What's up with the Nikon ES-2?

Just purchased a FF digital camera hoping to scan some slides and negative with the ES-2, just to discover that the ES-2 is unavailable everywhere in EU, as far as I can see.

Is it discontinued or just back ordered due to the Covid-19 mess?

 

Any off-the-shelf alternatives you could recommend?

 

Thanks.

Any off-the-shelf alternatives you could recommend?

I got this Sunagor branded duplicator for £10 UK - in original box. Not sure if it was lightly used or NOS.... whatever.

 

It's all-metal with a telescoping length adjustment, unlike Nikon's all-plastic ES-2. The same item was sold under other brand names as well - Astron, for example. It's designed to fit on a macro lens, and not to be confused with devices that incorporate a poor-quality copying lens inside.

I bought last year an ES-1 mail order from Japan. It took a long time, but the price was much

better than most other places.

 

It looks like ES-2 is a lot more expensive! Maybe $200 or $300?

For what it is, a slide/neg holder, it's vastly overpriced.

For what it is, a slide/neg holder, it's vastly overpriced.

Got to support Nikon - they need it, I hear. ;)

Anyway, the alternatives seems to be few if you want and out-of-the-box solution to 'scan' negative strips with a FF camera.

I will investigate RJ's suggestion.

I will investigate RJ's suggestion

There are devices similar to Nikon's ES-2 on sale from Reflecta, Hama or Kaiser. Cheaper, but still overpriced for what they are. Basically a tube with a small plastic diffuser and slide cavity on the end of it.

 

I'm seeing complete used Novoflex bellows with slide-copier attachment advertised cheaper. Throw in a good enlarger lens and you're still in pocket over an ES-2.

Edited February 5, 2021 by rodeo_joe|1

I got my ES-1, brand new mailed from Japan, for $41.33. (plus tax.)

 

I still thought that was expensive, but others were more.

It seems that one is now $48.00. Also, I already have

the AI 55/2.8 lens to go with it.

 

With some lenses, you might need an extension tube.

 

I have enough negative scanners.

I recently got a used D810, have used it for digitizing slides with the ES-1 I bought years ago at a camera show for $5 and with the PB-4 + PS-4 I bought new in 1970.

 

The ES-1 telescopes and setting it at 1:1 with a 55/2.8 MicroNikkor AIS is easy -- just mount the lens on its PK-27 on the camera, dial in 1:2, attach the ES-1, pull the tube all the way out -- but making the slide perfectly level isn't easy. Setting the bellows to get 1:1 with the lens on an E-2 is more difficult but the slide is automatically leveled.

 

OP, look into getting a bellows and slide holder.

Thanks for the suggestion. I should say that ES-1 will not do as I need to capture strips of film. Most of the old bellows solutions appear to be designed for mounted slides.

I have several of these tubular slide copiers from various sources/vendors. When I got them on eBay, they were all "old-new stock" in original boxes.

 

 

I have tried them, and think they were bought new, used once with marginally acceptable results, and then put away in the attic or closet where they have gathered dust for many years, until eBay came along.

 

Get a copy stand, bellows, and macro lens if you feel you MUST copy directly to a camera.

 

IMHO,

If you can find one that still works and has an adaptable interface, there's really no substitute for a 4000 or above pixel film scanner.

The issue with all of the devices like the one JS shows above is that were never intended for film strips. They were. designed as slide duplicators primarily., and mounted ones at that.

The expensive ES series comes with a neg holder strip to feed throgh a slot.

Get a copy stand, bellows, and macro lens if you feel you MUST copy directly to a camera.

A copy stand is totally unnecessary with one of the rigid front-of-lens slide/film holders. The macro lens holds the complete assembly steady enough, and using flash for the exposure ensures there's no vibration blur.

 

Same goes for a bellows unit with its own dedicated film-copying adapter. The bellows rails hold the adapter rigidly in front of the lens. Set it down on a table or mount it on a tripod and you're good to go. All squared up and shake-free! Just add camera-mounted flash and white reflector card.

 

A strip of 6 negs takes about 1 minute to copy; unlike a scanner where 10 seconds per frame doesn't even get you a low-res preview.

 

Honestly JD, if you're getting noticeably inferior 'scans' from digital camera copying over an ancient scanner, then you're doing something wrong.

Sorry JD, i missed the D key. I'm typing with the wrong glasses on!

I suppose it comes down to what advantages a dedicated scanner now has or once had.

 

The IR channel to remove dust etc is about all I can think of now.

 

The res and dynamic range of, say the D850, is easily equal to the best flat scanner. EFCS should eliminate any camera induced blur.

 

Maybe the flatness of a drum scanner is still useful?

Honestly JD, if you're getting noticeably inferior 'scans' from digital camera copying over an ancient scanner, then you're doing something wrong.

