Poor man’s negative scanner
So, I have like a bazillion rolls of film from high school…. I don’t want to continue to cart them around and would like to reclaim the massive amount of space that they take up in my garage.
Poor man setup:
- set up my D70 on a tripod that was a couple inches off the ground
- put a color balanced light box with the negative on it.
- used Nikon 60mm AF f/2.8D macro on the camera
- focus on negative so that it is close to full frame
- take image in RAW
- open in photoshop
- pump up contrast in raw open dialog
- invert image
- levels and pick black and white points then adjust gamma and limits
- remove dust specs if needed
Well.. it works.
But it’s got poor contrast and isn’t great color rendition off of color negative. The image is muted/cloudy/out of focus.
So, I’ve decided to bite the bullet and go buy a decent negative scanner… I’ll have a Nikon Coolscan V ED as of next monday.
I think this will be a lot more workable solution.
It was worth experimenting with though.
-dq
Dave Quick – 345 Photography