Old Photo's To Digital

[Richard in Smithville]

Recently I came into possession of my dads old medium format negatives and slides. These are from 50-60 years ago. I looked into having them converted to digital but there are so many that it would cost between five and six hundred dollars. A decent dedicated scanner would cost at least as much. After much searching on the internet I came across a site that gave me some ideas on how to use my DSLR to take convert these to digital. I don't own a macro lens so I calculated the minimum focus of my 55mm lens and went from there.



The basis of my assembly is a cardboard tube cut to the required length. This sits on a 2x4 with a v-groove cut out for stability. The end of the 2x4 has a removable mount for my camera. The opposite end has a frame built to hold the negatives/slides in position. The slide/negative is backlit by a simple light separated by a diffuser made from tissue paper in a picture frame.



It's not pretty but it works well for the purpose. I simply mount the media in the one end and snap away. I have tried various settings on my camera but I have found the auto with it set on the automatic depth of field turned on. Once uploaded to my computer, I use GIMP software to convert and enhance. I'm still learning the software but the results are promising.

My dad( on the left) with his brother-before my parents met.



The Stelvio Pass( From a trip my dad made through Europe back in 50's perhaps?)



I'm in the process now of turning everything to digital. I hope to set up a few blogs once done to share on line.

Thanks for looking.

[atgcpaul]

That looks great. I would have never guessed it was done in that way. Can you have the camera take the pic without touching it so as not to nudge the setup?

[LCHIEN]

are you usign a color-balanced light source? Might help the color fidelity some, but then your negatives may have faded.

[Stytooner]

There are also image softwares that can help adjust the colors. Some can even do it automatically. I started out using Photo Impact, but now Use Corel Paint Shop Pro.
It is fairly inexpensive.
Less than $50 I think.
Maybe even have trial versions.
Also check out some of the software that may have came with some of your color printers. They sometimes have software that can be useful for this type thing.
Those are often overlooked.

[LCHIEN]

some photeditors software have correction filters for specific old film types to compensate for age fading- you can read the film type usually on the border of the negatives.

[phrog]

Is it okay if we refer to you as MacGyver from now on.

Very ingenious. When I saw the first photo I thought that was a dental radiograph screen you were using for a light source and a toilet paper roll for the light tube. (Now that would be a combination.) As Loring mentioned many photo software programs have color filtration options built into them. Just wondering if you have any issues with light fall-off near the edges, any color fringing, or sharpness problems? It does not appear so in the samples you posted.

[radhak]

Those results are as near perfection as I'd want or be bothered about. Fantastic work!

Can you please give more details about the setup so I could replicate your efforts?

I don't have so many old pictures, but am interested in resuscitating the ones I have.

edit: I should say that you have already given a lot of details; but how did you figure the length of the tube? And where did you get that tube with that exactly right diameter?

[atgcpaul]

Those results are as near perfection as I'd want or be bothered about. Fantastic work!

Agreed! That picture of Stelvio is fantastic. I would not want to do anything to change the warmth of the colors, etc. In my mind's eye, that's how I would want to remember that exact day if I had originally been there to see it.

[leehljp]

Some current scanners and software will auto-recognize individual slides and even have slide holders (8 to 12) and the color balance plus dpi can be set.

I had slide and negative holders 10 years ago on an old epson scanner in Japan. I didn't use it much but it did great on slides (and even did it on a few negatives) and the software had more than enough adjustment options. My current printers (all in one) both canon, (one at home and one at the office) auto recognize individual sections and picts on a scan and adjust accordingly if I want it too. I haven't even looked at scanning slides and negatives on these but I am sure that isn't a problem - more of a software than hardware working. A good flat bed scanner that will do slides should be available for less than $100 and it should do mulitple slides in a single scan. Scan them at 1200 to 2400 dpi for photo size or higher dpi for larger prints. I am amazed at the prices for 3000+ dpi scanners, MUCH less than the $1200 I paid for a fairly high-end Epson home/business scanner back in '94.

Still, you have a great creation and set up there! Wow!

[LCHIEN]

... Just wondering if you have any issues with light fall-off near the edges, ....

The photographer's term for that is called vignetting.

