Nikkor Z MC 105mm 2.8 vs?

Digital Camera Scanning
1

Hi everyone,

After using a dedicated film scanner to process most of my old family negatives (IR dust removal being indispensable for those old damaged negs) I’m finally getting into digital camera scanning for scanning all my new rolls. I’ll be using the Nikon Z7II. I just had a few thoughts on the lens selection though. My first thought is to just get the brand new 105mm z mc 2.8 which ofc has 1:1 macro capability and seems like it would be high performing. “Theoretically” it could double as a short tele lens… in reality I’m not sure I’d ever actually use It for anything but scanning though?

My other option is the Laowa 100mm f2.8 2:1 macro lens. Manual focus only, which is no big deal for the scans, but makes it less useful for anything else. also somewhat prone to flare, although this should be controlled for this use case. It retails for less than half of the nikon as well.

Lastly and most interestingly, I was wondering if the 2:1 macro capability would come in handy for scanning Kodak Disk and 110 film negatives? Don’t know why but of course my parents had to go invest heavily in both of those film technologies back in the 80’s so I do still have a decent amount of old 110 and disk negatives to try to scan, and perhaps this would be the best option to try to get all I can from those negatives…

Any thoughts from you experienced digital camera scanning people would be much appreciated!

2

Well I’m not one of those experienced digital camera scanning people when it comes to the specific equipment that you are discussing but given that you’ve got 45MP to play with and hopefully a top quality lens at 1:1 I don’t think that choosing a lens for 2:1 copying of Kodak Disk or 110 negatives should be a consideration in your choice of lenses. This for me is simply because you should get fantastic quality from full frame 35mm at 1:1 and Kodak Disc or 110 negatives are not going to reveal any more detail at 2:1 than they would at 1:1, the lenses used are unlikely to have been stellar. Maybe just think of capturing two 110 frames together at 1:1, not sure where to begin with Kodak Disk, never seen one.

3

I think you are right, thanks for the input!

4

I use a Nikon D850 with the dedicated Nikon ES2 and a Nikon micro 60mm macro lens as recommended by Nikon. They also recommend the 105mm. Not had any problems other than the negatives I am “scanning” are 20+ years old and the tropics have not been kind…! I use a Manfrotto LED light source with both the camera and the Manfrotto mounted on separate tripods facing each other. So far no problems.