burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

All you need is a digital camera, a macro lens, a suitable film holder, and a color-correct, well-diffused light source. If you're photographing negatives, you need to learn how to invert images in Lightroom or Photoshop by reversing the response curve(s).

I got the idea for mine from having used a Bowens Illumitran 3C back in the early 1980s. It was a commercial device that mounted a film camera and bellows and enlarging lens above a light source with electronic flash and modeling lamp. We used it for slide duplication.

Later, mid-'80s, I bought an inverted Beseler 4x5 color head mounted on a special base, with a high-precision slide duplicating compound mounted over the light source. I could move slides north-south, east-west, in 0.001" increments. We had a specially modified Nikon F3 with a pin-registered back on it. It could hold a frame of film absolutely still, so you could make multiple, perfectly registered exposures. Its viewfinder had a grid (reticle) for image alignment. We used this setup on our copy stand for multi-image slide composition. I still have that pin-registered F3. The rest is long gone.

I made the attached image from a slide my uncle made in 1951, using the rig shown earlier in this thread. The original was a horizontal composition on Anscochrome film. I still have his Argus C44 with flashgun and selenium meter.

(Download)