This thing is pricey but somehow genius. I am still in the flatbed camp since I don't have a good enough SLR and a macro lens and all the accessories needed for scanning via camera. But if I would start fresh I would go the route you are describing. Thanks for making me aware.
I really like the setup. And you are right about the price. I have too much invested in my current setup, Epson Perfection v700, to spend on a different setup. Plus I have 4x5 negatives to work on. I have been trying to find cheap items to help members of my photo club to archive their negative stock and also show them how to process their film at home. Hopefully, I can come up with plan that we get all of the chemistry for the film through the club and set up classes to demonstrate development. Thanks for your input on this process.
I've been using a copy stand and LED light panel with the Lomography Digitalizer. A bit of a pain because, as you said, you need to cut into 4 frames and reposition. The Negative Supply Carrier is a fantastic concept, looks very well built and exactly what I've wanted that would solve the issues of my setup. I don't often question pricing but that is a complete deal breaker. Such a shame. Hopefully some competition will bring that down to a far more reasonable price point. Regardless, thank you for your excellent insights into the process.
check this kickstarter out. it's worth considering. note the discount code if you want to go to the photo show www.35mmc.com/19/12/2019/big-news-the-analogue-spotlight-is-coming-to-the-photography-show-2020/
Another good choice for film holder is the Essential Film Holder. It is about $125 for a kit that includes both the 35mm and 120 masks. It holds the film very flat. There are lots of additional masks that one can buy (e.g., panaroma 35mm width), etc. I think EFH probably provides the best cost/performance.
If you have a 3D printer or may know somebody that can print it for you, look into the kamerakraft project. They offer a free version of their film carrier files. I use it for my 35mm film and I'm quite happy with the results. www.kamerakraft.com/film-scanning-carrier
If you get an old bellows unit with slide attachment (Minolta and Pentax are cheap) you can do this way easier and cheaper than this. You also don’t need a macro lens, just a cheap vintage 50mm from whatever brand bellows you buy. The focus is always the same and easy to adjust. Can probably pick up the bellows for 100-150, lens for 20-50, and a high CRI light for 20-30. The high CRI light is important to get good colors. If it isnt listed with the light it will be low. CRI over 95 is ideal Also, Negative Lab Pro is awesome. I scanned and converted 10 rolls in probably less than 2 hours on the weekend with the above method. That included cutting and sleeving them all too. The negative lab pro Facebook group is an amazing resource for anyone looking to get into scanning with a camera
Norman Nguyen you just use a lens adapter. The bellows will have the same connector as a lens. So you need an EOS R to Pentax K or Minolta MD adapter. They are 20 bucks
@@artemorbid I've been using photoshop to work with my negative scans. Created a custom action that just does most of the work for me. It's not exactly the most user friendly thing, but it works for my shooting.
@@artemorbid Negative Lab Pro is made by an independent developer that has nothing to do with Negative Supply. NLP is $100, but you can use it with any scanning method you want, and it's nothing compared to a Lightroom subscription. Plus you don't have to use NLP if you have a scanner, you can use Epson scan or Silverfast which are free or usually come for free. Also you can try to invert the negative yourself manually, it's not too hard for black and white.
I've been using the Wolverine F2D film converter. For my needs it works quite well, it can convert film up to 127 and I see that they now make one that can do 120 film. It converts to 20 megapixel files on to an SD card. I've made 13x19 prints from 35mm negs that I've converted that look very good. Since I've been photographing for over 50 years I have thousands of rolls of film and lots that have never been printed so I find this very useful for me. Another advantage is it can do mounted 35mm slides. I see the new one can do 6 x 9 cm so I just ordered one from Adorama $159. In my travels I buy a lot of vintage negatives and most of those are 6 x 9 cm as most of the folding cameras from back then shot 8 exposures on a roll of 120 or 620.
