DSLR SLIDE SCANNING

Børre Ludvigsen

  Digtitizing slides with a full frame DSLR, a high quality flat field
  lens and a slide duplicating rig is by far more efficient than using
  flatbed or film scanners. The resulting image quality is far better
  than flatbed scanning, but somewhat lower than film scanning.

  The following are tests of methods for digitizing transparencies.

  The sample is a Kodak 5076 Ektachrome 200 ED (daylight) slide in
  glassless mount. Picture taken ca. 1980 probably with a Nikon F2 and
  50mm f2 handheld.

  canon-pb-4.jpg:    Full size image from Canon 5Dii and Nikon PB-4
                     bellows with PS-4 slide copying adapter with a
                     Nikkor 50mm f2 at f5.6. (3744x5616)

  canon-pb-4-2.jpg:  Same as above reduced to 1600x2400 for
                     comparison.

  epson-001.jpg:     Scan at 2400 dpi from Epson 4990 flatbed
                     scanner. (1582x2400) 

  microtek-1.jpg:    Scan at 2400 dpi from Microtek ArtixScan 120tf film
                     scanner. (1599x2400)

  All files are temperature adjusted, but not sharpened or enhanced in
  any way other than the scanner or camera default settings. The light
  source for the PB-4 image is a white sheet of paper illuminated by a
  single tungsten mat lightbulb.

  ./pb-4/20090401_094755.jpg ... 20090401_095127.jpg are images of the
  Canon 5Dii mounted of the pb-4 bellows with the 50mm normal lens. A
  better choice would probably be the 55/3.5 Micro lens.

  ./canon_raw/ contains some examples of exposure of negatives in the
  Canon RAW (.CR2) format. 

  - Børre Ludvigsen 20090312

  20090527: The directory 20090523_nikkor-55-3.5/ contains further
  examples of exposures of slides using a Micro Nikkor 55/3.5 lens
  with the PB-4/PS-4.