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Slide copy problem with Nikon ES-1


tom_halfhill

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<p>On the advice of several online reviews and discussions -- including some threads on Photo.net -- I purchased a Nikkor 40mm f/2.8G Micro lens and Nikon ES-1 slide-copying attachment. The reviews and discussions claimed that this combination is perfect for copying 35mm slides with a DX-format DSLR. But I immediately discovered that the entire slide cannot be photographed. A large part of the top is chopped off, even after extending the ES-1 tube to its full length.</p>

<p>Back to the Internet. Additional sources claimed that inserting a 20mm extension between the macro lens and the ES-1 allows the entire slide to be photographed. This extension requires a Nikon K5 tube, which was formerly supplied as part of a Nikon extension-tube set. The K5 tube is threaded for 52mm male on one end and 52mm female on the other. It fits between the macro lens and the ES-1 (which are both 52mm threaded), not between the camera and the lens. Nikon no longer sells the K5 tube, so I purchased a used one on eBay.</p>

<p>Another fail! This combination still does not allow the 40mm lens to photograph a whole slide. The top is still cropped off.</p>

<p>It doesn't seem logical that everyone else is getting different results than I am from the same equipment. So next I checked my DSLR for parallax error. (Years ago I had a film SLR that suffered parallax error after the pentaprism was damaged.) But my DSLR's viewfinder is accurate.</p>

<p>The problem is that the 40mm/ES-1 combination doesn't allow the slide to be centered in the viewfinder. There is a significant amount of slide mount at the bottom and a significant amount of cropped image at the top. Yet the slide cannot be pushed down any further into the ES-1's holder. The metal clips prevent it. Trying to force the slide further into the holder only breaks the slide.</p>

<p>Is anyone out there actually using this combination to copy slides? Have you noticed if you're losing image area at the top or bottom? I prefer to hear from people who are ACTUALLY USING this combination, because I'm beginning to suspect that some folks are just assuming it works -- or maybe they don't notice that their slide copies are cropped. It's a mystery.</p>

 

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<p>>>Another fail! This combination still does not allow the 40mm lens to photograph a whole slide. The top is still cropped off.</p>

<p>Regarding the 40mm, I think you are confusing magnification and alignment. If both slide side edges can show, the magnification is fine. The site about the K4 is probably my site, and it also suggests some cheap Chinese extensions that should work. I don't have the 40mm macro lens, but others with it say it works fine with the ES-1 without extension. On a DX body, my 60mm macro requires about 20mm extension (i.e., like a K4), but 60mm will just nearly work alone on FX. </p>

<p>My ES-1 is the opposite situation, I need to raise the slide slightly to align the top edge. I put a couple of folds of thick paper in the bottom slot for that. I have not seen the opposite problem. Possibly slide mounts may vary in where they hold the slide?</p>

<p>>>The metal clips prevent it. <br>

Sounds like you are putting the slide on the wrong side of the clips. Slide should go behind the clip, next to the black ES-1 body. Slide bottom sits on that black frame body. Slide does NOT go in front, next to the frosted glass panel. That is also the easy way.<br>

<br />But magnification is about size, and alignment is about position, a very different thing.</p>

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<p>I notice on the Nikon site it says (my italics):</p>

 

 

<blockquote>

Attached to the AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8D lens with the BR-5 Ring or the Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/2.8 lens, this adapter enables duplication of 35mm <em>film</em>.

Attaching the ES-1 to the Micro-NIKKOR 55mm f/2.8 lens and extension tubes, you can copy 35mm <em>slides</em>.

</blockquote>

 

 

 

 

Taking this literally it does seem to suggest you can't copy 35mm mounted slides with the 60mm.

