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6x8 velvia to digital

danlindberg

Well-known member
Hi all, I'm on holiday back home in Sweden and enjoying lazy days. This morning I was looking in my toys cupboard. Loved to play a little with the Contax G1 and 45/90, what a camera that was (is)!

But I also found a rather large archive with 500 or so 6x8 Velvia slides (shot with Fuji GX680III) that brought back both memories and smiles.
Back in the day I bought a Minolta Dimage MultiPro medium format scanner (still have it, unused for oh so many years). Sure, it worked fine, but my Credo 60 blows it out of the water in comparison.

So, I was thinking, maybe I should give it a go to actually shoot the transparencies with my Alpa!? I know that the Helvetar 75 is beautiful at rendering closeups and I have enough adaptors to come close enough. Thinking of using the filmholder from the Dimage MultiPro. And I am not worried of working out the lighting.

However, here's what I do worry about, how on earth can I be sure that the slide is perfectly parallel to the sensor???

I do have the groundglass and loupe and dial it in by being patient and going from corner to corner several times, but there must be a more sofisticated way.....how would you do it?
 

ErikKaffehr

Well-known member
Hi,

I have seen a video at LuLa where Bill Atkinson rigged for shooting poslished stones. He used an height adjustable table (with three screws) and a precision bubble level. So first he made the board holding the stone level, than he replaced the back with a plate and put the bubble level on that plate and adjusted the camera level.

This one: https://luminous-landscape.com/vide...deo-journal-issue-16/interview-bill-atkinson/

The video needs membership at LuLa.

Best regards
Erik

Hi all, I'm on holiday back home in Sweden and enjoying lazy days. This morning I was looking in my toys cupboard. Loved to play a little with the Contax G1 and 45/90, what a camera that was (is)!

But I also found a rather large archive with 500 or so 6x8 Velvia slides (shot with Fuji GX680III) that brought back both memories and smiles.
Back in the day I bought a Minolta Dimage MultiPro medium format scanner (still have it, unused for oh so many years). Sure, it worked fine, but my Credo 60 blows it out of the water in comparison.

So, I was thinking, maybe I should give it a go to actually shoot the transparencies with my Alpa!? I know that the Helvetar 75 is beautiful at rendering closeups and I have enough adaptors to come close enough. Thinking of using the filmholder from the Dimage MultiPro. And I am not worried of working out the lighting.

However, here's what I do worry about, how on earth can I be sure that the slide is perfectly parallel to the sensor???

I do have the groundglass and loupe and dial it in by being patient and going from corner to corner several times, but there must be a more sofisticated way.....how would you do it?
 

torger

Active member
I've done some of that and I simply used a light table, a very stable tripod and a leveling head with good fine-tune ability and used liveview peeking into the corners. The largest problem wasn't to get the stuff level, but to get the film flat. Not a big problem with 135 as the film area is small, but for MF formats it immediately becomes a problem so you really need a good holder for that. Unfortunately many MF film holders, even for the scanners, fall short on that. AFAIK there are some custom holders out there for that reason, for example to the Nikon 9000ED scanner.

Using scanners I haven't scanned MF film, but for 135 film I preferred using a good film scanner with HDR mode for the slide films. It was a bit slow, but pretty fail safe and the quality of those CCDs with full RGB in each pixel is good, noise is the only true weakness, but with HDR scan mode I found it to be adequate.

If you want to accurately reproduce the film's colors you need to apply some color management, especially when using a light table + digital back. I don't think it makes sense to apply Leaf's subjective color on top of Velvia's, but it's not illegal of course :)
 

danlindberg

Well-known member
Thanks to both :)

Unfortunately I'm not a member at lula so cannot see the video.

Torger, the Dimage MultiPro have very solid filmholders, one without glass and one with high quality glass for formats up to 6x9. I was planning to use the one with glass to enjoy complete flatness!

I just realised I actually also have an old reprostand, so I guess that is a very good startingpoint. Totally forgotten I had this. :eek:

A lighttable as base and mask it off for transparency size. Use Alpa's round precision bubble to take note of exact position when placed on top of film holder and then place that same bubble on top of the Credo screen and dial in for same position. That I think could be both doable and quite good precision...

Colours I am not so worried about either, they are all landscapes so there would not be absolute references to colours, I would tweak to my liking and not necessarily to the original Velvia.
 

danlindberg

Well-known member
Just a thought!!!!

Is it possible that my big pixel back, Aptus II 5, maybe is the better back for this application?
 

torger

Active member
Just a thought!!!!

Is it possible that my big pixel back, Aptus II 5, maybe is the better back for this application?
I wouldn't think so, but you could try. What I would look for is how film grain end up. With "wrong" semi-low resolution the film grain may end up looking more blotchy than it actually is.
 

jerome_m

Member
However, here's what I do worry about, how on earth can I be sure that the slide is perfectly parallel to the sensor???
You use a copy stand. They come up from time to time on eBay. Basically, they are an enlarger column without the enlarger. Come to think of it, you could probably repurpose an old enlarger to do the same...
 

danlindberg

Well-known member
I wouldn't think so, but you could try. What I would look for is how film grain end up. With "wrong" semi-low resolution the film grain may end up looking more blotchy than it actually is.
Alright, I should expect high res back to be the better back. Could be interesting to try the other one too...