Reverse a negative in Lightroom: go into "Develop", open "Tone Curve" panel, enable "editing Point Curve". Basically, you need to invert the line in the curve tool. It normally runs from lower-left corner to upper-right corner. Set it to run from upper-left to lower-right. Starting left, just hover the mouse over that end of the function line until the mouse cursor becomes an up-down arrow, now click-hold-drag the end of the line from lower-left to upper-left. Repeat, top to bottom, for the other end of the function line. You'll see that magically your negative is now represented as positive. No need for a plugin, that is. Maybe you can turn this into a Lightroom preset, even, and apply the neg-pos reversal to a range of shots. As to your shooting these "scan" photos, I would want to prevent the cropping labor, by going to a 1:1 magnification that only records the image, not its black edge. BTW, some Nikon cameras can already do this conversion in camera when you copy your negatives. BTW2, I think, for a higher dynamic range you could shoot slide (dia positive) film and would not have to reverse anything as it already happened in the film/processing. BTW3, if you shoot tethered from Lightroom, you can integrate the post-processing and tagging in one go.
That's... a lot of money, hahahaha. And the copy stand is another 300 as well, plus the space it takes up on the house, plus the macro lens, plus a digital camera with a good sensor (considering you are talking about film photography, I wonder how many people in your audience are purely analogue shooters, or have only very basic digital cameras that wouldn't perform on this task very well)... Maybe I'm underestimating people, but the amount of "I only shoot film!" comments that I've seen around these parts is... pretty damn high. With all of that in mind, "camera-scanning" film is a massive investment all in all. It's an extremely niche product in a already very niche market. It's cool that it exists though, and the process does seem rather seamless, at least until you take stuff into Lightroom. The fact that the image needs to be converted to TIFF to go positive kinda kills it for me. Nevertheless, I learned a lot on this one. Very interesting video, Robin. Nicely done!
Great demo/review! I would take into consideration the time it takes to get the negative into the carrier and all the way until it is a positive image. IMO, the Negative Supply carrier and a DSLR are together more expensive than a Pakon scanner- which is sooo much faster and easier tu use. The strong side of the DSLR is the higher resolution output. Regards!
They now offer a "Basic" version for 99 USD, which seems to habe "basically" the same function. What they don't like to tell you about scanning with a camera is that flatbed scanners use IR light to detect and remove dust spots from your scans of color pictures. Newer scanner software can also detect dust on b/w scans. This is a great timesaver. So I am yet switching to scanning with my digital cameras.
Good and clear video. Thanks for sharing 1.How do you focus, manually !! 2. Looking at the device, it looks metal and inside it has support. *Maybe you can open it to see what's inside, make a photo and show it ;-)* Making something like that yourself is doable but it looks solid and well designed, again, need to look inside. $ 340 is a lot of money but the camera stand also costs around $ 220 so add that up you are looking at almost $ 600 including the light table, for the whole package. But the results look amazing, ! Maybe yo u start a business, scanning film, and put a 15 year cousin on it to make some extra pocket money ;-)
Good work finding a workflow that offers the best part of that great Sony sensor and getting to see the sharpness and grain from the film! As for the negative 35mm holder it has one major downside for me and that is that I also dslr scan 120 film and I need to have a system for holding those bigger negatives/positives. Also I am used to the flipped sliders in lightroom when I invert my negatives so that is not a issue for me. Keep up the good work!
I also first bought that LED panel you showed in this video but found out it was not bright enough. Then I bought another one from Raleno, that's much brighter.
330$ for a film carrier that can only handle *one* format is of course ridiculous. But I would assume that the price is part of Negative Supply's marketing strategy: Aim at an absolutely rich audience who does not care if some metal parts with rubber feet are worth 330$. Let RU-vidrs review (means: advertise) their product and get the message out, that this is (like a Leica) "absolutely awesome", "absolutely incredible" and "the results are outstanding". Instantly placing the product into a high quality/high price level for which it was designed (and priced) in first case. Ken Rockwell calls this "a market for those with low self esteem" which fits neatly into the Negative Supply filmholders: Products that shall make you feel like your photography will be any better if you spend at least 330$. If you want some nice film holders that are also holding your film perfectly, awesomely, incredibly and artistically flat and that turn your pictures by flat magic into great works of art consider these: • *Digitaliza* from Lomography (135 and 120) for 35€ each. By saving over 250$ you can hire a poor bugger who will replace your genious film stripes while you talk to the art gallery people about your next big show. • *Kaiser FilmCopy Vario* for 200€. Guess what? Thats a film holder that can even mount different masks for different film sizes! Blows your mind ey! No need to buy a second Negative Supply film holder if you feel like scanning some 120 film for an additional 330$!
