Here’s a new option, a crafted box about 1.5" high with built-in LED light source and nice aluminum negative carriers for 35mm and MF.
First, the product is quite good; the web site is spotty. Communication with the guy in Taiwan is excellent. If you like the item, go ahead and order with confidence. Delivered to me in the US exactly one week after ordering.
This is the product: A wooden box, internal LED illumination, good looking negative holders. Plugs into US 110v power; switch in the line cord. (European editions??)
Internally, there’s a power supply and an LED panel that just about fills the box, 1/2" below a diffuser.
Light from this panel is bright. For camera scan at 1:1, f/5.6 nominal aperture, exposure will be around 1/100th. Far brighter than a Kaiser panel. This box is designed for camera-copying, while the Kaiser is designed for judging transparencies. (In similar setup, I had exposures of about 1 sec with Kaiser.)
Spec for the back light is 5600°K and 97CRI. I measured (iPhone Pocket Light Meter app) at 5100°K. Pretty good.
How good is the light? I’ll compare to flash which is my “gold standard” (along with Solux). Test conditions: UV filter. 1:1 shot with Sony A7. Good blocking of all stray light. Convert in NLP 2.0 using Nate’s recommended settings for a neutral conversion (Basic, PreSat 5, Linear+Gamma) and I used Film=Fuji.
I think that’s an excellent comparison. Good colors all around, no cast on the white t-shirt. All with no manual adjustments. (Another big bravo to Nate!)
Negative holder for 35mm is nicely creafted aluminum. Care taken so that sliding the negative through cannot scratch the image area. I worried this might let the negative be not-flat, but it looks pretty good. Opening shows part of sproket holes and some rebate. (iPhone shot of the opening with a negative.)
MF negative holder is a nice design. Adjustable for formats. Minimum opening is 56mm x 60mm. Max is 56mm x 91mm. Advertised as 6x45 to 6x7, but I think it’s 6x6 to 6x9.
Question is how does this compare to a Kaiser panel? My answer: It’s thicker (about 1.5"), includes negative carriers, it masks extraneous light, and the quality of light is at least as good. For backlighting for Camera-scan for NLP, in a vertical setup, I think this is quite good.
One more: It’s not setup for slides, but you can place a slide on top of the 35mm carrier, just fits left-to-right. Will work fine for slides one at a time.