You use a copy stand. They come up from time to time on eBay. Basically, they are an enlarger column without the enlarger. Come to think of it, you could probably repurpose an old enlarger to do the same...
Thanks Jerome, I realised I actually already have a copystand, so I'm all set to give this a try without too much of an effort. I'll do this when I get back from my break!
 

danlindberg

Well-known member
Lula membership is only US$12 per annum.
I might be the odd bird out, but I simply do not have time for more than one forum. I did sign up at lula about the same time as for getdpi but think I have 5 posts or something on lula! I found getdpi much friendlier and chose that to be the place to visit and contribute. So, nothing to do with $12....
 

ErikKaffehr

Well-known member
Hi,

Just to say, I have tried out using my Sony Alpha 99 for slide dupe when I got it and found the technique held great promise. Problem is getting the slide parallell to the sensor and keeping it flat. It is also important to mask out all light leaks as slides can be extremely dense.

The results were extremely good, however, so it is certainly worth the effort.

Best regards
Erik
 

Wayne Fox

Workshop Member
I might be the odd bird out, but I simply do not have time for more than one forum. I did sign up at lula about the same time as for getdpi but think I have 5 posts or something on lula! I found getdpi much friendlier and chose that to be the place to visit and contribute. So, nothing to do with $12....
The $12 is for access to the articles and videos. The LuLa forum is actually free. I get more out of LuLa from the articles and videos, I still participate in the forums some, but definitely not as much as I used to.

As far as your project, we get good results with an Epson Perfection 750 scanner, scan quite a bit of film and make quite a few prints. Might be easier than setting up a copy/repro setup.
 

GrahamWelland

Subscriber & Workshop Member
Dan,

I used to use the Minolta MF scanner too. The problem these days obviously being the SCSI interface but the real thing that made the difference was the scanhancer mount.

I have a similar setup for my Epson 750 (like Wayne) which does a decent job with my XPan files and in fact all formats. I bought the anti-newton glass, adjustable mounts from betterscanning.com and these work well. This set up allows you to adjust for optimum focus and film flatness.

The Alpa with 47XL and 72XL was excellent with film. I still have an Alpa 44x33mm Linhof film back available if someone is interested ... The images I shot on film from this setup on my TC/STC even had my film processor asking what the heck I'd shot the images with!
 

danlindberg

Well-known member
Hi Dan-

You probably would be better off using a slide copier like https://www.novoflex.com/en/products/macro-accessories/focusing-racks/castel-cop-digi/ this (6x8 will probably be OK).

It gives you the advantage of ease of use and any light source including strobes.

jim
I like and have several Novoflex products so I quickly looked it up, but it says it only takes 6x7 and I do not want to cut my originals. Pitty because that looked good and as you say, gives more freedom to lighting.

The $12 is for access to the articles and videos. The LuLa forum is actually free. I get more out of LuLa from the articles and videos, I still participate in the forums some, but definitely not as much as I used to.

As far as your project, we get good results with an Epson Perfection 750 scanner, scan quite a bit of film and make quite a few prints. Might be easier than setting up a copy/repro setup.
I'm sure there are good content but I didn't read/look much before either. However, moneywise it is nothing so maybe worth the odd article to help out a specific project...

Dan,

I used to use the Minolta MF scanner too. The problem these days obviously being the SCSI interface but the real thing that made the difference was the scanhancer mount.

I have a similar setup for my Epson 750 (like Wayne) which does a decent job with my XPan files and in fact all formats. I bought the anti-newton glass, adjustable mounts from betterscanning.com and these work well. This set up allows you to adjust for optimum focus and film flatness.

The Alpa with 47XL and 72XL was excellent with film. I still have an Alpa 44x33mm Linhof film back available if someone is interested ... The images I shot on film from this setup on my TC/STC even had my film processor asking what the heck I'd shot the images with!
Is it even possible to use it nowadays? connection and driver? I remember it to be really expensive!
If you had the 6x9 filmback for Alpa, then I would have been interested :D
 

GrahamWelland

Subscriber & Workshop Member
Just wanted to correct my previous post. I have the Alpa 44x66mm film back from Linhof/Alpa. As with all things Alpa & Linhof, a thing of technical beauty. And yes, I'd contemplate selling it if someone is interested. If I could find an affordable 38mm Zeiss Biogon (which the back was optimized for) I'd buy that instead.
 

Stuart Richardson

Active member
If you are going to be doing this on a regular basis and don't mind spending a bit of money, the Versalab Parallel is the way to go. I resisted for years because of the price, but as soon as I got it, I realized it was the right decision. It was primarily designed to align enlargers, but it will work for any scenario where you need to make something square, and where you can secure its position (it is a little trickier for horizontals, but if you can hold it against the surface to be photographed, and then make adjustments to the camera, it still works. For what you are describing, it can make a laborious effort to get it just right into a matter of seconds. I use it for artwork reproduction, enlarger alignment and digital copywork or scanning.
http://www.versalab.com/PARALLEL.html
 
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