Building a 4x5 Digital Scanner Back for Large Format Cameras 

Nice! That whole liquid scanning process sounds a bit above our paygrade though :)

So you use that as the ground glass instead?

@@FotodioxInc Yes. Much better results.

@@wedding_photography Great! Thanks for the tip!

And it sounds like it's replaceable and reversible. I was about to ask if some other sheet could be used, thanks for getting an answer in before I even got the question in. 😀

I’m going to try using Matt iPad screen protector (film sticker) instead of graining the glass. It might work. And also, cut off the led of scanning head would increase more light absorbing from in coming image.

:)

Nice! We'll have to look into that

Thanks for the kind words!

Yeah, there are tons of pro options out there. This was more of a fun DIY/lo-fi hack :)

Most likely. I'm no technician, but I may look into it.

You could use red, green and blue filters over the lens and build a tri-chrome image in digital. You'd want to disable the light inside the scanner, too, as it'll be illuminating the back of the ground glass and adding noise.

You definitely bored.😝but smart

I was about to leave a comment saying the exact same thing! Scanners use a monochrome sensor with sequential tri-colour illumination.

You might want to consider using a scanner that uses a CCD image sensor. Most inexpensive scanners these days use a CIS (Compact Image Sensor), which uses a monochrome sensor, where the material illuminated by an RGB LED array. The CCD is a color sensor that is illuminated by a white fluorescent lamp (many of the newer ones now use RGB LEDs). The CCD scannerss have better image quality and depth of field. I once had an old-school HP Scanjet 4P full size flatbed scanner, with a CCD sensor and SCSI port. It would make glorious scans with my Mac. It would sharply capture things that were an inch or two away from the surface of the glass. The weight and power consumption (AC powered!) would make it prohibitive for portable use, but it could make for compelling use in a studio.

In the future I'll try it that way :)

Thanks!

:)

If they only made a medium format 1:1 sized scanner :D

In retrospect, I had just picked that book up. After reading it for a bit, I realized how pointless it was and donated it back to the used bookstore :) I'm a big fan of mythology and folklore, but I prefer stuff that's from ancient cultures and not made up by one guy. Thanks for the kind words!

Sean collects some weird books

Hi George, thanks for the tip and the kind words! We love film photography here at Fotodiox just as much as digital, and fusing the two has always been our passion. Have a great week!

Have fun!

Thanks!

Thanks!

Good idea! Thanks

Or maybe replace the glass with a piece of frosted glass.

That's great!

Smart! Actually, as long as it's not freezing out, we've found that the batteries last a lot longer.

Glad you liked it!

Thanks for the suggestion! So, do you mean attaching this scanner to the back of that camera model?

:)

I tried that. What I got was a keyhole effect. Only the very center of the image circle of the lens was exposed, while everything else faded to black.

Thanks!

@@FotodioxInc also I own one of your 5-in-1s haha…. And a foldable shoulder rig. Just now realizing this

Keep looking on eBay. I got mine on there for pretty cheap.

Yes, but I recommend covering it when you're scanning a photo, otherwise the image will be blown out.

@@FotodioxInc can i get true color result if i use new scanner like canon LIDE 300?

@@aprogress2374 No, the nature of this setup is going to get you a very muted, almost black and white look.

@@FotodioxInc but, how this guy get true color result? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-bl5ScUQZvNc.html

Also, two more things.... 1) I think I have figured out how to disable the scanner light (based on one of the comments on the Instructable), but it requires rewiring the scanner and I am a little nervous about pulling the trigger to do it. 2) I believe the reason it is black and white is the light bar in the scanner is actually an RGB strip and it is rapidly cycling between Red, Green and Blue lights and taking multi-channel exposures for every scan line based on the reflected light. However, it is reading the light from the camera exactly the same for every channel and that is what is producing the gray image (since all of the channels are the same exposure). If you were to get an old CCD based scanner that uses a fluorescent tube light, it actually works more like a digital camera and will takes color photos.

​@@randofo The light starts bright and then dims when it realizes it's not needed much for the scan. So there's a little bar of overexposure on the edge of the frame that I just crop out in post.

Great idea! Will try that with our next build

Good suggestion!

What, do you think I'm a technical person or something? :) I didn't disable anything, wouldn't know how :) The scanner is working exactly like it did before, I just created a frosted material in front of it for a lens to cast an image circle to be scanned. That's an interesting idea though. Maybe disabling the leds would help?

For sure.

That's an interesting idea, but we've never done anything with that camera.

Thanks!

Obrigado!

Good idea! Then you could pick what kind of grain you wanted.

