JimRPhoto Loc: Raleigh NC

To funpictures: I was writing my post as you were posting yours. What a great idea! Home made extension tubes for the front end. There is a UHH person in Australia whose post first tipped me of to the slide copier but a different brand, Emora. I then used my small light box just as you suggested, and approximated the distance and frame-fill for a variety of my own lenses with both the Olympus and Canon system. The Nikon ES-2 does have two provided extenders, but I find that I need to get closer, not further away, and my current lenses won’t do it. Nor did the 50mm f/2.8 Canon macro lens, mounted on my FF Canon body, or on my Olympus 4/3 body (adapter with no glass). Thank you for your suggestion. I think that could work, but most likely not with the lenses I currently have available, because as I say, focus and quality are not the issue now. I need to fill the frame, and the farther I get from the slide, the smaller the frame fill. Thanks again. JimR.

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Thaz a lotta work to save $15 when the $15 buys a definitely better solution.

OTOH I did add a coupla emptied out filter rims to my $15 tube set, for fine tuning the length since the filter rims are thinner than any of the tubes.

wthomson Loc: Tempe, Arizona

A 1969 plaid jacket is always crisp, regardless of the fuzziness of the photograph!!!!

rcarol

A flatbed scanner is very slow compared to the Nikon ES-2 slide copier.

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Problem with most zooms is that they tend to have too much barrel and glass extending forward of their actual optical center. In some such cases the proper location for your slide, relative to the optical center, is actually somewhere within the space already occupied by all that forward structure of the zoom lens.

With non-wide prime lenses there’s very little physical structure forward of the optical center.

funpictures Loc: Olathe Kansas

Jim, greetings. I wanted to add some information on an easy way to make ES2 type accessories. It does not matter what camera lens or combo you are using all the ES2 does is hold the object just past the shortest focal length for the lens to focus. If you simply take any combo you have and focus clearly at the closest distance to the slide on any back-lit source -measure the distance from the front of the lens to the slide- that is the distance you need to use - to add to/modify the tubes on the ES2. On a Nikon 105 the focal distance is just over 180 cm total but you need to add only slightly over 3 inches to make it work with existing ES2.

I took the approach of adding some screw on adaptors made from old lens filters attached the extension.
That makes it easy to just screw on the extension on the lens you are using and the screw on the ES2 to the other end.

Low cost under $ 10.00
If you want to eliminate the ES2 just take some PVC tube 3in or 4in, in diameter and cut to the focal length needed - measure from the front of your lens to the image plane. - and make a plate/cover with a hole in it 1/8 inch slightly smaller than the filter ring on your lens. Place the item/slide/negative on a back lit surface, mask off all light except what goes thru the film, and set your tube over the light source. Place the plate/cover on top of the tube rest your camera, lens down, over the hole, look thru the view finder center the image. This makes a trouble free non vibration copy camera out of your camera. Shoot the image at the highest resolution possible -- it allows you to even use the auto focus. Shoot negatives and invert in any convenient software etc. Don't bother trying to make the image a perfect full frame fit, use the advantage of critical focus of these new cameras and then just post crop. I get magnificent results on slides and negatives over 40 years old.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

The ES-2 also has mounting rings to work with the 40mm lens on a crop sensor camera.