Slide repro with closeup lens?

[eiler m]

I have a mini EOS, a Powershot G1X Mark III with a fixed 3x-zoom-lens and an APS-C sensor with a CF of 1,6.
And I have a lot of 24x36 slides that I would like to digitize by using the camera with an appropriate closeup lens.
My lens have a 37 mm thread, and inside the lens hood there is a 49 mm thread.

I have successfully made closeup photos without distortions by using a vintage Asahi Pentax Close-Up lens No. 1, with 49 mm thread mounted inside the lens hood. It has a diopter of approximately 2,5 and gives a minimum image size of appr. 6x9 cm.

But taking repros of 24x36 slides will demand a more powerful closeup lens to fully utilize the sensor, maybe with diopter 10? The B+W brand has a 10 diopter macro lens with 49 mm thread, not 37 mm. I wonder if this could be a good choice, or maybe I rather should try a combination of 2-3 less strong 37 mm closeup lenses to reach the right scale without distortions for my slide-repro?

Grateful for any advices
Eiler Munksgaard

[Manfred M]

Eiler - most people would use either a flat-bed scanner or dedicated film / slide scanner for this type of work. Because the 35mm negatives are so small, they need to be reproduced at full-size to come out relatively well and with your 1.6 crop factor sensor, this will be problematic. There are some fairly inexpensive ones on the market, but they give fairly low quality. Epson makes a line of scanners that are often used for this purpose, some come with dedicated holders for slides.

[eiler m]

Thank you for the answer. In fact I have a ‘Nikon Super CoolScan 4000 ED’ 35mm Film Scanner. But after migrating to an iMac I have not found out how to connect to the scanner.
Another concern is that scanning with this scanner is time consuming work, even if the results are excellent. A friend of mine uses his Sony FF with a macro lens for slide repro work and it works very well and are fast - and that inspired me to try something similar with my little Canon.

[Manfred M]

So far as I understand it, Nikon no longer supports this hardware, although I wonder if any of the some of the other generic scanner drivers out there would function with the Coolscan. I have a Minolta Dimage and have not used it in years for very much the same reason.

A macro lens is specifically designed for this type of work and using add-on lenses will not get you the same quality as your friend's lens. A decent macro lens will run in the same cost range as your camera with its built in lens. Most of these add-on close up lenses add significant distortion (usuall barrel and pincushion, depending on the focal length used. There will often be some strange fringing too.

That being said, if you want to still pursue this route, you need to buy a step up ring to use a 49mm filter with your 37mm threads:


https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...Ring_Lens.html

[eiler m]

I have made repros of 8x8 cm glass slides from my grandgrandparents time with the 49 mm closeup lens setup mentioned earlier and zoomed to tele at aperture 8 and the result was without cushion distortions and sharp all across the image. I think that the large size of the closeup lens compared to the lens size added to the quality of the image.

I will acquire the B+W 10 diopter 49 mm Macro Lens and see if the results still will be satisfying. If not I will ask my marcrolens friend to assist me scanning the slides!

Do you have information about the closeup lenses from Raynox? www.closeuphotography.com/raynox

It is sad that the fine Nikon scanner and its software is no longer supported. I have kept my old Toshiba laptop running XP Professional and Nikon CoolScan software just in case, but have not used it for years. I have a fine flatbed see-through scanner as well, the HP Scanjet 4670, but strangely enough HP does not support it anymore.

[Manfred M]

8 x 8 cm is a large negative so the issues will be less visible than a typical 35mm image.

I know nothing about the Raynox lenses. Every macro shooter I know uses a dedicated macro lens on a DSLR body.

I'm not someone who does a lot of close up photography, but do know a number of photographers that shoot film and scan these images to create digital negatives. None of the serious shooters that I know use 35mm cameras; they are all using either medium format or field / view cameras with large negatives. This is purely due to image quality issues.

[rpcrowe]

There are all kinds of slide copier arrangements on eBay..
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...opier&_sacat=0

Although I have not even seen a Honeywell Repronar for eons, this was the Navy's first line slide copier and did quite a good job.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/see-video-l...kAAOSwS5Rdm3iS

I wonder if you could adapt this unit to work with a DSLR or a Digital Mirrorless Camera???

[eiler m]

Thank you for the replies to my slide repro question. I am familiar with different setups for making repros. When I have acquired the appropriate closeup lenses for my fixed zoom-lens g1xm3 Canon I will give you a feedback on how it works making repros of 24x36 slides.