 

 

Robin Smith
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<p>Thank you, Wayne F., for making me feel really stupid. You are correct -- I was inserting the slide into the ES-1 holder incorrectly. I was inserting it between the metal clips and the frosted glass, because the gaps between the clips and glass led me to believe that's where the slide should go. When I insert the slide between the clips and the tube -- per your advice -- the slide goes all the way down to the bottom of the holder, is centered in the viewfinder, and allows me to photograph the entire image. Perfect!</p>

<p>This is an instance when a picture would be worth a thousand words. The ES-1 instruction sheet merely says "Insert an original slide into the ES-1's slide holder." Had it included a diagram, the intent would have been crystal clear to a dummy like me.</p>

<p>So I didn't need to buy the 20mm K5 tube on eBay. The 40mm macro lens and ES-1 are truly all that's needed on a DX camera body. (My K5 tube also came with a lens-reversing bayonet mount that I don't need, either, but the whole thing was only $12.95 with free shipping, so it's not a disaster.)</p>

<p>BTW, I have a Nikon Coolscan V with which I've scanned more than a thousand slides and negatives, but it's slow. I have so many more slides to copy that I needed a faster method. The Coolscan and its Digital ICE software are still preferable for dirty, scratched slides, but the ES-1 is faster for cleaner slides that don't need as much retouching. The 40mm f/2.8G lens can focus to a 1:1 reproduction ratio and is sharp enough at f/8 or f/11 to resolve the film grain. Earlier this year I sent 500 slides to ScanCafe for scanning but was disappointed with the results. I can do better with the ES-1.</p>

<p>Thanks again for solving this mystery!</p>

 

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<p>Two points:<br>

1. Nikon does not claim that the ES-1 is useable with the DX 40mm Micro. They only list the current 60/2.8AF-S, and the old 55/2.8 Ais when used with PK-13 extension tube. I'm pretty sure the previous 60/2.8D micro worked as well. No mention is made of 40/2.8 DX Micro.<br>

2. The 60mm does not need an extension tube because the lens natively focuses to 1:1.<br>

I can personally witness that either of the 55 Micros(f/3.5 and f/2.8) work well with the ES-1 using a DX cam.</p>

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<p>>> Two points:</p>

<p>There is quite a lot more to it. The ES-1 is designed for 1:1 slide copy with 55mm on a full frame body. Yes, slides are copied at 1:1 on a full frame camera, and the ES-1 paper says 60mm could also just about work (on full frame, at one end of the ES-1 range).</p>

<p>The ES-1 was designed before the 40mm macro lens, and also before full frame digital sensors. It does not mention either of those. :)</p>

<p>But the DX sensor is smaller than the slide, and at 1:1, could only copy a smaller area of it. So the slide must be mounted farther out, less than 1:1, and so to do that, the ES-1 on a DX body needs some extension, in FRONT of the lens (Not behind it). My 55mm macro on ES-1 is much better with about 10mm extension on DX, and my 60mm macro needs about 20 mm on DX... extension between the ES-1 and the lens. This allows some adjustment with the telescoping range of the ES-1. The ES-1 threads are 52mm filter threads, so an extension with 52mm threads is needed.... in front of the lens.</p>

<p>Or by all reports, the 40mm macro is said to be about right as is for a DX body.</p>

<p>TOM: BTW... there are two Nikon reversing rings. The BR-2 was for the original Nikon F in the 1960s. It is said to NOT BE SAFE for modern cameras with electrical contacts, there is possibility of doing damage.</p>

<p>There is a newer BR2-a that is safe now.</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>I use something similar to the ES-1 for my dupe rig. I use an Opteka brand "digital slide duplicator" that I bought off eBay. I took this thing and removed the internal corrective element and then the outer duplicatore framework, such that I was left with a flanged tube with 52mm threads on one end. Here's a shot of the bare tube:</p>

<p><img src="http://michaelmcbroom.com/images/dupe_rig_tube_2a.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>The broken off sections don't matter. Only thing that matters there is the flange is intact. Reason why is because I slide the slae stage onto this flange. It's held on by clips. I got the stage off a zoom slide duplicator I bought on eBay for about $8. This is the slide stage by itself:</p>

<p><img src="http://michaelmcbroom.com/images/dupe_rig_slide_stage_2a.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>Nice thing about this stage is I can maneuver it up and down and move the slide from side to side, so I have total control over positioning the slide in the stage. Now, obviously, with the ES-1, you don't really need the above tube or stage, but the ES-1 doesn't let you move the slide around and it will require more extension than I use, if you wan't to use a dupe rig like mine. Speaking of which, here it is:</p>

