I’m planning to start scanning my own negatives with a Sony A7r4.
I’m going to be scanning 135 and 120 and want to get the most out of the sensor resolution on the camera.
I know the 70mm Sigma Art macro has been well regarded for a while in this community but I’ve heard that the 105mm may be even better?
Are there better lenses than the Sigmas that I should be considering?
There is always a better lens somewhere, but are you willing to dive into time-consuming DIY stuff ? Sigma 70 mm Macro Art is outstanding lens, my test showed that it is pretty much same as APO Rodagon D 2X 75 mm with added convenience of fully integration with camera. APO Rodagon D 2X 4.5/75 mm vs. Sigma 2.8/70 Macro Art - Fight of the Century
You saying the 105 would require more DIY?
no, it will not per se. But… the height (or length) of the setup will be noticeably longer than for 70 mm lens and will be more sensitive to any vibration and will require sturdier (heavier) setup for no apparent reason.
Have you compared these two lenses?
Personally i have not. On the other side i have not heard anyone saying 105 is noticeably better than 70 - given that i actively follow the topic of camera scanning across multiple forums i humbly believe that i am well informed.
I heard that the 105 doesn’t have the vignetting that the 70 does
I briefly checked data published by sigma
And found that the lenses are about the same length and weight. From a physical point of view, they are close to be equal (±)
Minimum focusing distances are 11.6 and 10.2 inches respectively, about 1.5 inches or 4cm. which is not the world either. add 0.5 inches for physical length and the cameras will be 2 in or 5 cm apart. If that is the difference between sturdy and wobble, your setup needs to be made sturdier to start with. There are many items that are just a tad elastic, and the more parts one uses the more tads will add up.
The sturdiest vertical setup I’ve experimented so far is this one…but I’m tempted to make it horizontal and with much better sealing between the lens and the negative. Something like the Nikon ES-2 looks promising, but it has its limitations, specially regarding the lens’s focal length.
Based on the MTF charts it does seem like the 105 performs slightly better.
You think a good copy stand and use of electronic shutter will be sturdy enough?
That’s interesting. Of course 5 cm does not make huge difference, you are right. I never bothered to actually check minimal focusing distance for that lens. That means the internal focusing/floating elements effectively make 105 mm lens to be more like 75 mm (300mm/4) at close-up. I guess we don’t care about effective focal length as long as lens performs fine. Though DoF will be affected but the effect will be small. So it comes down to wire which lens is better in practical terms (I guess extra $$$ is not really concern in the long run.)
I’m using Fuji so I’ve never looked into buying the (very well regarded) Sigma 70mm ART. I couldn’t get it to come up using the Sigma filter system for ‘macro’ and ‘mirrorless’ on their main site, has it been discontinued? I certainly read comments from earlier in the year that the Sony E-mount version wasn’t being made any more.
I suppose that most modern macro lenses breathe heavily in closeup ranges. I measured my Can EF100mm macro lens and posted the results here:Equivalent Focal Length And DOF @ Scanning Distances - #10 by Digitizer
So again, as measured, the EF100mm macro has s shorter FL at 1:1 than advertised at infinity (I suppose). I also suppose that Sigma’s published MTF charts are taken at infinity rather than at closest focusing distance, which is one of the targeted areas of use.
Yeah, and the next thing you gonna find yourself doing is making MTF charts at 1:1 and 1:2.3 ( for 6x9) 
But seriously, that sort of research is really needed when you start planning for use of Easy 120 or similar and you need to select proper tubes which separate lens and film original.
…and start saving money for the device, which comes in at about 500.-
Downside of the Valoi easy 120 is, that the tubes should be telescopic, but that would create the need for an external support structure.
@shoochyu @VladS Sadly… There are nearly no commonly available lenses from major consumer manufacturers that release 1:1 MTF charts… as Digitizer said everything is based on the lens at infinity. I wish all that info was readily available! So you have to find someone who has made them or make them yourself.