[proseak]

Have you tried Vuescan?

https://www.hamrick.com/

[eiler m]

Thank you for the tip - it leads me to this review on scanning software: https://expertphotography.com/vuescan-review/

[loosecanon]

I would suggest that high power close up lens will produce far to much distortion as well as chromatic aberation to produce a very insatisfactory result.
To be honest the cheap slide copier would give a better result. If you want to go the camera route with an eos you could pick up a cheap macro lens such as a tamron 90mm with a FD mount and an FD to EOS converter from ebay - no need for infinity focus - get the converter without lens.

[rpcrowe]

There are several ways to accomplish this but, in actuality, I have seen very few copies of slides that are of the quality of an original digital image from a fairly modern DSLR or Digital Mirrorless Camera.

I suspect that reasons for this may be:

1. The copy process losing some quality... The illumination might be part of the culprit...
2. Many slide films (Kodachrome excepted) don't have the quality of a modern DSLR camera's sensor...

[Manfred M]

There are several ways to accomplish this but, in actuality, I have seen very few copies of slides that are of the quality of an original digital image from a fairly modern DSLR or Digital Mirrorless Camera.

I suspect that reasons for this may be:

1. The copy process losing some quality... The illumination might be part of the culprit...
2. Many slide films (Kodachrome excepted) don't have the quality of a modern DSLR camera's sensor...

Let me somewhat disagree with your conclusions.

1. Yes, the copy process will result in some loss of quality, but this is process dependent. Using a macro lens and a small format camera is going to result in a lower quality image than a contact print that does not involve a lens. I've seen some scans out of a Hasselblad Flextight X5 that are remarkably good; which scans at around 8000 ppi when used with a 35mm film. The Flextight uses a very thin magnetic carrier that is bent over a tight radius to ensure a high quality scan. The standard flatbed scanners are simply not there quality wise.

2. The only advantage that Kodachrome has over many of the other films is permanence. It does not have the quality of an image taken with a high resolution modern camera with a modern high end lens either.

[eiler m]

If I find a way to connect my otherwise fine 'Nikon Super Cool Scan 4000ED' that uses a firewire connection to my iMac that does not have firewire, I can see if the Mac has embedded an appropriate driver for this scanner.

Using my Canon g1xm3 with a fixed lens I am aware that a high diopter lens maybe not give a flat focus and can produce abberations. I have ordered a 'Hoya MACRO CLOSE-UP, a lens consisting of a 2-element, 2-group construction and a +10 diopter rating' https://hoyafilterusa.com/product/hoya-macro-close-up/ and hope that this lens will work.

[eiler m]

I have now made repros of graph film with my Canon Powershot G1X MIII with a fixed zoom-lens 15-45 mm, and with close-up lenses. The camera has an APS-C sensor 22.3 x 14.9 mm, and the zoom was set on 45 mm and focused as close as possible.
The close-up lenses had a 49 mm thread, and the lenshood with its 49 mm lens-cap thread was used as a step-up ring from my 37 mm lens thread. High quality close-up lenses are rare for 37 mm threads, but I think that the larger size of the closeup lenses was an advantage.

IMAGE 1, motif size 59x88 mm, taken with ‘Asahi Pentax Close-Up lens No. 1’ 49 mm. Diopter 2,2.
IMAGE 2, motif size 28x42 mm, taken with ‘Hoya Macro Close-Up Lens’ 49 mm. Diopter 10.
IMAGE 3, motif size 24x36 mm, taken with the Hoya and the Pentax close-up lenses together.

The f-stop used was f/11, and the background was a Medalight ligthtbox with 5000K.
The images show a slight pincushion, increasing with the strength of the closeup-up lenses. They images show some aberration at the corners, also increasing with the strength of the close-up lenses.

IMAGE 3 was of most interest to me finding a way to reproduce 24x36 mm slides as it filled the 3:2 format. After reproducing some slides I found the result satisfying for everyday use and small prints.

BUT: I need a straightforward advice on HOW TO UPLOAD PICTURES FROM MY COMPUTER!

[Manfred M]

BUT: I need a straightforward advice on HOW TO UPLOAD PICTURES FROM MY COMPUTER!

You can find useful information here:

Ignore the information dealing with TinyPic. That site (which was the preferred method by many at CiC) was turned off earlier this year.

[eiler m]

- Where? No link or information in the post.

[Manfred M]

You can find useful information here:

Ignore the information dealing with TinyPic. That site (which was the preferred method by many at CiC) was turned off earlier this year.

Oops - sorry. My bad.

Here is the link:

HELP THREAD: How can I post images here?

[eiler m]

Thank you - but is it too much to ask to get an updated new version of this very long thread with just the basic information included?

[xpatUSA]

Thank you - but is it too much to ask to get an updated new version of this very long thread with just the basic information included?

Not at all!

1) Put your picture somewhere accessible on-line, like DropBox, and note it's URL

2) In your post, type {img}yourURL{/img} but type square brackets, not curly brackets.

Basic enough?