<p><img src="http://michaelmcbroom.com/images/dupe_rig_nex_complete_1b.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p><br />The BR2/BR3 rings can be substituted with an extension tube of the appropriate length -- about 25mm or so, and the K5 ring can be substituted with any other sort of 52mm extension of the same length. It is my experience that 52mm extensions are uncommon and expensive, so the original Nikon part might be the best and cheapest way to go. Plus, if you're using an ES-1, you're probably gonna need about twice the 52mm extension than I show here, which will be critical for it to work with the 55mm Micro-Nikkor.</p>

<p>This rig produces images that are just a tiny bit larger than full frame with a 1.5x crop sensor camera, such as Nikon or Sony NEX. If you have a 1.6x crop body camera, such as a Canon, I have a setup that works for it as well.</p>

<p>At the heart of my rig is an old pre-AI 55mm f/3.5 Micro Nikkor. Everything else, including the TC-14, are necessary to get the image to the right size. I'm not saying this is the only way to do it, just the way I do it, a way that works.</p>

<p>When it comes to actually shooting the dupes, I have an SB-24 strobe that I mount to a tripod and, using a PC-cord with hot-shoe adapter, I trigger the flash at fractional power. I prefer 1/32, which lets me hold my camera about a foot away from the strobe -- at ISO 100, my camera's lowest ISO setting. It's easy enough to adjust exposure just by moving the dupe rig toward or away from the strobe. I dunno about Nikons, but I've found that with my NEX, I also have to dial down the in-camera contrast a few ticks. Otherwise I get too much contrast build-up in the dupes. This is the same as it is when shooting dupes with film, by the way. Blocking up of high-contrast areas has always been a problem when shooting dupes. Reducing contrast really helps a lot. If, afterwards, the image looks like it can benefit from a bit of contrast enhancement, then this can be handled easily in post production.</p>

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<p>The above kludges are fine if you are doing a few slides or negatives.<br>

If you have thousands of images, a film scanner will be faster and better in almost every case.<br>

(the end of a long series of posts and scanning slides over many years: http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00d6UB ).</p>

<p>If you MUST do a camera copy of an image on film, One of the best tools is the Honeywell Universal Repronar ( http://www.photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00aVMv ). This is a Repronar without the Asahi camera body.</p>

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<p>I can scan 5 boxes of slides an hour with an ES-1 and a camera, whereas it takes 1-2 hours per roll with a Nikon LS-4000 slide scanner. I have an automatic slide feeder for the Nikon which saves feeding time, but tends to jam so often it's hard to use unattended (or to keep track of the order).</p>

<p>I'm working on a way to handle strips of negatives, which I will report when I have a working solution. Existing strip holders are too thick (0.2") to fit in the ES-1 slot. The Nikon strip feeder is much thinner, but must be reversed every 3 images. I think I will buy another ES-1 and modify it to handle a thicker holder (e.g., a Pacific).</p>

<p>A 60 mm lens will focus 1:1, but the working distance (lens to slide) is longer than the ES-1 will accommodate without a short extension tube, The K5 would work perfectly.</p>

<p>I'm using a Sony A7ii or A7Rii, which produces a somewhat neutral (i.e., flat) image. I don't get excessive contrast. In fact the image looks as good or better than the original. The camera corrects for exposure and color variations. Since everything is screwed together, you don't need a tripod or be concerned with long exposures. A daylight LED desk lamp works perfectly as the light source. A typical exposure is 1/4 sec @ f/5.6 and ISO 400.</p>

<p>You would need to use less than 1:1 magnification with an APS-C camera, which will increase the working distance. Again, a K5 filter-ring extension would probably suffice.</p>

<p>A7Rii + Novoflex Nikon adapter + PK-13 extension tube + 55/2.8 Micro Nikkor + ES-1<br /> <img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/18079912-lg.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="450" /></p>

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<p>Your rigs are much more complicated than mine. With a DX body, all that's needed is the Nikkor 40mm f/2.8G Micro lens and the Nikon ES-1 slide holder. Really. This rig allows full-size slide copies -- the slide image completely fills the viewfinder. You can rotate the slide using the ES-1's telescoping tube, and you can zoom into the slide for some in-camera cropping if you want. There's enough play in the holder to reposition the slide slightly in any direction.</p>

