Mirrorless for individual slide copying, continued discussion and your thoughts sought..

[GerrySiegel]

I have found if easy if not super fast to use an old FD bellows and slide copier for making decent copies to

digital of my stereo and 126 slides. Problem was getting the mirrorless camera close enough to fill the sensor,

in my case, micro 4/3 to fill a fill 35mm slide. In my experiments I vivisected my very old Bellows FL, removing

the screws and plates that hold the rear bellows from the rod below. And then there was still two problems. 1)

getting the right lens array 2) getting the whole assembly to line up straight so there would be no keystone of

the image on screen, and 3) getting the camera to slide far enough and smooth enough to tweak the focus by eye on

the LCD. ( As a separate item I picked up an auto bellows which is a simple enough one to use but only for smaller than full frame slides...I used to shoot a lot of 126 and stereos in the day...just a sidebar )

 

Turned out easier than it sound. I owned the FD 50mm macro and the 1to 1 FD 25 U tube. ( They can still be found

very , ridiculously actually cheap on KEH, prices if you go for the old silver ring model. A sharp smooth lens with typical

Canon precision build. FD has always been a good choice but I wont knock the other film camera lens makers...Olympus/Nikon made great looking bellows from what I see online. .... I used a Vello FD to m43 adapter which is under 45 dollars and works securely. I will not trust a no name item on my cameras, sorry if you prefer the 12 buck eBay stuff. All made in China as is the Vello but to higher specs, and easier release and still cheapier than a Burger King meal for three. But...another subject, I am even thinking of paying 100 for this metabones with the A-S base, ( Anyone sprung for the non optical adapte by Metabones? )

 

Ok back to the post topic of duping slides one by one...Getting the camera to slide is still something I am working on. I am using an old RRS clamp and just sliding the camerawith its RRS plate on the clamp. Biggest problem or nuisance is that the 40 year old slide copier bellows fabric

wants to collapse into the light path and so I use the little tweezers to pull the edges out now and then. I am

still looking for a more secure and permanent alignment. But I got to say that even the old G-1 which I use for

my tests in case of an accident yields pretty good and sharp copies. I actually enjoy this with my old slides

which I have not looked at for some time. And I am given to be selective. Which is what I should be, right?

Some dusting in advance works for me, but we always want to "improve" them later on in PS. Anyone who is bellow

thinking might want to seek the old bellows. Any brand and any macro lens will work. As to light, we could argue

all day about light sources. I am happy enough with this low cost LED panel I got on Amazon with the diffuser.

Now with FL slide copier it sort of floats on the tube and floats off, unlike bellows FL and has no slide

adjustment. We will work on that. Other bellows may be better. The slide copy attachments are not easy to

find, but are out there. A home made rig can be done as well. I just wonder if others have a lode of old slides

and cannot see way clear to buy the Nikon 9000 etc scanner.

What have you found? And from this photo can you see some ways to improve my alignment which is sensitive to

small wiggles?<div></div>

[Rich B NYC]

<p>Gerry,<br /> That a very creative setup and not at all expensive to put together.<br /> When I was still shooting film, I used to duplicate slides with a very similar setup using a Nikon bellows. The fly in the ointment was having to use electronic flash as my light source in order to obtain the correct color balance. I would have "killed" for something like an LED lightsource back in the day.<br /> I scanned all of my slides/negs quite a few year ago using a Nikon scanner with ICE which eliminated the need to "remove" dust in PS as even cleaning the neg/slide well didn't always remove every last speck.<br /> To eliminate vibration and stabilize the whole setup, you may want to run a countersunk bolt through the board up into the RRS clamp. Clamping (C-clamps, spring clamps) the board to the table would also help. No clamps? Try a few heavy cans of food on the board. No mirror to lock up, but if you're not already using the self timer or a remote shutter release, that would also add to steadiness.<br /> Almost makes we want to go out and shoot some film. I sold the scanner a few years ago (nothing left to scan) but that LED lightsource has me thinking about some possibilities.</p>

[mwmcbroom]

<p>Gerry, I shared my setup in another thread, and ordinarily I wouldn't repost it, but I think I will to make a point. I never thought of dismantling my bellows to see if I could get to 1:1, to be honest. It just never occurred to me. And since I have enough adapters and extensions and teleconverters at my disposal to dial in almost exactly a 1:1 situation, I don't much see the point in doing as you've done. But then, I'm not shooting μ4/3, either. Offhand, I can't see a way to improve your alignment or rigidity. From here it looks as if it should align well and it looks quite robust and jitter-free.</p>

<p>So, here's my setup. With my EOS, it's fairly simple:<br>

<img src="http://michaelmcbroom.com/images/dupe_rig_eos_aps-c_1b.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="802" /></p>

<p>But with my 1.5x NEX, it gets more complicated. The same will be true if using a crop-body Nikon DSLR.<br>

<img src="http://michaelmcbroom.com/images/dupe_rig_nex_complete_1b.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="799" /></p>

<p>In both cases, the dupe rigs are rigid enough where I can hand-hold them and just point them at a light source. Even if the exposure is several seconds, as long as I don't jerk the rig wildly about during exposure, the images will come back sharp.</p>

<p>I just recently wrote an article about this at my blog, where I go into a more detailed discussion of this topic. The blog can be found here:<br>

http://michaelmcbroom.com/blogistan/</p>

<p> </p>

[john_narsuitus]

<blockquote>

<p>"Mirrorless for individual slide copying, continued discussion and your thoughts sought.."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I once had a number of instructors, lecturers, and university professors who needed this service but now they have retired, died, or gone digital.</p>

<p>I used a Nikon PS-4 Slide Copy Attachment and a 55mm f/3.5 macro lens reverse mounted on Nikon PB-4 bellows to copy slides. I also used this same setup when I needed to digitize slide images.</p>

<p>At the time, I preferred an electronic flash light source because it was faster than a continuous light source, cooler in temperature than hot light bulbs, and the short flash duration cancelled the effect of mirror slap.</p>

<p>I stopped using this setup when I bought a flatbed scanner that allowed me to batch-scan up to 24 slides (mounted or unmounted).</p>

<p>At the time, micro 4/3 mirrorless digital cameras and LCD light sources were not available. However, if I have a future job that includes shooting cropped slides, I will keep these modern tools in mind.</p>

<p> </div>

[mwmcbroom]

<p>John, that's a tidy setup you have there. I notice you're using an F2, which is, obviously, a full frame film camera. With full-frame systems, copying slides 1:1 is a much easier proposition that doing 1:1 dupes with crop-body cameras -- hence the rather complicated rig I came up with. I just wish I could use my PB4 with my NEX 7 for dupes -- it would make everything so much simpler. Haven't tried reversing my 55 Micro Nikkor yet, though. I wonder if that might make a difference.</p>

[allen_gara]

<p>I used the same LED light for some time, until I built a more purposeful LED light. I think it works fine, but I added another piece of diffusing plastic right on the front. Are you using a 2sec delay timer or remote? That helps keep things stable during shooting. I never used a bellows, I sort of stumbled on using a Canon DP-10 duplicator setup. It also comes with a 6 frame film strip holder. You can just use adapter rings to adjust the length. I used a Oly E-30 with the 50mm f2.0 ED Zuiko Macro with great results. I'm wondering if that lens with a 4/3-u4/3 adapter would work on your Panasonic?</p>