Scanning rediscovered
Better late than never
I’m very, very late to the party on this one, but I’ve finally discovered camera film scanning. By which I mean digitising film using a setup based around a film holder, light source and digital camera. In my case, the light source and film holder came as the Kaiser FilmCopy Vario Kit, and the camera is the OM System OM-1 with m.Zuiko 60mm macro. I’m using a “Basic Riser Mk2” from Californian beard-strokers Negative Supply, and “basic” is indeed what it is. A pity “basic” doesn’t extend to the price.
The results are astounding. I am now able to dig into shadow detail of positive (slide) film to a level that was completely impossible before with any of my desktop film scanners, or indeed the mythical Hasselblad/Imacon Flextight X1. And I’m also getting super-accurate colour reproduction with the post-processing method I’ve adopted. The results with negative film are also very good, although not quite so much of a quantum leap. Adding to that vastly increased speed and much more convenient post-processing, I’m not sure my Plustek Opticfilm 120 is ever going to be in active service again, although so far I haven’t tried “scanning” medium format film with this new setup.
I’ve got a couple of examples below. These are XPan shots taken about 10 years ago (tempus fugit…) in Antarctica, on Kodak E100G. In both cases the top scan is from the Opticfilm 120 using Siverfast Ai Studio. The lower one is the camera scan. There are two takeaways here: first, the shadow detail: it is more noticeable in the top example, but still not insignificant in the lower. But more important is the colour accuracy and consistency. These are from the same roll, minutes apart, but you can see that the film scans have a very different colour balance.
Although the straight-from-scanner shots are quite similar in look, once I started trying to maximise shadow details, all sorts of weird side effects crept in, and despite the extensive colour control tools in Silverfast, trying to keep things balanced was a very frustrating exercise. The camera scans actually give a very, very close match to what I see on the light box. Actually, in terms of shadow detail, I’d convinced myself that what I was seeing directly on the film was either an optical illusion or impossible to extract. It turns out that this is not the case.
Post-processing is however important: we absolutely want to minimise any interpretation done by the camera or raw processor. To this end it is important to use the most neutral profile possible. I’m using “repro” profiles from Cobalt, and both in Lightroom and Capture One, these result in a near exact reproduction of the colour and contrast of the original. Note however, and this really surprised me, it is much harder - if not impossible - to maintain that look in Capture One once you start moving sliders around. Even when restricting exposure adjustment to a Luma curve, Capture One adds unwanted saturation. Lightroom, on the other hand, with its recently introduced saturation adjustment to the curve tool, keeps things absolutely under control. Indeed, Lightroom has now not only (finally) matched Capture One’s Luma curve, but actually introduced an adjustable Luma curve. And pretty much by stealth - this really did not get the fanfare it deserved. Note, I have good reason to believe Eric Chan is personally responsible for this innovation :-)
For negative post-processing, honestly I don’t think we need to look much beyond Negative Lab Pro. Unless you find $99 too much (I don’t) and are completely Adobe-hostile (I’m not), then it’s a no-brainer. The results are on a par with Silverfast NegaFix, and in my book you can’t do much better than that.
A word on gear
Online, any search on scanning film with a camera will result in a flood of (mainly) YouTube “reviews” of equipment by Negative Supply, with Valoi a distant second, and a few other also-rans. It’s pretty clear that Negative Supply is the hipster’s choice, and their stuff sits nicely alongside artisanal coffee rigs, beard combs and retro nirvana. My experience with Negative Supply is summarised by the first word in their name, which also applies to the second word. A visit to their website is a confounding experience, with a baffling range of apparently overlapping individual products and kits, which seem to both permanently evolving to new (barely changed) versions while at the same time being unavailable. I did attempt to order a “Mark 2” film carrier kit of some kind from them, with a promise of shipping with 3-5 days (actually, if it is in stock, why not within 24 hours?), followed up with a statement that it was in stock, followed by silence, no shipping, then various obfuscating emails from various people over a 3 week period. The only thing I’ll say is that when I finally snapped and cancelled my order, they issued a refund promptly. Based on subsequent marketing emails that got through my filters, they’re still playing the same game, but now with 12-15 days before shipping, at best, otherwise it’s just a “preorder”, which of course you pay for. They are pretty obviously running a build-to-order operation using mainly 3D printing. But they have been VERY successful at seeding the HeyGuysWassup “influencers” on YouTube. My advice - if you want an NS setup, buy it from a respected retailer like B&H, or Profot here in Switzerland, that has actual stock. Note, I have no experience of Valoi, who seem to be based in Finland. They are hooked up with a reputable seller (Kamerastore) and are quite open about their partial use of 3D printing. They have some inroads on YouTube, but nothing like Negative Supply.
Anyway, I was fortunate enough to discover the alternative from Kaiser Fototechnik, a well-respected German company long established in darkroom and reproduction tools and accessories, who actually offer industrially designed produced equipment and have never been anywhere near Kickstarter. They have an almost nill YouTube profile. Actually the only comment I initially found was from a customer on Adorama, who mentioned they’d discovered the Kaiser kit, and that unlike Negative Supply, it was perfectly suited to handling cut strips as well as rolls. And honestly, who archives their film in rolls? And who leaves it hanging off the edge of a table gathering dust? The Kaiser FilmCopy Vario Kit is in the same ballpark as Negative Supply as far as costs go, except that one holder accommodates both 35mm and 120 film, and you can get options like optical and anti-newton ring glass if you prefer. Oh, and the kit itself and all accessories are readily available from a range of retailers (I got mine from GraphicArt in Zürich, next day delivery). The only negative point is, of course, it’s not going to burnish your hipster credentials.
As mentioned above, I do have one Negative Supply product, which I got from Profot at a steep discount: the “Basic Riser Mk 2”. Yeah, it’s basic. There is knurled screw to attach the camera to the arm, and it is designed in such a way that it is nigh-impossible to get sufficient grip on it to tighten it, and therefore the camera is not fully secured and can easily twist. I’m not the only person to notice this. They had one job…. anyway, I’m sure they’ll improve it with Mk 3 or Mk 4 or the Basic Riser That Actually Works Edition. I think I’ve made my point.