<p>This rig is MUCH faster than using my Nikon Coolscan film scanner UNLESS the slide is scratched and dirty. Then the scanner is faster, because Digital ICE fixes most of the defects that are time consuming to fix in Photoshop.</p>

<p>As another contributor noted, it helps to set the camera's contrast curve to the lowest possible contrast. Slide copies tend to gain contrast, which is why Kodak used to sell a special low-contrast copy film. It's easy to increase contrast in Photoshop but less effective to reduce contrast.</p>

<p>I set autofocus to auto wide area. For regular photography I prefer center-area focusing, but some slides have no detail there for the AF unit to lock onto. I switch on auto-review with highlight blinking so I can immediately check the copied image for good exposure. If the highlights aren't blinking, I shoot again and keep increasing the exposure until the highlights blink, then keep the previous shot. (In other words, "expose to the right.") At first I tried auto bracketing, but even full-stop brackets weren't enough to yield a good exposure with some slides.</p>

<p>My light source is natural daylight and I use auto white balance. Almost all of the old slides I'm copying are faded -- especially the Ektachromes. (Kodachrome is more stable.) The camera's AWB helps to correct the slide's skewed color balance. If necessary, I do further corrections in Photoshop.</p>

<p>As you may have guessed, I'm shooting JPEGs, not RAW. Faded slides have low dynamic range that fits easily within a JPEG, and I can adjust exposure to stretch the histogram and get it perfect. The in-camera JPEG processing saves time later in Photoshop post-processing. If a slide needs special treatment for some reason, I use the Coolscan.</p>

<p>These slides are family snapshots and vacation pictures, not professional images or great works of art. Without a high-throughput copying method, they will not be preserved. The oldest ones date to the 1950s.</p>

 

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<p>Not much to do about scratches other than Photoshop, but dust is fairly easy to remove. I use an high intensity light skimming the surface of the the slide. You can see dust particles as small as about 20 microns that way. I use an anti-static (carbon fiber) brush on both sides, and a blast of canned air if necessary. Actually, the brush alone has been sufficient up to this point, but I've used canned air in the past before scanning.</p>

<p>I use manual focus, looking at the grain rather than detail. That stays put unless you bump the setup wrong. Auto focus tries each time, and sometimes gets it wrong.</p>

<p>Considering the time it takes for preparation and documentation, why not shoot RAW images and go for the best possible latitude and quality. JPEGs are false economy.</p>

<p>What color is daylight? It depends on blue sky, clouds, grass, etc. Artificial light is consistent, and consistency is the key. Daylight LED bulbs actually have a very smooth spectrum, unlike fluorescent, and don't get hot like incandescent bulbs.</p>

<p>If auto exposure doesn't do the job, use manual exposure and check the histogram.</p>

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<p>A dedicated slide scanner (like a CoolScan5000ED) makes sense over a recent vintage DSLR + various slide illumination and holding options when:<br>

- You have dirty scratched slides that the automated dust and dirt and scratch removal capability can do wonders on<br>

- You have many hundreds if not thousands of slides and you don't have time for manual loading & DSLR operation<br>

I used to own the 5000ED, but when I got my D800 and PS/PB-6 belows the D800 (+ 55/3.5 Macro) produced better images FOR SLIDES THAT WERE NOT DIRTY OR SCRATCHED, which for me was my more recent and well cared for slides. I could image a box of 36 slides in about 15 minutes (or less) when it was all set up. The D800 had better dynamic range, far less flare issues, and had better white balance, etc. If dust, dirt, scratches were minor then Photoshop worked OK.<br>

That being said, negatives are a completely different story.<br>

<br />My 2 cents.</p>

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<p>Good for you, Edward.<br /> Your experience does not accord with mine, however -- and I have tried pretty much every alternative.<br /> My main digital image files amount to (as of now) more than 650 GB on disk for more than 90,000 items. About two-thirds of those are scanned slides, mostly Kodachrome.</p>

<p>There is, by the way, some reason so many of these "tube" slide copiers are so common on eBay, usually in the original box and "used only once". ;)</p>

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<p>Do you mean the inexpensive "tube copiers" that are just an embedded 10x single element closeup filter? Which is used with a kit zoom lens (needs zoom to frame it). Not an acceptable solution.</p>

