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Well haven’t had a lot if time but although once I saw equivalent sharpness with the micro 55.2.8 on my enlarger rig but after scanning a few rolls on the Coolscan IV it was consistently sharper. That was at f8.. I will do my next comparison at f11. This was done with the D7500 and magnified live view focusing. This was all done with Vuescan both on the NEF files and scanning. I’m finding Vuescan doing nef conversions the match quite well to the nice scans which us a huge boon. Sharpening was turned off when scanning the negs. Dust filter on light. Workflow so far much faster with scanner if neg conversion and dust cleaning factored in. Only about a minute per frame. I do a low rez preview and autofocus just at scantime. I have the strip loader so minimal film handling. With camera scanning my film holders are very good belonging to a Minolta Multi Pro which I have and is higher res and probably sharper than the 2900 dpi Nikon scanner. I finding some interesting exposure related issues when scanning in the nef files in Vuescan if anyone is interested or experienced in using Vuescan for neg conversion.

This is what I ended up with. Added a stabilizer to the inverted lamp head. I bought the same 100 watt led in daylight. No Idea if it makes a difference at this point. The good news my shutter speed is up to around 1/250 and I was able to achieve similar resolution to the Nikon scans. I had better luck with the D7500 than D3400 using the Micro 55. The exposure simulation and touchscreen are nice. I also realized I am missing a condenser lens but the one I have seems ok for light diffusion As far as color my various neg conversion attempt have not matched the scanner but that’s a whole other endless topic.

I did find the temp of the Omega bulb. 2900. I look at various enlarger bulbs and they are similar. I’m wondering if those being designed for printing paper are not necessarily the best for film digitizing. I’ll look for specs for high end digitizing lightpanels to see what they are using

Yes but with the 66 limitation Omega B-66 is the more modern update to the famous B-22 enlarger. Like the B-22, it can handle multiple film formats from 35mm to 2¼"x2¼", but it's revised lamphouse design provides easier access to the condenser lenses and lamp. I’m happy to have it covering as large a film as it does. And I now have an excellent bright light source. I’m now in a much better position to experiment between this rig and the Coolscan for 35mm thanks to everyone’s feedback. I am still unclear on the effect if different temps of the bulb either the Omega bulb I have or a led. Specifically I guess it’s a CRI question of different bulbs. I had some good response about the led lamps but still a little uncertain. Could anyone say I should go shopping for a daylight led bulb? Also I haven’t been able to determine the characteristics of the Omega bulb I have as mentioned previously. Id like to know what my Omega bulb was intended for. Does the temp or other aspect of the bulb make a big difference in negative conversion or positive film reproduction? Especially with big jumps say between 2000k 5000k 7000k? Of course Um wondering about the camera white balance setting also. I’m thinking a daylight bulb and daylight setting on the camera but not sure. The 100 equivalent household led I mentioned seems significantly brighter than the 75watt Omega bulb Once I resolve this lamp question I can get started Thanks

Thanks for that info. Today I took the Omega B66 lamp head and set it upside down on the copy board. I have a 100 watt equivalent 1800 lumen household bulb and screwed it in. It happened to be a soft white. Probably in the 2000 -3000 k temp range. Instant bright light source! I found right away how the convex glass lens piece spreads the light evenly much brighten than my old panel which I have no specs for. I could shop for a daylight temp led anywhere which is supposed to be around 5000k. Or a cool white would the daylight led be best being closest to D5000 proofing standard? My disappointment however is the Omega head seem to only cover 645 or 66 max due to vignette and the physical size limitations of condenser lens if that is the correct term. Great light source for 35mm and 645. I just set my Minolta film carrier right on the upside down head. Everything square. But no 67 or 69 film So I am probably looking at panels again. Negative Supply Sunray Box III Panorama + Negative/Slide Holders (Camera Scanning Starter Kit) - Lightbox For Slide & Negative Film Scans One of the things the Nikon does best besides ICE is the neg to pos conversion. I just scan with no color correction at all in Viewscan and open it in Gimp and do auto white balance and it comes out great or use levels with eyedroppers. Trying Raw Therapee neg converter. Otherwise Nikon NX-D and flipping the levels then converting the raw to tiff or jpeg and trying to deal with the blue cast in Gimp Not very successfully unfortunately. Nikon Coolscan does it better