Lots of good lenses at 1:1 have a MTF chart that might show weakness at infinity or great MTF charts that are actually middling-to-bad 1:1 performers.
Moral of the story - find a great lens that works and stick with it! Lots of commonly tested ones to choose from. Something that is allegedly 2-3% better on a 1:1 MTF chart may not be noticeable in real world use because it demands perfection that is hard to achieve and maintain. Pick your poison and enjoy! Sigma 70/105, a copy or repro lens, fancy schneider macro, etc!
Indeed. Specialist lens designers like Schneider etc. tell you what the lens was designed for and many technical lenses are made for a relatively narrow imaging ratio like eg 0.9 to 1.1.
Most “common” lenses are bags full of compromise, but modern design and manufacturing can get us decent lenses anyways.
Lots of info here: Lenses — Close-up Photography
Completely agree! I like it about the poison
I don’t want to embarass Vlad here but we ‘camera scanners’ are in a much better place now that we can compare results from copying his test chart, that’s the main reason we can talk about ‘commonly tested’ lenses for this application. Vlad has done this himself with some lenses he owns on his site, there are some examples on this forum and a lot more on the "Digitizing…’ one on FB, probably more scattered about the interweb. Unfortunately there isn’t one place that you can go to compare them all though and I don’t think I’ve seen anyone post the results from the 105MM Sigma ART on a high MP sensor.
The late Robert O’Toole’s closeuphotography site is a brilliant resource of course, and it can be illuminating to see which lenses didn’t make the grade for the final 1:1 test, normally he would test them at 1:1 on APS-C first.
Hi All. This thread is like a who’s who of camera scanning! Hi SSelvidge and nice to meet you Vlad!
I use the Sigma 105mm f2.8 DG DN Macro Art on a Sony a7RIV and the Valoi easy35.
Verdict: It is spectacularly sharp in the center and very good even in the extreme corners. Highly recommend.
I personally or with the help of friends directly tested the following setups:
I highly recommend the Sigma 105mm.It performs excellent in corner to corner sharpness, and the autofocus is reliable enough on the sony + sigma that I regularly use it, and only rarely switch to manual focus if a certain roll or negative is particularly difficult to get focus on the grain.
I did not compare it to the 70mm DG DN Art directly, as there are enough references online that says the 105mm outperforms the 70mm, so I did not bother.
As a second choice, the Nikon D850 gave me very nice scans with zero noise and a bit more of a softness in the grain that made for pleasant photos, the Nikon D850 with AF-D 60mm is my second choice. It’s great value for the money. But, I always have to manual focus this setup, which became bothersome.
The Sony + Sigma easily outperforms the Coolscan and Epson hands down. The Noritsu is incredible, you get comparable linear resolution from a 24MPix image as you do from the 60MPix. It’s a very contrasty scan in comparison though, it doesn’t have the tonality of the modern sensors.
As for the Rodenstock, the 2X lens is the wrong lens to compare, it does not perform well at 1:1 magnification. The 1X will outperform these lenses in corner sharpness as reported on the facebook group “digitizing film with a digital camera”. I did try enlarger lenses too, but this is a painfully DIY setup with adapters and helicoils and copystands. Yuck.
easy35 is the most convenient and fun way to scan negatives. Copy stands suck to use, I avoid them.
A word of warning: We chase sharpness because its easy to measure, but sharpness isn’t everything, color reproduction and ease of use is also important. For example, I have seen no discenrable benefit moving from 45MPix to 60MPix (its <15% better linear resolution) but my file sizes have increased. None of these setups, not even the Rodenstock, will resolve down to the grain - I have put my macro lens on a 5:1 bellows and compared the 5x optical magnification of the image, and there’s much more fine grain detail in the 5x optical magnification. That being said, it becomes an academic exercise to truly capture every silver grain.
A test of the 105mm DG DN 105mm ART on photomacrography.net:
https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=42747&start=15
This forum can also be good source of information, a number of renowned lens experts contribute to it, as did Robert O’Toole, though it tends to be interested in magnifications greater than 1:1.