Unbenched - Scanning from slide to digital copy.

Somewhere along the Washington Coastline - Scanned from slide film

If you held a camera before the turn of the centaury, the chances are pretty good that you shot in some form of analogue media - negative film or slide film.  I didn't switch over until the very early 2000's but have now been through some 15 DSLRs, compacts, bridge cameras, and now two mirrorless bodies.  Before then I used Nikon, Minolta, and at the beginning a Zenit 35 mm body and associated lenses.  I have taught photography courses for about 35 years now and the first 10 or so of those years were on shooting film and working in the darkroom.

As a result, I have thousands of images on slide and negative film.  A goodly number of the film ones are black and white from when I had access to a darkroom and would develop and print my own photos.  I have converted some of those images to digital, but there are some 90-95% left that haven't been done.  I had some done through a service, did some through scanning hardware, and have done some using my cameras and a macro duplication setup.  

What I can tell you is this.  Slide film is very contrasty - having about 4 to 5 stops of latitude from black to white.  It is great for colour and saturation but sucks for showing fine details in highlights and shadows.  Most scanners out there are even worse than that, offering dynamic ranges between 3 and 4 stops, meaning that you will likely lose much of the detail that was there to begin with.  Some film and negative scanners may have dynamic ranges just above 4.0, but not by much.

The best copies I have seen have been done by myself using a DSLR, macro lens, flash, and a diffusion grid to provide even backlighting for photographing the slides.  You can do it with macro rails, mounted slide holder, and macro lens with tripod and wireless or tethered external flash.  Does that sound like a pain to set up?  Well, it can be, but you can also rig a system.  I have used a bucket with a wireless TTL flash housed in it pointing up, a diffuser, and a cardboard lid with a hole cut in it to accommodate a 35 mm slide.  I then use a tripod to hold a camera with a macro lens and position it right above the image.  Using raw files, I capture the image and take it back to my computer where I can play with it using Photoshop.  I have had good results and get dynamic ranges well past anything a scanner will do.

Words in red are defined below the by-line.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com

Scanning hardware:  Dedicated film scanners, flatbed scanners with slide and negative tray, or drum scanners are all hardware equipment that allows you to take a negative or slide and scan them into a computer or save the images directly to a memory card.

Latitude:  The ability of light sensitive media to capture an image within certain brightness parameters.  Higher values means details in shadows and highlights are more likely to be captured instead of reading a totally black or white.  

Dynamic range:  Similar to latitude, the number of stops between black and white recording ability on light sensitive media.  A low value is 4.  Moderate values are 8.  Good values from raw imaging and negative film are typically 12 and above.

Diffusion grid:  some form of translucent substance that allows light to pass through but will not show any details.  I may use certain small sheets of white plastic.  

Macro rails:  tripod head mounted on a geared rail with turning knobs that allows precise motion of camera, flash, slide, or whatever is mounted on them.  Rails can be used as individual units or combined and can be mounted on a tripod or attached to a solid surface.

Wireless TTL:  A flash may be tethered to a camera's hot shoe with a dedicated cable or accessed wirelessly if camera and flash are so equipped.  TTL stands for through the lens and means that the camera's internal sensors can detect light from the flash and control its output.