And yes this setup has some vignetting, it's clearly visible in the upper right hand corner of both photos. (unless its the fault of the original camera, a slight but less likely possibility - usually when you see it in a camera its a result of lens shade, long zooms or wide apertures, something you won't have too much of in older cameras.)

It's not too severe here, won't detract from the charm of old photos. If its bad, makes you think you are looking thru a tunnel.

[Richard in Smithville]

That looks great. I would have never guessed it was done in that way. Can you have the camera take the pic without touching it so as not to nudge the setup?

The camera in the pictures is my dad's old film SLR. I used it to display the set up. I don't have remote shooting but I can use the built in timer. As it sits, the assembly is stable enough that there is no discernible difference by using the timer.

[Richard in Smithville]

are you usign a color-balanced light source? Might help the color fidelity some, but then your negatives may have faded.

The original set up involves using a standard CFL bulb. When switched to AWB on the camera, the results on B&W seem decent enough for my purpose and the filters in GIMP give good results in the colour slides so far. The originals are about 60 years old and were stashed in a damp basement for many years before I got to them. There has been some degradation on some.

[Richard in Smithville]

Those results are as near perfection as I'd want or be bothered about. Fantastic work!

Can you please give more details about the setup so I could replicate your efforts?

I don't have so many old pictures, but am interested in resuscitating the ones I have.

edit: I should say that you have already given a lot of details; but how did you figure the length of the tube? And where did you get that tube with that exactly right diameter?

To determine the length of the tube was mostly a lot of unscientific playing around. I set the camera on a base and kept sliding it back little by little from a fixed point until the auto focus gave me the heads up. Then I measured from the end of the lens to my fixed point. I gave the assembly an extra inch to play with. As for the tube, we have large poly bags for stretch wrapping down in the warehouse at work. These bags come rolled on the cardboard tubes and I lucked out for diameter. I cut the tube down to the desired length.

[Richard in Smithville]

Thanks for the kind comments guys. Taking the pictures is the easy part. The real work comes once I load them on my computer and convert them to something I can view. It's great seeing the world through my dad's eyes from before I was born.

[cwsmith]

Richard,

Very interesting subject and from what I've seen so far I think you are getting great results.

I've done a lot of this kind of thing, much of it professionally.

The ideal equipment (that I have found anyway) is a decent camera with a "flat-field" lens. Back in the early 80's I was on my own for a couple of years as a freelancer and centered my work around my illustration talents, but got heavily into 35 mm slide presentations for industry. Lots of photo work there and to meet that demand, I had a copy stand, a Canon "New F!" and a 50 mm "Flat Field" copy lens. That kind of lens reduces any fisheye or warping effect out at the edges of the image field. It was a somewhat expensive setup, but not nearly the ammount of what some of the real industrial studios might have or told everyone you needed. Regardless, it worked very well for my clients.

When it comes to scanning, I am of the experience that the so-called professionals would have you believe only the most expensive equipment is required. It largely depends on what you are scanning and I really don't have the equipment to do negatives and I've never been happy with scanning 35 mm slides.

However, scanning photographs doesn't require really anything of great expense and I've done excellent digital imaging on a significantly cheap Visionaire. The main criteria is how well the scanner defines the image. I've seen some $2K scanners that didn't have the definition of my little $100 Visionaire. They rendered colors better, perhaps, but their resolution was fuzzier, to put in plainly.

The other thing is that the "pros" will tell you that you need a resolution in the thousands, and that is true if you are scanning slides or small negatives that you wish to blow up to 8 x 10 or better. But I've done a lot of experimenting with scanning old pictures (positives) and I've found that 300 dpi resolution will copy every "fly spec" on the original. Any higher resolution simply doesn't improve what isn't there.

Most of my subject photo's were taking in the 1800's, of old factory and village photos, mostly 4 x 5 and 8 x 10. And I've used a 20 X "glass" to inspect the original and the results and found you really don't need very high pixel resolution (approaching 1000 or more) to do the job. That kind of resolution isn't in the original photo to begin with and certainly won't be in most affordable printers that you might use to reprint the image.

I've got a couple of programs that have very good imaging capabilities, but the easiest to use is my old "Paintshop Pro", which was at one time very inexpensive and had great "auto" functions. That was of course a decade ago, so I surely the offerings out there today must be fantastic.

CWS