<p>A good slide scanner can offer the infrared options, very hard to beat when you need them. But it is extremely slow, and while one roll per night is imaginable, but if faced with the job of scanning "thousands of slides", odds are very strong you will never finish it, or even very much of it.</p>

<p>Whereas the 24 or 36 megapixel digital camera and an honest macro lens does an incredible job, fast, it greatly simplifies the job. 1000 per day is still a very big day, but finishing 10,000 is at least imaginable. :)</p>

 

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<p>Not only the cheap ones, but the fancier devices made by Nikon and others, I'm bound to say.<br>

Film scanners, especially ones with automatic advance, are only "slow" compared to the alternatives if you count the human time as zero. Not only does each slide have to be inserted and removed, but the human doing the job has to dedicate nearly their full time to the project.<br>

When you add in all the other variables such as quality of light and color, serious, high resolution scanning is much easier and better with something like the Nikon Coolscan or even the 4000dpi Canon film scanner.<br>

Modern flatbed filmscanners, unfortunately, are adequate for web posting, but not for archival images.</p>

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<p>>Not only the cheap ones, but the fancier devices made by Nikon and others, I'm bound to say.</p>

<p>I'm curious what Nikon device you refer to?<br>

<br />The Nikon ES-1 slide copier is just an empty tube with a slide holder. There is no glass in it. We use a genuine micro lens with it, price level $300 to $600 maybe. We assume the slide scanner lens is adequate, and we assume it has less. As to the digital camera quality, the scanner of course uses a similar semiconductor sensor concept, but using a motor to position the red, green, blue components of a pixel in the same spot (except it's only CCD, still adequate, but not CMOS).</p>

<p>>with something like the Nikon Coolscan or even the 4000dpi Canon film scanner.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, these are extinct now.</p>

<p>For scanning the award winning prize photo, I'd consider the film scanner if one could be found, for the infrared options. That is time to go slow and careful. But the Nikon SF-210 auto slide feeder is 50 slides per night, on those nights that it does not jam. So 10,000 slides is 200 working nights, not counting trouble.</p>

<p>I'd say there are pros and cons. :)</p>

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<p>Once I solved the slide jamming problem of my SF-210 I could easily scan a 4-5 rolls in a 24 hour period - it really does go fast when everything is working well. But, like I said, with my D800 and PB/PS-6 I could do a roll in 15 minutes or so with practice. 4x36 images an hour is not bad spread out over a week or two. What put me over the edge was the flare issues and lower dynamic range of the 5000ED compared to the D800. I compared it to my D700 and the 5000ED won for DR, but flare was still an issue.</p>
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<p>The photos I posted before showing my dupe rig illustrate how one can turn a marginally effective "tube" into an effective one by stripping it of most of its stuff. The bare flanged tube allows me to connect my 55/2.8 Micro-Nikkor and a slide stage, with a few other pieces that are necessary to bring things to 1:1 for a 1.5x APS-C setup.</p>

<p>I don't agree with the argument that somehow a device such as the Nikon Coolscan is faster than using a dupe rig. Once I've dialed in the focus, it doesn't change, although I do check periodically just to make sure nothing got bumped inadvertently. So, once things are dialed in, I'm able to comfortably scan 3 or 4 slides <em>per minute.</em></p>

<p>My NEX 7's resolution is high enough where it resolves even Kodachrome at the grain level, so I feel pretty confident that I'm managing to eke out just about everything a slide has to offer. So I don't feel I'm losing anything resolution wise. Now, I dunno about the Coolscans, but my Epson flatbed's resolution becomes noticeably worse whenever I engage its ICE function, which is why I never use it. So is a Coolscan giving up resolving power when ICE is used? If so, then my NEX is doing a better job than the Coolscan. Actually, it is already, since its resolution is actually better than a Coolscan's.</p>

<p>I wouldn't mind owning a Nikon Coolscan, but there's no way I can afford one. But I could afford a NEX 7, so I use what I have and I make the best of it that I can. Oh, and duping B&W is easy. Duping C-41 is admittedly more fiddly, but really not all that difficult. And yes, I have a special roll film stage for negatives, as well as unmounted slides.</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>As Wayne says, the Nikon ES-1 slide copier is actually just two metal tubes and a slide holder. No lens. The copy lens is the Nikkor 40mm Micro (for a DX body) or the Nikkor 55mm Micro (for an FX body). Both are high-quality macro lenses -- as good as the glass in a film scanner. My 40mm lens easily resolves the film grain.</p>