Agree, thanks for the recommendations. The Digitaliza seems really great option on the budget, especially when his video started with statement that it is just more affordable to do it at home.
The negative carrier needs to be multi format, with the option to show the film rebates, priced at about $50-60. Then they’d sell a lot more of them. Until that happens, I’ll stick to negative carriers from an enlarger, not as convenient, but they do the job, at a fraction of the price. Thanks for showing your process Robin.
It's a niche product, in a niche market. If they could make for 50, the quality would go down, which sort of defeats the purpose of something that keeps it flat and winds smooth. They do a MF size one too. Making it adjustable would just make it more fiddly, more expensive and less rigid. It's expensive, but then so is film, and so are good cameras. The cost is justified in the ease of use, and time saved for the user - provided one scans enough to make the time saved worth it.
Only advantage here is bulk speed at the expense of quality and scratch/dirt reduction, but the post scan workflow defeats the time savings. The cost of the ext tubes, copy stand, light board are more than a decent Plustek film scanner.
I have the same copy stand that you do, the Kaiser RS2. It's a great stand, very sturdy. I use the digitaliza negative holder from Lomography for 120 film. It's inexpensive but works very well.
Last week, before I watched this video, I ordered the MK1 (3 mos wait time )-:) and NLP. I have been using the Digitaliza holder but it's nearly impossible to do batch processing (frame misalignment) and avoid film curling, both of which the MK1 will improve. I look forward to having this setup. Thank you for this great video!
SLIMNICS I personally Scan with my dslr and a film holder from a scanner which holds strips of 6 negatives (cost me 10$ on eBay). Of course this solution isn’t as fast as the negative supply carrier, but With some practice you can scan a whole roll in under 10 minutes.
Unless you use a purpose-built flat field macro lens on your camera, the plane of focus is a sphere, not a flat, planer surface and will thus produce soft spots inside and outside the circle of focus.
I'm really getting confused lately because photographing negatives seems to be the preferred method of many nowadays, totally colliding with what I was always told in my retouching days that only a proper film scanner can do the job. If I see any youtube videos about the subject it's mostly about macro vs. flatbed scanner if there's any comparison at all, but I'd really like to see more in-depth comparisons between this method and a middle of the road film scanner like the Reflecta/Pacific Image etc. It can't be the price, because with this negative carrier you easily enter the same price range (which I personally find ridiculous), another $100 for the plugin. Sure, scanning is fast, but you seem to spend quite some time in LR afterwards cropping. Anyway, there are those cheap film scanners too that use a camera sensor to do pretty much the same, taking a photo, and those were usually looked down upon as toys, while these results at least in your video look awesome. It's all so confusing... so many questions. :)
It's possible to macro scan with a much cheaper setup than this (eg Nikon ES-1 or similiar slide copier attached to front of lens) and a speedlight instead of a lightpad
I have a Plustek Opticscan 8100i AI and couldn't be happier. It's a little slower than the DSLR route but the results are great. I then use capture one to add a little sharpening and color balance.
@@atroche1978 Yeah, I'm very happy with my Reflecta (Pacific Image in the US) ProScan myself... I'm just wondering, because I've never tried the macro method, why so many people prefer it and even claim it's the best method.
@@aloi Yeah, I'm sure it can be done cheaper - the lightpad is probably cheaper than a speedlight though. :) I'm more wondering how good it is directly compared to scanning.
