B&W negatives to digital: Photographing 43 years old B&W negatives with a macro lens, then on to Photoshop and NIK's Silver Efex Pro 2. Brazil's brick manufacturing and kiln. Olaria...

Rudolf Loc: Marietta, Georgia

Photographing 43 years old B&W negatives with a macro lens, then on to Photoshop and NIK's Silver Efex Pro 2. Brazil's brick manufacturing and kiln. Olaria 1975.

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CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Great results and outstanding originals!

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Well done. I should get a macro lens. My Epson scanner is slow.

What is the app on the phone?

AZNikon Loc: Mesa, AZ

Fantastic results-good for you!

Rudolf Loc: Marietta, Georgia

CHG_CANON wrote:

Great results and outstanding originals!

When into Google images and downloaded "pure White" image. Then, used the image for background light.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

There is an Android app called Lightbox that turns my Samsung tablet into a mini slide sorter/light table. It is quite bright!

Rudolf Loc: Marietta, Georgia

bsprague wrote:

There is an Android app called Lightbox that turns my Samsung tablet into a mini slide sorter/light table. It is quite bright!

Cool, thanks.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Highly sophisticated light box!! Works wonders to use what is at hand as it did here.

magnetoman Loc: Purbeck, Dorset, UK

Interesting process and great results. I use a high resolution scanner on my old negatives with some good results but wonder if you have found advantages to this process over scanning? Be interested to hear what sent you this way.

Rudolf Loc: Marietta, Georgia

magnetoman wrote:

Interesting process and great results. I use a high resolution scanner on my old negatives with some good results but wonder if you have found advantages to this process over scanning? Be interested to hear what sent you this way.

I had just a few negatives to do. Packing them into a box, sending them away, and waiting was a little too much. Googled the process and came up with this, https://fstoppers.com/education/how-use-your-dslr-scan-negatives-137248

I decided to omit the two pieces of glass and use a folded heavy stock paper frame to block out the unneeded light for an even exposure. The paper clip is used to hold the negative and the folded frames together.

srt101fan

Rudolf wrote:

Photographing 43 years old B&W negatives with a macro lens, then on to Photoshop and NIK's Silver Efex Pro 2. Brazil's brick manufacturing and kiln. Olaria 1975.

Interesting setup and great images. Thanks for sharing. What macro lens did you use? I'm considering getting a macro for copying negatives and slides with a crop sensor Nikon. But I would also want to use the lens for other macro subjects. Is there a compromise macro lens size that I could use for a variety of subjects?

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

"Is there a compromise macro lens size that I could use for a variety of subjects?"

Try to shop for a lens with (what I think is called) a flat focus field. Most of our lenses focus on a slightly curved field. That's fine for a three dimension universe. It is not for flat things like art, stamps, negatives and slides.

If memory serves my old, manual 55mm Nikkor Macro for my film cameras had a flat field focus.

srt101fan

bsprague wrote:

"Is there a compromise macro lens size that I could use for a variety of subjects?"

Try to shop for a lens with (what I think is called) a flat focus field. Most of our lenses focus on a slightly curved field. That's fine for a three dimension universe. It is not for flat things like art, stamps, negatives and slides.

If memory serves my old, manual 55mm Nikkor Macro for my film cameras had a flat field focus.

Thanks Bill; sounds like there may not be an "all purpose" macro!?

Rudolf Loc: Marietta, Georgia

srt101fan wrote:

Interesting setup and great images. Thanks for sharing. What macro lens did you use? I'm considering getting a macro for copying negatives and slides with a crop sensor Nikon. But I would also want to use the lens for other macro subjects. Is there a compromise macro lens size that I could use for a variety of subjects?

I'm a Minolta/Sony camera system user. I shot these negatives with a Minolta 50mm_f2.8_macro prime lens at f5.6. My recommendation is to buy any prime macro lens greater than 100mm, these lenses a little friendlier with the spiders.

srt101fan

Rudolf wrote:

I'm a Minolta/Sony camera system user. I shot these negatives with a Minolta 50mm_f2.8_macro prime lens at f5.6. My recommendation is to buy any prime macro lens greater than 100mm, these lenses a little friendlier with the spiders.

Thanks Rudolf. I'll take a look at the longer lenses. Can I assume that they would work just as well as your 50mm but would have to be positioned farther from the negative?