I’m in the process of switching over to scanning my negatives with a GFX50S and am wondering what lens scenario I should be aiming for with the specs I’m after.
I’ve been hearing that using enlarging/projection lenses is optimal due to their engineered flat reproduction qualities. I’ve got a friend who has a decent selection of focal lengths I could try out, but he also has some 50/55mm Nikon/Minolta macro options. I just need to figure out adapters/bellow. My goal is to be able to scan 35mm and 120 format up to 6x9 size negatives. With that said, I’m wondering which is better to invest in for optimal sensor coverage.
Items I’ve researched so far:
Rodenstock 80mm F4 paired with an m39-m42 Helicoid adapter then adapted to GFX. Would a helicoid provide me enough range for optimal sensor coverage?
Rodenstock 80mm F4 Enlarging lens paired with Novaflex Bellows system - this would be the more costly option.
Nikon Ai-S Micro Nikkor 55mm f/2.8 paired with extension tubes.
Minolta MC Macro Rokkor 50mm F3.5 MF Lens paired with an adapter.
I think you just want a nice macro lens. I use a Pentax 645 120mm f4 SMC A lens with an adapter for my GFX 100s and it works great! The sensor is smaller than 645 on GFX so you are using an even smaller area of the image circle. I regularly do 6x7 and have been very happy with the results.
Enlarging, and particularly duplication lenses can be very good for film copying on a ‘full frame’ camera but the larger sensor on your GFX50S does make it a little more difficult for copying 35mm film in particular if you want to make use of the full 44mm width of your sensor.
There are two reasons for this, the first being that you are then requiring a lens that performs very well at a magnification of 1.2:1 which is really a bit beyond where a straight enlarger lens like the Rodagon 80mm is comfortable. However it is very good on full frame as is the 80mm Componon-S so it would certainly be a good starting point. In fact you could decide to just use the ‘full frame’ part of your sensor for copying 35mm to get an excellent 30MP result.
The second reason is that you are likely to run into problems with physical vignetting if you are using bellows or extension rings designed for full frame and I think that M42 tubes or bellows from film era cameras could be problematic. Larger diameter tubes (and a 58 or 65mm helicoid perhaps), film era MF bellows or those pricy Novollex bellows should work though.
Once you’ve got a setup to take M39 mount lenses then you are in a very good place though, plenty of lenses to choose from. Try searching for ‘GFX’ on this forum for some other ideas.
Appreciate the insight here. I do have the added benefit of trying out a decent selection of focal lengths in my friends enlarging lens collection. I may buy something like this (linked) and test the coverage on both 120 and 35mm and see what works best to cover the full sensor.
This helicoid adapter is pretty inexpensive and possibly worth a shot. I’m not familiar with them and I’m wondering what kind of distance range this has to allow for close focus of these enlarging lenses.
Not sure the pictures of that tell the whole story, a pity there isn’t more information. I did read of one GFX user who used 65mm extension tubes, there is a GFX adapter to fit those, and then presumably back down to M39 somehow.