My camera stand project is now set up and running. I am using my Canon R5 camera and my Laowa 100mm Macro x2 lens for making the photos, and I have outfitted my workspace with a host of Negative Supply devices that hold and feed 35mm and 120 film.
This is my digitizing system. At the back is my camera stand, the subject of two of my previous posts (you can read about it here and here). The camera is a Canon R5. The lens is a 100mm Laowa 2X macro lens. On the table are two devices from Negative Supply: a light source and the 35mm film transport. At the lower-right is my Canon remote shutter button.
The quality is extraordinary. After cropping, I have images 90 MB in size, which translates to a printable image of about 16 x 22 inches at 300 ppi. Not bad for a scan of 35mm film! (At some point after about 20 MB, more resolution is akin to gilding a digital lily.)
My biggest problems so far have been dust and crud on the film. I have “fixed” the dust problem with an anti-static brush, and I purchased some film cleaning solution and lint-free pads from Climax Photo. These are helpful, but they do not solve the problem completely.
This is my Negative Supply light source, which the maker claims has a 97% CRI. Atop the light source is the 35mm film transport from the same company. It is well made and it holds film very flat when digitizing it.
Overall, I’m very happy with my camera mount. It is stable, reasonably solid and has almost no mechanical vibration. I’m using a wired remote trigger to take the photos, as touching the camera in any way will cause the camera (and the mount) to move, and it doesn’t have to move much to ruin an image. I focus, then I take my hands off the camera, take a breath, then push the remote button to make an exposure.
I have numerous long rolls of Kodak negative film, each one about 18 feet in length. These contain 250 photos per roll. I’m feeding them through the Negative Supply 35mm Mark II transport (above), which works flawlessly (unless you put a strip of 4 or fewer frames into it, which makes it necessary to fish the film out with a toothpick). I’m sure that there is another product from Negative Supply that will handle those short strips better.
The camera’s squareness is effectively perfect. I have carefully adjusted the camera’s position using a front-surface mirror to accomplish that task.
Exposure is easy: I did a custom white balance on the Negative Supply light source; I set the ISO at 100, the aperture at 8.0, and let the shutter speed land wherever it wants for “correct” exposure.
This is one frame from one of my two time-lapse movies of the making of the Global Flyer,
a carbon-fiber airplane made at Scaled Composites in Mojave, California. This plane would eventually carry its pilot, Steve Fossett, around the world to set the longest flight world record. The plane now hangs in the Udvar-Hazy collection of the Smithsonian National
Air and Space Museum near Dulles airport.
I have over 900 feet of 35mm film from this project to digitize!
I purchased the full-frame mask from Negative Supply, which allows me to photograph the sprocket holes and the film identification along the edges with each image. Negative Lab Pro software allows me to evaluate images and simultaneously ignore the sprocket holes and film rebate (you can see the sprocket holes in the image above).
I purchased two film reel winders from Climax Photo. These are the small ones that allow me to load a 3.5-inch plastic reel of film, and then turn the cranks to take-up the film after exposure. This is better than having 18 feet of film lying on top of my work table, making it possible to scratch, and to catch as much dust as possible while it’s exposed. I mounted those winders to blocks of plywood to give them mass. These are also removable, so I can put them away when I am not feeding these long rolls of 35mm film.
I installed Negative Lab Pro, and got it running as a plug-in with Lightroom Classic. I’m not a habitual Lightroom user, but I will be developing that habit in the coming weeks as I get further embedded in the process of converting my many thousands of film negatives and positives into digital images. My initial impression of Negative Lab Pro is that it is an excellent solution to converting color negatives into color positives.
One thing my camera stand does not have is a measurement index so that the camera mount can be returned to the same vertical position time and time again. I have a couple of stainless steel rulers at my desk, and have been using one of these to measure and set the position of the horizontal arm holding the camera.
Version two of my camera mount will have a metric scale built-in. That scale will make it easier to get the camera to the same position each time I need to photograph the same size of film. And, for my many thousands of color negatives from the Global Flyer project, returning to the same vertical location is critical. When making time-lapse movies, any change in camera position, exposure or focal length – even a microscopic change – is visible in the final movie.
I purchased a 35 mm slide holder from Negative Supply, and I photographed a box of slides with it. The results are excellent. One of the recent additions to Negative Lab Pro is that it now converts positive images – slides – into usable digital files. I haven’t tried that yet.
My next problem is that my Laowa 100mm lens is too long. It is a stunningly sharp lens, and it works perfectly for 35mm film photography. But, it (and my camera stand) cannot support the camera far enough away from the subject to photograph 120 film (6×6 cm.). This week I ordered a 60mm 2X macro lens from a Chinese manufacturer called 7Artisans. When that arrives, I will be able to photograph 120 film on the existing camera stand. Version 2 will be taller, and that will make it even easier. I want to photograph 4×5 inch film eventually, as I have quite a bit of that size film that needs to be digitized.
The process has been interesting and fun. I’m enjoying digitizing my film images, and also reliving the times in which those images were made. It’s emotionally satisfying and technologically challenging, a good formula for success.