<p>I've scanned more than 1,000 slides and negatives using my Coolscan, so I'm well aware how much time it takes. Mine doesn't have a stack feeder.</p>

<p>Preparation time is the same, whether I'm scanning or copying. First, I zap both surfaces of the slide with my Zerostat antistatic gun. Then I brush each surface with an antistatic brush. Then I blow each surface with a rubber-bulb Rocket blower. If I'm scanning, I insert the slide into the Coolscan. If I'm copying, I insert the slide into the ES-1 holder.</p>

<p>The big difference is what happens next. The Coolscan takes several minutes to scan the slide, partly because it must scan it three times -- once for the preview, then again for the full-resolution scan with visible light, and then a third time with infrared light for Digital ICE dust-and-scratch removal. Whereas copying the slide with a DSLR takes only a few seconds if the first exposure is correct, and only a few seconds more if the exposure needs tweaking. The time saved is HUGE.</p>

<p>Shooting RAW instead of JPEG would not improve the results. RAW is great when a scene's dynamic range exceeds the camera's JPEG capabilities. But these slides -- especially old, faded ones -- have low dynamic range. And adjusting exposure to maximize the histogram is easy. The principles that apply to field photography don't necessarily apply to slide copying.</p>

<p>Eventually I'll cobble together a solution for copying b&w negatives with the ES-1, which is designed only for mounted slides. Digital ICE doesn't work on silver b&w film, so the Coolscan will have even less advantage over the DSLR copy method.</p>

 

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<p>>> Digital ICE doesn't work on silver b&w film</p>

<p>The infrared can be a problem with Kodachrome too. Kodachrome is silver based, and the processing is supposed to remove the silver, but it often leaves traces in the dark areas. Which does not bother optical, but infrared sees it.</p>

<p>AFAIK, all other color film is dye based, no silver, which is the basis of using infrared.</p>

<p>Michael mentioned both Kodachrome and Epson ICE problems, which I suspect may only be Kodachrome problems, not unexpected. Other slide or negative film ought to do well with infrared.</p>

 

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<blockquote>

<p>There is, by the way, some reason so many of these "tube" slide copiers are so common on eBay, usually in the original box and "used only once". ;)</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Most of these devices use a strong (+10) diopter lens so that slides can be copied with a normal lens. The quality is abysmal. The ES-1 is a very simple device consisting of a threaded (52 mm) tube which slides inside another tube to adjust the working distance, and a simple slide holder with a diffuser. The ES-1 is designed to be used on a dedicated macro lens which can get 1:1 magnification. The Nikon 55/2.8 Macro is an extremely good lens, but only capable of 1:2 magnification unless a PK13 (23 mm) extension tube is used. The combination is grain-sharp, even for Kodachrome, across the entire field.</p>

<p>While the setup I illustrated is with a Sony A7ii, it can be use with any Nikon DSLR. The advantage of the Sony is, of course, higher resolution (24 or 42 MP), and a viewing system optimized for manual focusing (5x and 12x magnification). The electronic first shutter and mirrorless system completely eliminates vibration.</p>

<p>All color film is silver based. The silver is removed in the bleaching and fixing stages. The problem with Kodachrome is the lacquer applied to preserve the image and absorb infrared and UV light. Kodachrome uses three separate color developers, and produces denser blacks than Ektachrome and Fujicolor (with the possible exception of Velvia). Home developing kits using BLIX (bleach/fixer combined) are notorious for incomplete removal of silver.</p>

