Indiana Loc: Huntington, Indiana

Looking for a proven work flow to process digitalizing slides and film with the D 850, ES-2 digitalizing adapter, and Pro Master LED light source. One you tube producer said to photograph the emulsion side of the slide or negative, while others made no reference to one side or another. The download from Nikon doesn't speak to this issue. Would like to know what others have done successfully, and what global adjustments in LR were routinely performed. Any suggestions or contributions would be helpful. Thanks for your response. John

MT Shooter Loc: Montana

Emulsion side AWAY or the image will be backwards.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Yes, photograph the emulsion side, not the base. Then flop the image in software. The reasons this is necessary are:

1) Your autofocus system will focus on the base, if that side is toward the lens. You want to use the optimum aperture on your lens, typically an aperture with razor thin depth of field. The base is just thick enough that if you focus on it, the emulsion will be out of focus. Manual focusing is not accurate enough, unless you use a camera with Focus Peaking...

2) Most film scratches are on the base of film. Throwing them slightly out of focus by using the thickness of the film to your advantage hides them better.

You can establish Lightroom presets for this sort of thing. I have one that inverts the curves of a B&W negative, flops the image, desaturates the image, and applies slider values for average exposure. I have similar presets for several types of color negatives and slides, too. (Unfortunately, they only work with my unique equipment).

The only downside to the copy process is dust, dirt, fingerprints, scratches, and dye fading. Most of those are addressed by Digital ICE or similar technology on scanners, but scanners are slooooow if you want high resolution.

alx Loc: NJ

I concur that you want to photograph the emulsion side, not the base.

When I used to shoot internegatives in the days of film, I used a Nikon DW-2 6x finder on a F2 body with a Type C focus screen to parallax focus on the grain of the slide for maximum sharpness. Remember that you want to focus on the dye molecules themselves and not the "picture" that was the subject of the original photo to capture the maximum detail. "Flipping" the picture in the digital world is not a problem and will lose nothing in the process.

Bill_de Loc: US

I'm glad you brought this up. I saw the video and afterwards wasn't sure which way to insert the film/slide. But what he said does make sense now.

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RWR Loc: La Mesa, CA

I place the emulsion side away from the lens. My equipment is different from yours, but the principle is the same. I use either an Ihagee or Novoflex bellows with their dedicated focusing rails and film holders. My favorite lens for color slides is a Rodenstock 75 f/4.0 APO Rodagon D, which is designed for transparency duplication and is computed for optimum image quality at 1:1 and f/5.6. Fujichrome Velvia-50 is .152mm thick and, according to my Leica table, depth of field at 1:1 and f/5.6 is .787mm (regardless of focal length). Half of that is in front of, and half is behind, the point of focus, so there is plenty of depth of field. I find the Nikon Type B screens in my F3, F4, F5 and Df to be ideally suited for critical manual focusing and would not consider autofocus at 1:1. The electronic rangefinder, by the way, is virtually useless whenever depth of field is fairly shallow.

User ID

That's no problem. I can see why some would choose
to photograph the emulsion without shooting thru the
backing. Not sure it makes a visible difference but no
one can reasonably argue that putting backing layer
in the image path would improve things.


`

Dik

If you are going for maximum IQ, like for very large prints, I'd suggest focus and exposure bracketing.
Slides are not flat in their mounts, so focus bracketing will handle the curvature at the edges if you stack the shots.
Exposure bracketing will give you the option of HDR or simply picking the best exposure to cover the brightness range of the slide film.
Electronic first curtain release in Live View ("Silent Shutter in Canons) will eliminate vibration from mirror and shutter.
Be wary of LED light sources that don't have detailed color specifications. If only color temperature(˚K) is spec'd the Color Rendering Index CRI is likely low, and even LEDs with CRI of 90 or more can be weak in some important colors.
See: https://www.waveformlighting.com/high-cri-led
I've been doing a bunch of extreme macro work at up to 10X, and in the process have acquired an unneeded StackShot computerized focusing rail. I think I might set it up as a digitizing station. I've got a 75 APO Rodagon D 1:1, Canon bellows with slide holder & EOS adapter, and Helicon software that will automate the focus and exposure bracketing, and even dustmap the camera sensor and retouch those spots automatically.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

Scanners are slow but infinitely better and if you take time to PS all the dust and flaws out after using a duplicator you most likely spent less total time with the scanner and a better final product.
PS while scanning I set up the next holder for the scan and do other things so I am not just sitting watching the scanner (Like watching grass grow) and getting other things accomplished.

Dik

Not true, if using best current DSLRs and lenses.
Unless maybe talking about fluid mounted drum scans.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

So your super duper d850 will remove dust and restore colour?
NOT.
Also after a certain point the grain in the film/slide can be over emphasized.
Have you ever used a quality flatbed scanner with ICE etc?

By the time you clean up your super duper d850 copy the final product is not as good as an original quality scan.

Dik

I have a Nikon Super Coolscan 5000 ED, with ICE of course. 4000 ppi compared to Nikon D850's 5849 ppi.
It is painfully slow when doing highest res multiple pass 16 bit plus ICE, and it needs VueScan (excellent) or other non Nikon SW to operate with current systems.

VueScan will process camera generated files to restore faded colors nicely, and for critical large print work, ICE dust & scratch removal is inadequate. It induces softness and you can see its tracks. So I end up manually retouching in Ps anyway.
I have not used the latest flatbeds, I have an Epson Perfection 3200 that's semi-adequate for roll film, but not useable for large print scans from 35mm.

Using a Laowa 25mm 2.5x-5x extreme macro lens, a D850 can produce a "scratch your eye" sharp 1142 megapixel image from a 35mm slide or negative.
Film grain and dye clouds are the brushstrokes of photography. Fuzzy them up if you must, I like 'em sharp.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

In the mirrorless world, Panasonic’s DFD AF (depth from de-focus autofocus) is far more accurate than manual focus, unless you rely on focus peaking, where they’re about the same. But if the film curls, AF has the advantage, because you can set the focus point placement across the frame to optimize DOF.

The reason is that focus happens on the imaging sensor, so there are no lens-to-body alignment issues. Most dSLRs are not perfectly focus-aligned with their lenses (unless carefully micro-adjusted).

I found a very different world when I went mirrorless. My slide duplication systems from 1980 to 1987 were similar to what you described above. With them, we could not practically flip the original when duplicating it, and there was no AF.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

How can you tell the emulsion side from the other side?

Dik

It's the dull side.