Copying 35mm Slides With The Nikon Z7; Part V; My Setup

My very simple slide copying setup.  Light box, camera on tripod, table with slides, 8x loupe
and chair.  What is missing is a can of pressured air and a small brush to remove any dust before
placing a slide into the digitizer. (click to enlarge)

This is Part V and the final post of the design and implementation of my summer project to copy my 35mm slide archives.  That being said, I will probably write an update or two in the future as I work my way through the process, especially if I find some change that results in better image quality or a modification to my process.  

If you are interested and want to read my entire process of figuring out what I needed to do, what testing I felt important to perform to maximize efficiency, the results of my testing and quality as well as see my final settings for the project, you can find all of that in Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV.

A little different angle on the setup.  As I mentioned, the only things that are missing are a small brush and a can of
pressurized air which I will use to remove dust from each slide before placing it into the digitizer.

As you can see, I ended up creating a very simple setup (the simpler the better, in my opinion) to perform the actual slide copying.  First, I have a 24" Acculight light box sitting upon my old Pelican 1510 hard case.  I needed something solid and sturdy but narrow upon which to place the light box so I could get the camera and digitizer as close to the light source as possible.  I tried a wooden chair but it was too deep.  A table was too tall.  This Pelican 1510 case is perfect.  I wanted the light source and camera to be close to each other for two reasons.  I wanted to keep shutter speeds as short as possible (closer means the light is brighter, which means shorter shutter speeds) and I wanted to eliminate the effect of any reflected light off the diffused glass.  

Closer view of the camera with Nikon ES-2 Digitizing Adapter attached.
(click to enlarge)

I have my camera on my old but still sturdy Gitzo tripod with a Markins ballhead.  I've had this tripod and head for more than 20 years and they both still work as designed—study and locks down the components securely. My desk chair, with me seated, fits very nicely right in front of this setup so I can get in close to insert and position the slide holder, check focus and adjust exposure—either on the LCD or in the EVF.  

My desk, with my monitor and computer, is directly behind the chair so, when I finish copying the slides, all I have to do is swivel around, insert the memory card into the card reader, then add the files to my Lightroom Classic CC catalog.  This is as simple and efficient setup as I could design.

To the right of the light box is a small folding wooden table.  It is just large enough for me to lay out my slides, a page at a time (or several boxes for those slides that are not in pages).  I can pull all the slides out of a page or box and lay them close to me on the table.  Two at a time, I insert a slide into the slide holder, clean them with a can of pressured air, then insert the slide holder into the digitizer.  When the two slides have been copied, again, lay them in a separate pile on the small table, then when the entire page or box of slides has been copied, return the slides to the page/box.  Before I clean and insert any particular slide into the digitizer, I will use the loop you see on the table to examine each for content, exposure and focus.  At that time, I will decide if that particular slide will or will not be copied.  Also, each slide mount has a month and year embossed upon it so I can know when the transparencies were made for future reference.

In my first few of days of copying slides, I found I can copy a page of 20 slides in about 10-12 minutes.  I can copy a box of 36 slides in about the same amount of time.  I found it  easier to take all the slides out of the page/box, copy them, then return them all at once than it is to take all the slides out individually, copy it, then replace each slide.  

Can you imagine how long it would take to digitize a thousand or more slides in a film scanner?  Each one would take more than a minute, if my recollection is correct.

I'm relatively pleased with the results.  I say relatively as I've really been spoiled by looking at the extraordinary quality of digital image files for so many years.  Digital images, while not having the same character as film images, are so, so much better, in my opinion.  The files from the slides show film grain (which some photographers like), have little dynamic range and they will take quite a bit of editing to optimize them.  However, the point of this project is not to replicate what is achievable with digital cameras but to digitize slides and negatives that I feel are important to me, such as family photos as well as much of the travel and memories that were captured during family travel.  The slide copies are what they are and short of using a very high quality drum scanner (and spending an enormous amount of money), I'm pleased with what I've accomplished.

That is about it for this series.  As I copy my archived slides I will be post and write about any changes to my process, issues I've encountered or other modifications that I have found that works better.  Also, you will most likely see some of the images I've copied post ed in the future in the "The Story Behind The Photo" series I've posted in the past.  

When the slide copying has been completed, I will probably get into copying my negative archives, which is a little more complicated as I have negatives from 35mm to 4" X 5."  For that part of this overall effort, I suspect I will be using a copy stand and either some low iron flat glass or a proper negative holder to hold the negatives flat.  Also, I'm researching various methods in which to reverse the files from negative to positive in Lightroom.  But that is a ways down the road.

If you have any questions about this entire process or project, leave a comment or email me directly (email address is on website) and I'll be happy to answer them.

Join me over at Instagram @dennisamook or my website, www.dennismook.com. 

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

All content on this blog is © 2013-2019 Dennis A. Mook. All Rights Reserved. Feel free to point to this blog from your website with full attribution. Permission may be granted for commercial use. Please contact Mr. Mook to discuss permission to reproduce the blog posts and/or images.