Photographing color negatives presents some challenges. I know because my retirement project has been to scan around 8000 negatives, but I photographed around 500 of them. I have an Epson V800 flatbed scanner, and the results are pretty good, but I get a little more detail from my Nikon D810 and 55mm f/2.8 macro lens. I used the camera on the "special" negatives.

1. With the camera, focus and alignment are critical when you're working at or near 1:1. If you're lucky and have a Nikon DSLR and the "right" macro lens (60mm FX or 40mm DX), you can use the ES-2 film adapter that fits over the end of the lens, and this takes care of these issues.

2. Cheap LED light sources don't have the full spectrum of color wavelengths. People who do this seriously often backlight with a strobe, but incandescent or halogen (both producing heat) will work. Some fluorescent bulbs are designed for this as well.

3. It is not trivial to deal with the orange mask of color negative film if you're going to try it manually. The normal slider controls in a typical photo editor cannot correct for this. You get blue pictures. I photograph in RAW and use the Color Perfect Photoshop plugin to invert the negatives, and the results are either right on or close enough to tweak a bit to get them right. Vuescan can also invert photographs of color negatives without involving a scanner. I think that Color Perfect is more accurate.

Your best bet if you can't find someone who can do a good job for you is to buy a dedicated film scanner, not a flatbed scanner that can scan negatives. I bought a flatbed scanner because of the high volume I wanted to do, and because I kept the camera option when I wanted better results. I think that a good film scanner could at least equal the results of the camera.

I can't show you my pictures now because I'm packing up my house to move, and they're all on external drives that have been put away for now.