New Nikon ES-2 Film Digitizing Adapter

"Any attempt to focus the lens with the lens barrel requires the distance from the film plane to the subject increase."

- That's exactly what happens when the subject, in this case a piece of film, is at a fixed distance from the front of the lens. The whole assembly moves as the helicoid is focussed, and therefore the image-plane to subject distance alters.

However, the requirement for a change in distance is only true for unit-focussing lenses. Most AF lenses use internal focussing, which changes the lens focal length, and therefore the conjugate focii, with only a small change in lens length.

Whatever the lens construction; In practise it's far more controllable to adjust the focus using the lens than to shuffle the distance of the film-holder backwards and forwards. If only because touching the film holder has a risk of rotating or shifting the film laterally.

"The epiphany is that digital cameras routinely match or exceed the resolution of Nikon film scanners"

- This is an epiphany to whom? Someone that's been stranded on a desert island for the last 5 years or so?

 

"The epiphany is that digital cameras routinely match or exceed the resolution of Nikon film scanners"

- This is an epiphany to whom? Someone that's been stranded on a desert island for the last 5 years or so?

Now that's funny, I don't care who you are... :p

Say, you have any idea why B&H doesn't carry Kodachrome anymore?

The "epiphany" stems from the disappointment that film scanners are a thing of the past There are countless posts of people looking for used scanners, shortly thereafter looking for someone to serve them. If you still have doubt, this thread prompted over a hundred responses from people interesting in using digital cameras to digitize film in lieu of a dedicated film scanner. It is no longer necessary to settle for the slow performance and poor image quality of flatbed scanners.

This is not the only thread. People seem eager the learn more about the process and hardware to support it. The ES-1 and ES-2 solve the problem of film handling, long the undisputed realm of Nikon (and a few other) film scanners. What we need now is a bombproof plugin to convert color negatives. It's not actually that hard, but requires a lot of hand work. Canned solutions in Photoshop, and likely the D850, leave much to be desired.