If you get an old bellows unit with slide attachment (Minolta and Pentax are cheap) you can do this way easier and cheaper than this. You also don’t need a macro lens, just a cheap vintage 50mm from whatever brand bellows you buy. The focus is always the same and easy to adjust. Can probably pick up the bellows for 100-150, lens for 20-50, and a high CRI light for 20-30. The high CRI light is important to get good colors. The one he is using I’m the video is crap. I had one and they suck
How flat does it hold the end frame of a strip of curly 35mm? Specially when there's almost no rebate left at the cut end. What's the shortest strip it'll deal with?
Definitely too expensive. If it were half the price, which still seems expensive for how basic it is, i'd be on it no question, but no way i'd spend what they're asking.
That's the funny thing with DSLR scanning, you can do it for $10 worth of materials from HomeDepot, or spend $2000 on it. The results are pretty similar with $10 vs $2000 setup, the difference is usually in the speed and ease-of-use. I started with an old macro lens from eBay and a $50 light table and a tripod and got good results, but for anybody starting out with scanning I suggest an Epson V600, maybe with an updated holder (Digitaliza) as there are much fewer variables to play with and opportunities for mistakes and problems.
Chunk of metal comes with price of scanner. I've bought Nikon LS-50ED. It's not a fastest scanner but at least I am not spending hours of time for dust removal.
So you shot all as raw files? Doesn’t that need. A ton of noise processing? Also, how many mp was the camera? Thanks
4 года назад
Great video! I wonder how much the camera needs to move up and down the copystand? I have an old drill stand that could possibly be used instead of the expensive copy stand.
Hi Robin. I have a similar set up yet still find it tricky getting the camera and film plane to be perfectly aligned on the copy stand. Do you have a reliable method for ensuring they are in sync?
Oops, the video is already 2 years old! I'm late... I very rarely write YT comments, but now I just have to say a big thank you! And that someone who gives good technical tips also takes very good photos is really rare on YT.
Seems like a nice product, although quite pricey. An odd question potentially, but how do you store uncut negatives? Or you cut it up once scanned with this method and simply stored in the usual negative sheets?
This ain´t scanning, this is photographing the negatives. You also loose a great deal of resolution this way. And the price!?! Your setup is around $3.000! There is also a lot of after processing work to be done after the picture is taken. I do not see the point in photographing with good analogue equipment, high end film and then take a digital picture of it with a 24Mp camera. But I must admit I love your videos, very professional done!
Isn't a scanner digital too? But 300 for that film roller, couch, cough, there's several designs out there you can 3D print yourself. If you're going to take photos though, why not preserve the sprocket holes? That would retain the frame numbers for references as well as the film brand and they look cool!
@@n3d.studio Well.. There is a technical difference between a scanner and a sensor. The scanner reads one line at the time, while the sensor reads the whole picture one time (unless you have a camera that can take multiple shots in different channels). You never get the resolution from a sensor that a good scanner will give you. But both give you a digital file to work with.
@@eksund1900 I was responding to your last comment about photos on film but taking a digital picture, both are digitally scanned. A FF digital camera can gather enough resolution to print a 24x30" print and the resolution is only getting better with cameras too, I think for most, that is enough. There is plenty of resolution in a 36mp image from a FF sensor. Plus RAW files. If you need a lot of film converted, a digital camera is a better way to go vs. a scanner which takes much longer. A budget scanner is much cheaper way to go though so it's really if you already have a FF camera plus a macro you just need a light box.
I assume for the quality they want, it gets expensive to manufacture. If they made 10,000, sure the costs would come down. There's also design costs etc. Advantage over the Epson is it's much faster. For people scanning a lot, in might be worth the initial cost. And depending on the sensor in the digital camera you could get a better scan. Assuming one has a digital camera body, it's also useful for shooting/video, not just scanning negs. Advantage of the Epson is it's more versatile and you can scan polaroids etc.
If you're going to take photos, why not preserve the sprocket holes? That would retain the frame numbers for reference as well as the film brand/speed and they look cool!