Regarding the 111 year old house it’s just the wooden floors will induce vibration if anyone is moving around with some creaking and groaning as well. I did a quick setup with the Sony A6000 with the 55 Micro Nikkor on a Kiwi adapter. I realized the mirrorless has some workflow advantages with realtime viewing. Very simple in shutter priority. I don’t know it’s 24 MP sensor is any better or worse in this application compared to the Nikons. At any rate at f8 my light source is only capable 1/10 sec Sony or Nikon. So I have been looking at better panels. Before I go that route I’d like feedback on using the Omega lamp head. It currently has this Omega bulb. Omega #471-038 PH140 75W 120V Condenser Enlarger Lamp I know nothing about enlargers or which bulbs for color vs BW etc The head has a clear glass plate and a lens The bulb is standard base. Any ideas on bulbs or how bright with the idea of getting faster shutter speeds?

Well I found without the bellows everything was flimsy. My separate garage is currently at sub zero f so I had to make do with what I could find in the house. First I reinstalled the bellows assembly then found this rigid cast bookshelf mount which I mounted as shown in the pic. I drilled a hole and robbed a screw from a junk tripod. I squared it with a stick between 4 sides of lens barrel and light box and it’s quite square. I identified two other issues one being my 110 floors shake easily and the other the 1/10 sec shutter speed. I switched to my 18-55 AFP VR and autofocus and things improved markedly. I was confused why shutter speed and f stop didn’t seem to be affecting exposure as expected and I didn’t want such a long exposure because of shake. I’ve been learning more about Live View which really had never used much. First is LV stops the lens down for obvious reasons. Then I discovered on my D7500 I can do exposure preview in LV. I don’t know if the D3400 has this. I know the 18-55 is quite sharp especially with VR. It’s possible it may compare favorably with the 55 micro. That remains to be seen. I was under the impression that the D3400 had an advantage over the D7500 metering with AI lenses but can’t find why now. The D7500 certainly wins with AF lenses seeming to provide full functionality I will return to the copy stand with the micro with and my better understanding of LV and see If I can get a faster shutter speed. I actually have 3 camera choices. The two Nikons and a Sony A6000 with Nikon adapter also 24 MP. Any feedback on these three cameras as best for film digitizing would be appreciated.

I certainly see the value in the ES2 or 1 for 35mm. To get the complete ES2 kit with film holder a bit of an investment. I haven’t researched them completely. Tossing medium format into the mix adds complexity thats for sure. Regarding the Omega Enlarger I removed the lamp head and also bellows unit. The D3400 fits neatly between the bellows arm. Drill one 1/4 hole for bottom screw and i could have a usable no cost rig. I would have to square in one direction but instead of two but should not be an issue. Any idea if It would for work for medium format film with the 55 2.8. Theres a lot of vertical range on the enlarger

Hi thanks for the feedback. I admit my quick test wasn’t very rigorous. I could only eyeball the squareness. I did use a 10 sec shutter delay with the tripod to reduce shake as my exposure was 1/10 sec. My light box isn’t so bright. It so happens that I have an Omega Pro -B66 enlarger. Quick read online showed that if one had two adapter parts one can convert this to a copy stand. I am not sure if I would end up with the right parts from ebay or if the investment would be worth it. At the moment my 35mm Nikon scans with ICE are good Converting the Omega would be more useful for medium format. Any feedback about the Omega conversion would be helpful. What about illumination?

Hello. I haven’t been on here in some years. Ive retired now so have some time for film digitizing. I have a lot of film around that will be a surprise to find what’s on it. So I did a comparison test shooting color neg and Kodak Bw400 c41 BW neg. i first used a 20 mp Nikon D7500 but the used the 24 mp Nikon D3400 Nikon Coolscan IV is 2900 dpi using Vuescan scanning software. Camera and scanner tiff files were similar in size but final test shot raw. Lens was a Micro Nikkor 55. F2.8. Which allowed me to fill the frame with no extension tube thanks to the DX sensor I used a fluorescent light box about a foot away from camera. I used an excellent 35mm film holder from a Minolta zMulti Pro. F stops tried between 5.6 to 11. Focused using LiveView magnified I used Self timer to delay shutter release by 10 seconds tripod of course The winner in sharpness was not surprisingly was the Coolscan I could make a comparison that the camera scan might be equivalent to an Epson flatbed but don’t have on setup now I didn’t do any sharpening on the raw file. Any feedback would be appreciated. Is there anything I could do better? What has your experience been? Thanks