Nikon ES-2 Slide Copy Adapter to Ship in March

When Nikon came out with the ES-1, it was the first copying attachment in a decade which didn't use a high-power diopter. Furthermore the construction was metal, not plastic like the few others on the market at that time. Now that cameras have resolution comparable to the best home scanners, the demand seems to have encouraged others to compete. Diopters and plastic construction seems to dominate the market.

If the conversion of color negatives were easy, Photoshop would probably suffice. Even Silverfast, which concentrates on these conversions, struggles with consistent results. The orange mask is not simply a background color, rather the unused dye, which masks the thinner parts more than the exposed parts. Small differences result in profound changes in exposure and color balance.

Sunny 16 exposures are generally easy to convert, but other situations require trial and error, and great attention to consistency.

This review of the D850's negative scanning ability is quite scathing.

Looks like working from a RAW file is still the only quality option, but at least you can then set up actions in PS to batch process a run of shots.

There's no free lunch! Color negative film has a relatively huge dynamic range (compared to reversal film), but the color balance depends on the exposure level, and thin areas in the negative dissolve into noise. In general, I would overexpose by about one stop to get enough density to work with. It's easy to get good results in bright sunlight or under studio conditions. A grey day, under a leafy canopy or at sunset can present major challenges.

Again, if it were easy, there would already be a Photoshop/Lightroom plugin.