1º How hard it is to level the camera vs the base? and 2º how do you focus your lense ? in other words whats your point of refernce to focus your camera lense with the negative? and 3º if you work with old negatives the problem will be the scratches and that it takes too much time to remove them, like some scanners have ICE to "FIX" this problem your opinion of ICE in flatbed scanners
Man, but, You don´t remember the lens adapter to copy E6 Slides ?, Even the most famous brands have one, some with bellows and special lenses, you can get any for peanuts and make copies with natural sun light for daylight film. Even with better results because you photograph directly to your camera without refraction risk and better definition because you can take the emultion side of film.
My curious question..how does it handles the last frame of the film..how it keep it flat asI guess it is released at one end at the last frame of the roll?
Nice solution but really is too expensive. Do note that this pricing opens up plenty opportunity for much lower cost clones, which is almost guaranteed to happen since this is a relatively simple, mechanical device. It'll be too late to mourn then.
MUCH CHEAPER VERSION: Go check out Pixelator. They started as a kickstarter, which I backed, but are finally almost at production stage now. I think it will be MUCH MUCH CHEAPER and can do 120 and I think 4x5 as well, if I recall correctly. Hamish worked so hard on it to get it perfect. Enjoy.
It’s a wonderful piece of kit but soooo expensive compared to its competitors. One thing though, how does it go with film that curls across the negative? My digitalises works well with film that curls along the negative but not so well across the negative.
Does the colour temperature of the lightbox matter at all? Mine uses a fluorescent light. It's an old, pre-digital, pre-LED lightbox. Also, I am not clear on just HOW this negative sully carrier FLATTENS the negative without resorting to the use of glass to "sandwich" the negative. Please advise.
Any suggestions for medium format film? Purchased the negatives to my wedding when the photographer shut down his shop. He has mounted the negatives in cardboard frames designed for this format of film. I don't really want to remove them from the frames for fear of damaging the emulsion. Any suggestions as to how to get it to lay flat to eliminate any curvature might exist in the negative?
I would like to know how the noise level of the tifs ended up to be? And were you able to perceive a change in contrast relative to the original film material. I would expect the original high lights to be rendered brighter and the original shadows darker, i.e. a higher resulting contrast?
Hi! Thanks for your video- If you take sprocket photos, will this let you scan in the sprockets? It doesn't look like it from your video, but I can't be sure. Great insight :)
Also, what focal length of lens are you using for this process? Does it have to be a macro or will any normal focal length do (35mm equivalent to a 50 mm lens perhaps)?
Not judging, but just curious. Why you shot in the film, but you end up editing it in lightroom after developing the film, scanning it. If you are editing it in lightroom at the end, what's the point of shooting it in film, but not on the digital camera. I just feel like it's so extra to edit a digital scan of a film in LR, and the film should what it is, with no massive editing or color calibrating. Again, this is just my opinion, I am not trying to compare whether film or digital is better, and I am also trying film after using digital cameras right now. I thought people shooting in the film is because of the special color science that the films bring. Or do you shot in film just because you enjoying using it and the process of developing it? I really really want to hear your opinion on this. But again, thanks for your fantastic video, I learned how to develop the film and scan it from your video.
I'm wondering if you also digitize 35mm slides with a camera and if yes, what your method is. Scanners are great but scanning a lot of slides is a long process. Thanks.
Wow, the price! I don’t really have a macro lens either, so this would certainly break my budget! I do own a Pakon, but I was considering a solution like this for my 120 negatives since I recently got a copy adapter for my Durst enlarger. Maybe a 3D printed one would work out better for me! Negative Lab Pro seems pretty cool though, I might look into that for film stocks that don’t have a profile on the Pakon. Does it do as well for Vision 3 500T? In any case, thanks for the review, it answered a lot of questions I had!
How do the results compare against the scanned images from an affordable dedicated film scanner like Nikon Coolscan V ED? Any idea or hint will be highly appreciated.
how much does the closeup lens help? i too use a nikon lens atached to my fujifilm.... btw it looks like those sony (neon) colours carry on to the finished negative scan
I've almost saw how negative supply carrier mk1 works. I've already know how to work with Gimp of photoshop. The same problem with their site. In a one minute video they shown 9 seconds of mk1 and 40 seconds of lightroom. Are they selling lightroom or mk1 ?