Whet and dry sandpaper does NOT work. I tried this 😭💀

Nit so sure though, since the sensor is designed to focus on a document placed above the glass

That could be cool! Unfortunately I'm not technically savvy enough to do that :)

Yes, it actually scans a little larger than 4x5. These scanners are unfortunately pretty rare. We got ours on ebay. We can't help you get one, but happy hunting!

:D

Fore sure! One of the reasons I used this camera is because the lens requires a focusing helicoid to adjust focus, but with a large format lens that doesn't need this, a simple box design would work great. I actually changed this design to work with another large format camera that does give me infinity focus. At some point I'll make an update video about it.

The outdoor images were actually shot at Independence Grove in Libertyville.

Yeah, it's not great.

The scanner needs a frosted surface to scan an image off off. Without glass you'll only get a scan of the very center of the image. People who have made these scanner cameras call this effect keyholing.

How did you disable the LED's ?

Hi Sean, we actually used one box. We just cut a strip out of the middle of it and then uses the inner and outer folding flaps of the box's construction to tuck the two halves together. It's actually not a great design, and in retrospect it would be better if we had used two boxes. Sean kind of just smashed it together really quickly one day, so we'd have to tear it apart to get you a workable diagram. If you have an email or Instagram or facebook we could at least DM you some pics of the two parts separated for reference.

Michael Baron without a ground glass you get a keyhole effect. Only the very middle of the lens circle is captured and everything else vignettes

I was thinking about trying this a while back and just assumed that making a holder to match the lens focal plane with the scanner focal plane and placing the scanner in the mode to scan transparencies would result in a full-colour image on a circle of coverage that the scanner could capture and allow me to crop to in post. I have an old Epson 1660 Photo I was going to sacrifice to this. If that worked I may think about a 3D printed adapter to hold an 8x10 lens in front of my Epson V850 Pro. Neither of these is portable of course... unless you consider a genset in the back of a pickup to be portable?

@@FotodioxInc Ah, I guess the sensor expects the light to come straight on.

How portable do you want to be? i.pinimg.com/736x/02/31/09/0231099add448958ae4f2daac4b8c67b.jpg

@@michael_baron sounds this is the correct answer. I had the same question as yours.

According to the people who I followed to make this scanera, without the matte finish you get a keyhole effect--only the middle of the lens's image circle is clear while the edges go black. Did you have a similar effect?

@@FotodioxInc to be honest I havent checked, I was doing it with a 35mm lens just out of curiosity, so I got an image and that was it, I remember I was looking for this exact scanner or the small HP photosmart one just to do what you did ;]

Without some kind of material for the scanner to scan the lens's image circle off of, you get a keyhole effect, basically only the very center of the image is scanned and everything else is vignette. But when Sean did this project, he was unaware of the alternative kinds of matte image collectors, like the inner part of an LCD screen, which makes for a much smoother scanned image.

You still need an image surface as the scanner is focused to read the surface not the image from the lens. But there are better methods, see alternative surface post.

@@user-yv2cz8oj1k I understand why you need ground glass to focus when using large format camera. Otherwise the light just passes trough the glass and you can't see it. But surelly the scanner is made to capture light? I mean, you don't have ground glass infront of your sensor? The lens is focusing the light onto sensor. Same goes for the fernell, why would you need that? I'm just sceptical, if there is a good reason for the fernell and grounding the surface, I would love to know more in detail the reasoning behind that.

@@IAMDIMITRI The scanner already uses a lens. Having two lenses (without a ground glass) will make an image that looks the same as you holding the lens up to your eye. For your idea to work you would need to remove the lens from the scanner to have a bare sensor.

Without a ground glass you get a keyhole effect, where only the very center of the image circle is scanned and everything else is black.

@@FotodioxInc why in a film camera it is not necessary? Somebody commented here that it is because the CCD sensor only sensitive to incident light with small angle.

@@gracexie Because the film itself is like the ground glass, thus all of the image is exposed at once. With a scanner, it's moving along the frame, and the image projected is not in focus (because the sensor is meant to capture an image of the glass surface, not direct light).

@@Ryan-lu9km I need to go back to college optics class I took long long time ago.

@@gracexie I'm also not that good at this, but I try to explain it anyways 🙂

We'd have to do a new build and swap the ground glass out for a smoother frosted surface. Something we may do a video about in the future.

We need to try that next!

Yes, you do. I tried it without any frosted/textured material and without something for the image circle of the lens to disperse on, you get a keyhole effect. Basically the scanner only scans the very center of the image circle and the rest goes into a sharp black vignette. You only end up scanning like 5% of the image. I think this is because the scanner is designed to scan a flat, dispersed document, so it behaves differently than a sheet of film or a digital camera sensor. Think the difference between film and a cyanotype.

