robert, I used a standard softbox setup that is tested even illumination (+/- .1-stop) across a 2ft square area. Then on top of that I placed a hard plexi diffusion panel that is bead-blasted for absolute smooth matte finish (exact same thing I shoot product on, just smaller. You see one of the big guys in the background I think).
If I had seen the backlight texture of that, I would then put a sheet of optically clear glass about 2inches above that and shot at F8 or less to make sure no texture would be focused upon.
I will be testing this with medium and large format negs and expect similar results, but who knows?
The drum scanner, of course, has no such issues because it is a tuning-fork set up that travels vertically on either side of a rotating drum made of optically clear acrylic (each drum is $$$thousands). It transmits a point light source (almost a laser) focused on a very small sample area thru the transparency to the receiving PMT on the other side of the tuning fork.
Flatbed scanners and CCD/CMOS sensors can not operate this way.

 

[dick]

Dick: I do not believe the difference you are looking at is a lens issue. I think its a refractive index issue and pmt vs ccd issue! And never forget that the Drumscanner does not interpolate color, doesn't even know how

If interpolation is the problem, I can use my Sinar digital back in 22Mpx or 88Mpx multi-shot mode.

I think I could have gotten closer to the drum quality if I had oil mounted and built a proper shield around stray light from the soft box.

I have a Sinar bellows mask 2, which has 4 "roller blind" screens. and this should help eliminate stray light... but stray light would mostly just desaturate the dark areas.

Also, a proper profile or curve for the setup would have improved things, as would perhaps more time spent processing in C1. The drum can also scan up to 50 of these 35mm trannies per drum unattended ( after major setup time). I have three drums. Back in "the day" I would do over 100 scans a day, now down to about that per year, but holding onto ole "Heidi.." hoping hipsters get some money and start a film comeback!

Your tranny holder idea should work great, wish I had one, or had saved any of my old 4x5 enlarger stuff from those days! No substitute for oil mount though.

Newton's rings are a potential problem, but they would be obvious as coloured lines - oil reduces the number of air/glass interfaces, and a glassless negative carried like the one in my Bessler enlarger might help.

If resolution is the problem - can you see the film grain? it was clearly resolved with my polaroid Sprint scan scanner at 4000 lines per inch (80 Mpx file) and scanning at lower res would be one way of getting rid of the grain. ¿Is there not a function in Photoshop to reduce grain?

If you cannot see the grain, I think your lens is a limiting factor.