I have a question regarding DSLR “scanning” of unmounted slides.
I own a Canon EOS 6D + Tamron 90mm DI SP Macro objective. I plan to get the necessary gear for digitizing what I got which includes b&w and color 35mm and medium negatives, 35mm slides and eventually photo prints.
Currently, I will focus on slides and while scanning them framed seems fairly straight forward, I would, if possible, prefer scanning them unmounted to capture the full exposed area. This would also avoid the often dirty glass on my GePe frames.
My first idea was to lay them on a lighttable and flatten with a glass (ANR if needed), but then I read that the lighttable surface might interfere.
Did anyone have success with the commercially available options for single frames (i.e. keeping the film flat) or came up with a workable solution?
The easiest way to make a single negative flat is to sandwich it between two layers of glass. Downside is, that you can get Newton rings and more dust (each surface can attract dust) and, obviously, a load of unframed film to deal with. Wet mounting can avoid a few issues, but makes scanning more tedious and messy.
Handling might improve with an enlarger film holder. They can be found on eBay or new, e.g. from Kaiser.
All things considered, you might want to scan your framed slides as is and rescan the stripped film for images that are worth a big print - or have someone do the scanning for you for a limited number of top images.
DIY camera scanning can involve a lot of effort and $$ if you want to do it right. I recommend to define your target quality and print size before anything else. Changing specs while you go is like drilling holes in the hull of your ship.
One inexpensive route might be to get a basic plastic glassless slide mount (e.g. Gepe 7001) and carefully file it out to a larger aperture, these are around 35mm x 23mm out of the box. Then use this as a dedicated mount for your cut 35mm frames in your standard 35mm slide holder. Make sure there are no sharp edges and wash and dry both sides thoroughly to remove any swarf of course. As with all glassless mounts the slide won’t be held completely flat as it would with glass on one or both sides but it will be much easier to deal with any dust.
Apart from that you could make your own hinged holder with AN glass below and an oversize mask on top. Enlargers are a good source as @Digitizer says, I have a Durst Sirioneg from an M605 with their anti-newton glass insert below and the slightly oversized Sivoma 35 mask above (37mm x 25mm). The Sivoma 35 is usually sold paired with the Sixma 35 which is slightly undersize at 34.5mm x 23mm. Mine all came with my M605 enlarger, they can be a bit pricy otherwise. The same setup works very well for strips of negatives where you want to show a sliver of rebate.
It is a bit fiddly to hold a cut 35mm frame in place as you close it down, not too bad though. I use a short strip of very narrow and thin plastic masking tape, one end is bent over on itself to make it easy to take on and off, you can reuse the same strip. This is sold for vehicle restorations and such like, coach-lining etc.
Not sure if this is something like what yo want, but I"ve been quite happy with the Wess AHX500K slide mounts. They are almost same as other slide mounts, but they keep the film much flatter and also show full frame for most films (at least the ones I did). Apparently not all cameras have exactly 24x36 image area, because some get still cropped a tiny bit, but much less than normal mounts. Others show differing amounts of film rebate
That’s a big question! Certainly make sure that the individual LED cells can’t be distinguished. Check by photographing without a slide in place at your normal aperture and choose a shutter speed that will centre the histogram, so you get a mid-grey essentially. Then whack up the contrast to see if there is any sign of a pattern. Also might be appropriate to mask down the panel so there’s not too much extraneous light bouncing around. That may not be appropriate, depends on your setup.
The forum contains a lot of posts about lighting. E.g. here:
As @Harry already wrote: Watch for patterns!
Things like an iPad work well - with enough distance to the slide or additional diffusers. Here’s an example where the pattern shows due to small aperture:
I just realized the alignment of the sprocket holes is very variable on my old photos, so I guess that will not play well with the Wess slide mounts?
I wanted to follow up on @Harry 's suggestion. I can obtain the Sirioneg/Sivoma set inexpensively, but that includes plain glass. What is you experience with placing the film with the emulsion side down on plain glass? I guess that would prevent Newton rings, but would the quality suffer? Otherwise, would a piece of mdoern musem glass work as a replacement?
They also had an anti-Newton ‘AN’ version, they do come up on the auction site from time to time, but that’s in the UK. I have one. It’s the Sivogla AN. They also did the Sidia 5 x 5 for mounted slides.
Unless I dreamt it someone somewhere suggested putting a phone protection glass on to plain glass. I haven’t tried it but charity shops round here have these in abundance for obsolete phones. No idea if it helps.
You got me thinking, and looking. I see that this outfit in France do 3D-printed masks to fit both the Sirioneg & Unineg carriers. The apertures are slightly oversize (I think - please check) so you get some rebate.
Just one more thing, did I understand it right that you put the Sivogla AN in the bottom part? The manual suggests it is a top part, but may be the dimensions are the same?
Yes, they are the same dimensions and I believe that some prefer to have the glass on the top. I don’t think it can make any difference really, which surface of the film faces the glass does of course but you know that. Incidentally the carrier has ‘cart springs’ on it which compresses the faces of the holder when it is inserted in the enlarger. I have a couple of weights that I use to make up for this.
The manual was written for an enlarger. Top part means “between the film and the lamp”.
With enlargers, film is inserted with the emulsion side pointing away from the lamp…and this is the same for vertical setups with the lamp below the film. Inserting film with emulsion side pointing towards the lens necessitates the AN glass to be below the film, or, between the lamp and the film.
Newton’s rings form from interference when slightly bent surfaces touch. Light is reflected from and bounces between the surfaces and the light from several reflexions combine, e.g. in dependence on how bent and shiny the surfaces are.
This “standard” configuration means the a camera scan must be mirror flipped. If your scans don’t need to be flipped, you’ve captured the backside of the film and then, the AN glass should be above the film, between the film and the lens.
Yeah, they definitely are hard to find and price skyrocketed. If you’re interested, I’d be happy to send you a few, so you can test if they work for you and the sprockets on your films before decidng to spend aything on a box. I also noticed there could be some variation