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<p>I was going to let it drop, but after repeated efforts to distinguish among these artifacts, the problems of slide to camera copying are not limited to cheap plus lenses in some of them. Nor did I ever say so.<br /> The Spiratone cheapies {and not all of them are} were certainly awful, but the quantity of ES-1s on the market in "as new" condition is not negligible, either. These were designed, in any case, for slide copying, rather than "digitalization".<br /> I will simply state that the best way to get really consistent results with camera copying/reproduction is to go to something like the Honeywell Repronar where light, exposure, filtration, and other such variables are well controlled. Spiratone, and a number of others did make similar apparatus, and one can be cobbled together out of a color enlarger head and copy stand and bellows, if you have those lying around the house.<br /> I have a "Universal Repronar" and have tried it out very throughly. But when my CanoScan 4000 died, I gladly spent time and rather a lot of money getting a CoolScan 9000.</p>

<p>Let us face it, however -- the need for digitizing film is increasingly becoming a task of interest mostly to historians, archivists, and such like. There are some good film scanners available new, but none of them fit my needs so well as the older one, but even the flatbeds are plenty good enough if web posting is your target task.</p>

<p>And, as an aside, it does not make any sense to compare times for film scanners using various noise reduction programs and the like, when the camera copy has none of that going on at all, except as a post-processing task for the scanner ("spotting" is actually very relaxing if you're in the right sort of "knitting" mood).</p>

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<p>Dust is everywhere, and the amount which accumulates on a slide may depend more on the time it is exposed to the environment after cleaning than the effectiveness of the cleaning itself.</p>

<p>It is a simple fact that I have had practically no dust to spot or remove from digital copies with the ES-1, whereas scans in a Nikon LS-4000 or LS-8000 are vitually useless without Digital ICE. In one case, there is little handling or delay between cleaning and shooting. In the other there can be many minutes. A long roll feeder in an LS-4000 leaves the unscanned film completely exposed to the environment, hanging nearly to the floor. A two-strip holder for the LS-8000 requires a lot of handling while loading, and even longer as the holder is slowly drawn through the scanner - once for each strip. The scanner itself may be a dust magnet, accumulating and spreading dust internally, where it is virtually impossible to remove.</p>

<p>Still the big factor is time. I have hundreds of boxes of slides and thousands of film strips which will never be scanned using the glacial technology of my film scanners. The speed and efficacy of using a digital camera to achiever technically superior results makes the job seem possible in my lifetime, and even more desirable as a way to share the results with my children and others.</p>

<p>If film scanners are slow, they are absolutely speedy when compared with flatbed film scanners. The loading and setup process alone is a daunting task with a flatbed, then there is the seemingly endless wait while the scanner grinds and whines through the process.</p>

<p>In the end, the quality is barely worthy of a postcard. Of all the methods, flatbed scanning is the least satisfying. Considering the high quality of modern digital cameras, the least satisfying part of using one to "scan" film is the obvious limitations of the film itself.</p>

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<p>Dust is everywhere, and the amount which accumulates on a slide may depend more on the time it is exposed to the environment after cleaning than the effectiveness of the cleaning itself.</p>

<p>It is a simple fact that I have had practically no dust to spot or remove from digital copies with the ES-1, whereas scans in a Nikon LS-4000 or LS-8000 are vitually useless without Digital ICE. In one case, there is little handling or delay between cleaning and shooting. In the other there can be many minutes. A long roll feeder in an LS-4000 leaves the unscanned film completely exposed to the environment, hanging nearly to the floor. A two-strip holder for the LS-8000 requires a lot of handling while loading, and even longer as the holder is slowly drawn through the scanner - once for each strip. The scanner itself may be a dust magnet, accumulating and spreading dust internally, where it is virtually impossible to remove.</p>

<p>Still the big factor is time. I have hundreds of boxes of slides and thousands of film strips which will never be scanned using the glacial technology of my film scanners. The speed and efficacy of using a digital camera to achiever technically superior results makes the job seem possible in my lifetime, and even more desirable as a way to share the results with my children and others.</p>

<p>If film scanners are slow, they are absolutely speedy when compared with flatbed film scanners. The loading and setup process alone is a daunting task with a flatbed, then there is the seemingly endless wait while the scanner grinds and whines through the process.</p>

<p>In the end, the quality is barely worthy of a postcard. Of all the methods, flatbed scanning is the least satisfying. Considering the high quality of modern digital cameras, the least satisfying part of using one to "scan" film is the obvious limitations of the film itself. On the other hand, the memories preserved are priceless.</p>

<p><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/18230626-lg.jpg" alt="" width="467" height="700" /></p>

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