 

We've been over this too many times, but the truth is that there is a limit on the quality of scans of film that is set --not by the copier-- but by the copied. Almost all films poop out much above 4000 pixels per inch. Go higher resolution and you're recording 'grain', dye clouds, etc.

 

Get a copy stand, bellows, and macro lens if you feel you MUST copy directly to a camera.

 

does not constitute a claim of "inferior scans"

 

The issues with cameras are

• the need to keep the sensor and slide aligned, (as represented in my abbreviated statement by the 'copy stand')
   
  
• the need for a decent flat field lens, (macro lens)
  

and

• also the need to control the light illuminating the film, especially with slide film.
  

by the time you've achieved this with a camera setup, you have 'wasted' a lot of time and still have, IMHO, an inferior work flow, especially if you are scanning in more than a few slides every once in a while.

Edited February 6, 2021 by JDMvW

That's why I just want an ES-2. Much more straight forward.

Thanks for the suggestion. I should say that ES-1 will not do as I need to capture strips of film. Most of the old bellows solutions appear to be designed for mounted slides.

Niels, the ES-1 doesn't come with a holder for a roll of negatives. The PS-4, which attaches to the PB-4 bellows and I don't know which others, does.

If you have a lot of film/slides to scan and do not want to spend your life doing it, nothing beats the efficiency and quality of an "ancient" Nikon LS-5000 or equivalent scanner. This is my experience after trying quite a few methods.

If you have a lot of film/slides to scan and do not want to spend your life doing it, nothing beats the efficiency and quality of an "ancient" Nikon LS-5000 or equivalent scanner.

 

True, yet tricky depending on one's requirements and comfort level with being cornered with no alternative. The CS5000 was Nikon's fastest 35mm scanner by a notable margin, but if judged strictly by a technical "speed" metric it was Nikon's only "fast" scanner. There's no other "equivalent" Nikon model (maybe the older CS4000 if you stretch the definition of "fast" and don't need exactly comparable quality). Some people really do not like the idea of being trapped with a single second-hand-only, eBay-sourced-only option priced close to the cost of a new D850. The only other film scanners that meet or beat the 5000 for speed are the Hasselblad/Imacon Flextight line, priced at two to five times the cost of the little Nikon (and lacking Nikon's IR dust/scratch reduction tech). None of these are as "fast" as camera scanning, leaving aside the initial difficulty of getting the optics and film holders for the camera sorted out.

Edited February 7, 2021 by orsetto

The coolscan 4000 offers exact same quality as the 5000 version. No "don't need exactly comparable quality".

The issues with cameras are

• the need to keep the sensor and slide aligned, (as represented in my abbreviated statement by the 'copy stand')
   
  
• the need for a decent flat field lens, (macro lens)
  

and

• also the need to control the light illuminating the film, especially with slide film.
  

Illumitran, or bellows and/or dedicated copy attachment, enlarging lens, and flash, are respectively the solution to all of those (non) issues listed above.

Almost all films poop out much above 4000 pixels per inch. Go higher resolution and you're recording 'grain', dye clouds, etc.

Exactly. I'm in total agreement there!

Edited February 7, 2021 by rodeo_joe|1

They are, of course, very real issues if you think you can just pick up your digital camera and copy away.

 

The Honeywell Repronar was my solution for years before digital. Several years ago I found out they had made a Honeywell Universal Repronar that can be fitted with any camera and macro lens setup. Works fine, but loading just one slide at a time requires a lot of MY time that I would rather spend on digital knitting

 

Here is the very modern Honeywell Universal Repronar

;)

Works fine, but loading just one slide at a time requires a lot of MY time that I would rather spend on digital knitting

Ahh, there's the difference.

Most of my 'back catalogue' of film is in the form of colour and B&W negatives, in strips of 6. So even an auto-feed scanner would need attention every 6 (painfully slow) scans.

 

Even after the scanning/copying is done, the human intervention doesn't stop. Colour negatives are never right, or as wanted, right off the scanner. So I might as well process the whole darned inversion to positive and colour-correction myself.

 

It's no more time-demanding than making a good darkroom colour print, but much more flexible, and in most cases with a more pleasing result.

The coolscan 4000 offers exact same quality as the 5000 version. No "don't need exactly comparable quality".

 

I had both scanners at the same time and my experience is that the 5000 gave better edge-to-edge sharpness wheras the 4000 suffered from film not being perfectly flat more. At the time I suspected the 5000 was able to determine focus for each line separately, but I have no hard evidence of that. With the 4000 I tended to move images to glass (non-AN) slides to help with the flatness but this became unnecessary with the 5000.

 

The 4000 is, if I recall correctly, a firewire scanner while the 5000 uses USB. I think it may be hard to find new computer hardware to work with (this particular) firewire today. I can get FW cards but I haven't been able to find one that works with Nikon scanners.

Even after the scanning/copying is done, the human intervention doesn't stop.

 

This is "digital knitting" in my terms.:), but the scanning is done by a legacy setup, while I knit on a newer and more powerful machine.