Yes, and so adapters from T-mount to 39x1 ‘Leica’ are pretty freely available if you go down the Apo route some time. That 135mm Componon-S might be a nice surprise though.
That is a welcomed benefit!
Hi folks!
At first I made a separate post about this, but I’ve just realised there’s actually a dedicated thread, so I’ll post it here.
Please feel free to give me your feedback on any areas of the setup that could be improved. Criticism would be much appreciated!!
Over the last few years, I’ve prioritised a setup that focuses on smooth scanning speed and mechanical reliability, while working with constraints on available workspace.
So, last year I was lucky enough to get a very recent version of the Durst Colorcopy 350, which is originally a slide enlarger.
It is quite simply a Durst 605 enlarger head, inverted and fitted into a base that includes a ventilation system. This allows the light to be left on for long periods without the risk of it breaking (I used to use an enlarger head as a light source and had to use a timer to prevent overheating).
There are quite a few practical features: adjustment knobs for the bellows and height (the stand is the same as that of a 605 enlarger, incidentally), an ND filter that allows you to position the negative without straining your eyes, and adjustment of the CMY filters. The lens is mounted via a T2 ring in the stand, which is handy (particularly for rotating when switching from 35mm to 120). It’s the 75mm Apo Rodagon-D 2X.
Finally, the negative holder is interchangeable within a fixed base (which fits onto the base so it can be centred in the camera’s viewfinder), and supports several formats: 35mm, 120, 645, 66 and 67. I even have an extension kit that allows me to use the 4×5 format. Practical!
My camera is a Canon 2000D with an APS-C sensor. It’s not the best, but it’s actually the only digital camera I’ve ever owned.
I also have Vlad’s Test shots on 35mm and 120 film, to make sure the focus is consistent when I set up the stand (I take everything down every time because I store it in a closet)
I scan the 35mm film in one go, at f/5.6, and I scan the 120 (mainly 66) in two stages (half the negative at a time, in landscape orientation), before stitching the images (f/8).
Of course, I do the conversion using NLP in Lightroom.
I’m starting to look into digitisation via RGB channels (I’ve got the technical basics to understand what’s going on, but I must admit I’ve only just got started so I’m still a bit lost). I was wondering if it’s possible to use CMY filters in combination to achieve an RGB light (CM->B, MY->R, YC->G)? Will the light be of good quality? (How can I be sure of this – just by checking the spectrum on my DSLR?)
Thank you in advance!
Pierre (from france!)
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Hi Pierre, thanks for posting your setup here. It looks to me like a great setup, that Durst Colorcopy is quite an unusual bit of kit, I’d never seen one. Your camera could I suppose be regarded as having basic features for everyday photography (and nothing wrong with that) but all that matters here is that it is a 24MP APS-C sensor with 14-bit RAWs.
I use that lens on my 24MP Fuji X-T2, it’s perfectly matched for copying 35mm on to APS-C (0.67x magnification or 1:1.5) and gives excellent results as you know. I also have a Durst M605 so I’m very familiar with that colour head also. The Colorcopy looks quick & easy to get out of the cupboard and setup.
Since you are using Vlad’s Test Target I expect that you have checked the column for alignment with a mirror. Since it was designed as a film copier it wouldn’t necessarily be built to the tolerances that we like to have for digital pixel-peeping but it would I imagine be easy to adjust with shims just as my M605 is. I can of course use my M605 in this way with the Siriocam copy arm but as you say then there is the heat issue.
I also wonder if the fan could possibly introduce some slight vibration that could take the edge of the definition but you’d see that on Vlad’s Test Target. Ideally you should get Group 0 Element 2 around all the targets, but only just. Also I guess you need to use it in a darkened room, or possibly you can put a tube/can tunnel over the negative stage.
I haven’t experimented with my M605 head but in theory you could quite easily neutralise the orange base of colour negative by dialling in the correct filtration. Others have tried this on this forum but I don’t think the results have been conclusive. Also there is some evidence that you can get better definition by using green light for copying black & white since there are more green receptors on the sensor, not tried it myself though and may not show at 24MP anyway. As far as trying to emulate R,G & B illumination that might be better asked in a separate post.
As a 24MP mirrorless user I do think that a mirrorless camera would be much easier with its focus peaking and general WYSIWYG design. Something like a Sony A6300 would make a relatively inexpensive mirrorless film copying body with that excellent 75mm f4.5 Apo-Rodagon 2x lens (the A6000 is cheaper but 12-bit instead of 14-bit which could I suppose make a difference), or a Fuji X-Trans like mine, Fuji even made 24MP Bayer sensor cameras like the X-A5 & X-A7.
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@pierre I have Beseler device very similar to yours and I did have the same idea of using it as RGB by combining two channels together. I even have spectrophotometer Seikonik spectromaster which I bought specifically for that project. Unfortunately I shelved my duplicator without doing much as the vibration from fan was giving me doubts about overall stability. I remember that color measurement with the dichroic filters engaged gave me very strange looking spectra , but I did not have chance to explore that deeper. Overall I think those duplicators are too crude devices for RGB work, every time you need to rotate those dials to get to another color - I think it’s too much trouble. What I think is totally doable though is to try to use dichroic head to compensate orange mask. For that you need spectrophotometer and some are available for around $400 from China. I would take the film leader load it and place spectrophotometer on top of film gate and rotate dials until the spectra you see on device is roughly resembling sun light - or at least have r g b intensities approximately equal if spectrophotometer is set to measure light at 5500K. Once you are in vicinity of that , which I guess would be something like 150C150M00Y you may start “scanning" negatives knowing that orange mask no longer suppresses blue part of your light spectra. Of course having halogen lamp short on blue and long on red does not help, but that’s our life - you just rotate dials as far as you can 
Same is true for slides - though compensation needed is much more modest. 80C60M00Y may be enough. Before investing much effort in that whole thing make sure you have enough of spare bulbs - because those halogen bulbs have lifespan of about 30-50 hours at best . The bottom line is that you probably can make a decent correction, but I would use real spectrophotometer even the cheapest one like “color monkey photo” - as the histogram camera shows is derived from jpeg converted image so it’s very far off from what you want. I had good experience with Philips PCS 130 true RGB color head as source of light and I think I posted something about that.
Hope my Test Target helps you with you work. Please spread the word .
Use UniWB to see a histogram that closely relates to what the sensor picks up.
An easy method to get a UniWB setting is to greatly overexpose and then take a custom WB reading from the overexposed capture. Some cameras don’t allow to WB from a blown area. In this case, search the web for other sources of information and how-tos.
Note that UniWB does not compensate the orange mask, but it helps to set your lights so that no channel is blown, something that can happen easily with RGB (or CMY) lighting.
Caveat: on-sensor PFAF can derail the “blown image UniWB” procedure. E.g. the Canon R7 tended to too much blue. Overexposing to just above saturation fixed this, so go gently and test the limits. Check WB multipliers (e.g. with exiftool), they should be the same give or take 1%.
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