Bill, thanks for the extensive description of your setup! And thanks to Ralf for his question! When I read your first post and did a quick look at the image of your setup, my first question was “what light source?” I hadn’t expected something quite so elaborate, but totally understand the concept. I have tried doing some 35mm film and slide scanning via camera-on-a-copy-stand, macro lens, using a light-box for light source. Never satisfactory, the lighting just too uneven across the frame.
Stan > On Aug 1, 2025, at 3:30 PM, Bill <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Ralf, so I built a box and painted the inside white: > > https://flic.kr/p/2ri4DVh > > The hole at the bottom of the box is for the light source, in this case a > high CRI wafer light from a local lighting specialty supplier. The two cleats > attached to the sides are for the diffuser material. I had a bunch of semi > translucent sign plastic sitting around. Four layers of it was sufficient, > but I decided to separate them into two layers of two for no reason other > than I thought it was a good idea. > > This is the box with the light source. It's a 6" 90CRI 1400 lumen wafer light > normally used as a home ceiling light. It's one of those switchable among > many hues, I set it to 5000k. > > https://flic.kr/p/2rhXGtn > > And this has the diffusers installed. I cut the sheets to fit, taped them > together and then held them in with thin slats and pin nails. > > This is an overview of the box waiting for the top to be installed. > > https://flic.kr/p/2ri2YyE > > The top with a 4x5 neg carrier. > > https://flic.kr/p/2ri4ck2 > > The finished product sitting on the floor of my messy workshop > > https://flic.kr/p/2ri4DVC > > The camera support was pirated from an old copy stand that I bought when I > was a teenager, so I've had it around for some 50 years. I purpose bought it > and put it away after that, so it's nice to have finally found a use for it > again. > > I mounted the camera support on a cleat that I cut oversized slots into. The > cleat is held to the table with 3/8 inch carriage bolts, the slots allow > lateral movement and they are wide enough to allow forward/backward motion to > allow the entire camera platform to be moved to allow the camera to be > centered on the film. Once in place, wingnuts are tightened down to keep it > from shifting. > > The black round thing in the picture is a Beseler 4x5 inch negative carrier. > > For my medium and large format negs I am using the Fuji pixel shift feature. > It works somewhat like the Pentax emulation, but because of the X-Trans > sensor it takes 20 exposures per finished frame rather than 4. > > The 20 frames are not combined in camera, unlike Pentax. Combining is done in > the computer using Fuji supplied software. > > In operation, I have the camera tethered to the computer. I put a neg into > the carrier and push the button on the Fuji software so that I am not near > the camera. If there is even the slightest movement the combiner job will > fail. I tried using a wired release, but was getting a high failure rate. > Using the software to start the exposure is working better. > > So, the software imports the files to a directory, combines them and outputs > the finished 140mp file to another directory which is set as a watched > directory in Lightroom. > > I expect for 35mm film I won't bother with the super resolution feature but > will, instead use the pixel shift in what Fuji calls accurate colour mode > where it outputs a 40mp file. > > When the combined file appears, Lightroom grabs it and moves and imports it > to where I want it stored and adds it to the catalogue. > > It's really slick and I can copy 3 4x5 negs per minute, or thereabouts. > > bill > > > > > On 8/1/2025 10:58 AM, Ralf R Radermacher wrote: >> Am 01.08.25 um 16:39 schrieb Bill: >>> So, I built myself a film scanning station based around the Fuji X-T5. You >>> can see what it looks like here: >>> >>> https://flic.kr/p/2rimmKZ >> >> Sounds interesting. But what is the light source and I see no such thing as >> a negative carrier. >> >> Ralf >> > -- > %(real_name)s Pentax-Discuss Mail List > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- %(real_name)s Pentax-Discuss Mail List To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