No, just used it as-is.

@@FotodioxInc does the light bar come on? I would expect it to backscatter from the ground glass. In any case, absolutely brilliant work!

@@weirdsciencetv4999 Yeah, it comes on. The scanner seems to behave exactly like it would if I was scanning a document.

@@FotodioxInc i believe the light bar rapidly cycles between red, green, blue light. Since you’re not using reflected light to image a document, this is probably why the images are black and white. The line sensor itself is probably just a straight sensor with no color filters

@@weirdsciencetv4999 That makes sense! I've actually realized with some more tests that the images aren't truly monochrome. If I boost the saturation in post, the images turn a faint blue

Agreed! :)

@@FotodioxInc I wonder what can be achieved with a scanner the size of a Brother MFCL3710CW scanner... The images would be about 368.64 Megapixels! The Hubble Space Telescope only has a measly 16.8 Megapixels!

Yes, that's true, but the scanner is designed to scan a flat reflective surface, so it acts differently from film or even a digital sensor. I did try this setup without glass and I got a keyhole effect. Basically the only part of the lens's image circle I was able to scan was a tiny part in the middle and the rest was vingette.

@@FotodioxInc I suspect it might work without the glass, if you get the right lens, like a large format lens with enough projection view. Basicly it still just a sensor.

@@Tbonyandsteak I did use a large format lens for this build, and it did cover the full scanner, but without glass all I got was a tiny part of the middle of the lens's image circle, like looking through a keyhole. With the glass and a fresnel I got full image circle coverage. It has to do with the way the sensor works. If you don't believe me, there are other people online who have built similar scanner cameras and had the same issue. One way to get less grain is to use the inner part of an LCD screen instead of ground glass like I used.

@@FotodioxInc Ok thx, maybe a longer focal length may be different

Thanks! A lot of people have recommended to LCD sheet. My next build will use that instead.

No, that's Tony Santo :) ru-vid.comvideos

@@FotodioxInc Thanks

It would be doable, just very, very slow :)

We already offer adapters like this, but they're for 4x5 large format cameras, not medium format ones. I'll let our design team know that there's interest in medium format ones, especially for the Fuji GX680.

Good ideas! This was an experiment that unfolded while the video was being made, not something we had already perfected before we made the video. If we can source another glass piece, a textured sticker is a genius idea.

No, I intentionally chose this specific scanner for the look I could create with it.

Yep.

I tried that first, but if you use a scanner rather than a sensor or a sheet of film, you get this weird keyhole effect. The center of the image is sharp but it vignettes really badly after that, making the image unusable. That's why I had to introduce a ground glass and Fresnel.

Without a texture for the image to sit on, you get a keyhole effect. Basically the scanner only scans the very center of the lens's image circle and the rest goes black.

@@FotodioxIncmhhh looks like more a shadowing problem of the cis sensor casing. years ago while i played with a canon scanner for a similar project i had to dremel away a lot o material to expose the sensor: flic.kr/p/6ggt5a

Dominic Knepper Dominic, so a simple piece of sandpaper can be use to achieve this?

Wish I had talked to you first then! Thanks for the advice, will use less next time, and look into using the paper instead too.

Yeah, it's more of a fun DIY thing than anything of any quality. If you's looking for a scanner project for a scanner that is more available, check out this other scanner camera project we did: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Cc8fB1TReY4.html

Only useful if you want weird lo-fi images with ground glass texture in them--which Sean does :)

Yes, it's a lo-fi, low resolution digital monstrosity that only kind of gives you that large format look :)

Agreed. This only works for crazy people like me who like weird, moody lo-fi images :)

@@FotodioxInc I like your way of thinking, really. But this is honestly too much time, effort and money invested on a fundamentally bad idea. You can get those kind of photos in quite different ways. But certainly not with a scanner.

@@sinerehber Again, I agree :) For me it's less about the best way to create an image and more about the weirdest way. I did this project more as a "what if" than a "this will work well." Luckily for me, my style has always been one that leans towards a lo-fi look, so I enjoy the images I can create with this build, but that doesn't mean I won't also shoot with high end digital cameras and lenses or that I'll stop shooting true 4x5 film photography as well. I like to do a little bit of everything.

@@FotodioxInc I watched other videos and kinda understand what you mean. subscribed!

I removed the glass screen and it's frame from the scanner, so while I was using the water and grit there were no electronics involved, just glass and plastic, which I thoroughly dried and cleaned before I re-attached it to the scanner. One of the reasons I used this method was that multiple modders before me have used it with good results. Adding a second sheet is a good idea though, but I wonder of the focus would be thrown off a little?