I have a good time watching videos about which setup is the best and testing which lens is the best. I enjoy reading about why flatbed scanning is just fine or why camera scans are better. I really do.
But for the time being I do not try to painfully and expensively decide which method to choose, because I have already chosen the simplest method – what I have around me that I can scan my negatives with?
I had dlsr – canon 450D and I had reasonably good lens – Canon 50mm 1.8 STM. Oh I forgot – I bought macro rings. What more I had – empty cat food cardboard box, some loose cardboard, ductape, knife and phone.
I tape paper with clear smooth scotch tape where negative goes, I like to imagine it prevent scratching negative. Phone is used as backlight, maximum brightness and app called White Screen.
I didn’t know how to make something like guiding for film, so it moves around somewhat freely. But when I set it right, it stays that way. I also did not bother with guidings for camera to get reproducible and set-up free results, so I have to dial its distance and angle every time again. I choose to think it introduces interesting variables to my creatings, haha, and it doesn’t take long, I’m pretty skilled at it already. It’s my little scanning dance.
If you are curious about that old Canon – it is perfectly fine for this application in my opinion. I tried to scan with 5D – it’s full frame so it has to be better right? I don’t think so – it reveals too much lens imperfections. ASP-C crops those imperfections out, so I choose that.
All in all, results are pretty adequate for my needs. And good to know, that there is always room to improvement, when time is right.
But there is more. Recently i developed some medium format film, but “how do I scan it?” I thought to myself. My 35mm rig is not very helpful here.
Well…
Clamps are pretty genius, right? They sure are, but nevertheless – this setup is radically more unstable than the 35mm. If I blink wrong it falls apart.
You might think that I am again happy with this jank solution or it’s results, but actually I’m not so sure about this one. I need to do more tests and give it more time, but so far I feel like that when one shoots medium format with non-pinhole camera, that one should try a little bit harder to actually utilize the resolution that medium format film offers. My setup seems to lack a little bit in this department (mainly camera?). We’ll see, I’m sure something will come to me…
So there you go, that’s how I do it. I guess I’m in camera scan gang now.
