Another way of digitizing your film is using a digital camera, this technique I discovered while taking an online class Douglas Kirkland on Photography: Shooting with an 8x10 Camera. Kirkland explains his process, he uses a copy board stand to mount the DSLR camera pointing down, the negative is laying on a daylight corrected lightbox, and he uses a 50mm macro lens.

My initial calculation is that printing at 1440 dpi (Epson Manual), the resolution of the Epson 9900, my maximum print size would be 4"x2.6". The formula for this calculation is:

22.3 effective megapixels 5760x3840 of Canon 5D MK III Sensor (Canon, 2019), divided by maximum resolution of Epson 9900 printer 1440.

5760 / 1440 = 4

3840 / 1440 = 2.6

______________

This is a concern bout I thought I would try and see for myself. At the time I was photographing 8x10 film. The equipment I used to photograph the film:

• -Tripod with horizontal camera mount

• Canon 100mm Micro Lens

• Canon 5D MK III

• Cable Release

• Colour Meter

• Daylight 5500 Colour Correct Lightbox

• Sandbag

• Bubble Level

I mounted the camera on the tripod pointing down, with the lightbox below and levelled the camera using the bubble level. I used a cable release so I would not be touching the camera, reducing camera shake. I taped the negative film down on the lightbox and focused the camera, I set my white balance to 5500, set the camera setting to RAW and neutral, and took a shot. The images were very blue green so I used a colour meter to measure the lightbox and got a reading of 3630 and shift of 1 magenta. I set the camera's white balance to these settings and compensated for the colour shift by adding the digital colour shift to the camera. Took a shot and the image colour turn out neutral. The reason I compensated for the colour was because it has been my Another way of digitizing your film is using a digital camera, this technique I discovered while taking an online class Douglas Kirkland on Photography: Shooting with an 8x10 Camera. Kirkland explains his process, he uses a copy board stand to mount the DSLR camera pointing down, the negative is laying on a daylight corrected lightbox, and he uses a 50mm macro lens.

Douglas Kirkland on Photography: Shooting with an 8x10 Camera (Source: LinkedIn Learning, 2019)

My initial calculation is that printing at 1440 dpi (Epson Manual), the resolution of the Epson 9900, my maximum print size would be 4"x2.6". The formula for this calculation is:

22.3 effective megapixels 5760x3840 of Canon 5D MK III Sensor (Canon, 2019), divided by maximum resolution of Epson 9900 printer 1440.

5760 / 1440 = 4

3840 / 1440 = 2.6

______________

This is a concern bout I thought I would try and see for myself. At the time I was photographing 8x10 film. The equipment I used to photograph the film:

• -Tripod with horizontal camera mount

• Canon 100mm Micro Lens

• Canon 5D MK III

• Cable Release

• Colour Meter

• Daylight 5500 Colour Correct Lightbox

• Sandbag

• Bubble Level

I mounted the camera on the tripod pointing down, with the lightbox below and levelled the camera using the bubble level. I used a cable release so I would not be touching the camera, reducing camera shake. I taped the negative film down on the lightbox and focused the camera, I set my white balance to 5500, set the camera setting to RAW and neutral, and took a shot. The images were very blue green so I used a colour meter to measure the lightbox and got a reading of 3630 and shift of 1 magenta. I set the camera's white balance to these settings and compensated for the colour shift by adding the digital colour shift to the camera. Took a shot and the image colour turn out neutral. The reason I compensated for the colour was because it has been my expereince that colour shifts, especially blue cyan, can add density to a image when converted to black and white.

Reviewing the images on my computer I found that they were soft and lacked the quality of the Epson V750 scans, which I also found to be soft. The Epson scans lacked contrast but the Canon captures were more contrasty and lacked detail in the shadows. The image sizes matched my calculations above, the images would be very low resolution going to print and would produce a very poor image at the size I needed.

This is a form of digitization that I would not use. The image quality was poorer than a flatbed scan, the contrast was too high and the setup was too much work for the results. I do not plan to print these files as I feel they would be a waste of time at any size.

Citations

LinkedIn Learning, (2019) Douglas Kirkland on Photography: Shooting with an 8x10 Camera. [Online Image]. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/douglas-kirkland-on-photography-shooting-with-an-8x10-camera/digitizing-negatives?u=2199673 [Accessed 04 August 2019]  

DOF Calculator. (2019) Depth Of Field Calculator. [Online Image]. Available at: https://dofsimulator.net/en/ [Accessed 04 August 2019]  

Machinski, J. (2019) Photographing Negatives, Unpublished.

Canon. (2019) Canon 5D MK III Manual. Available at: http://gdlp01.c-wss.com/gds/8/0300007348/06/eos5d-mk3-im8-en.pdf [Accessed 04 August 2019]   that colour shifts, especially blue cyan, can add density to a image when converted to black and white.

Reviewing the images on my computer I found that they were soft and lacked the quality of the Epson V750 scans, which I also found to be soft. The Epson scans lacked contrast but the Canon captures were more contrasty and lacked detail in the shadows. The image sizes matched my calculations above, the images would be very low resolution going to print and would produce a very poor image at the size I needed.

This is a form of digitization that I would not use. The image quality was poorer than a flatbed scan, the contrast was too high and the setup was too much work for the results. I do not plan to print these files as I feel they would be a waste of time at any size.

______________

LinkedIn Learning, (2019) Douglas Kirkland on Photography: Shooting with an 8x10 Camera. [Online Image]. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/douglas-kirkland-on-photography-shooting-with-an-8x10-camera/digitizing-negatives?u=2199673 [Accessed 04 August 2019]  

DOF Calculator. (2019) Depth Of Field Calculator. [Online Image]. Available at: https://dofsimulator.net/en/ [Accessed 04 August 2019]  

Machinski, J. (2019) Photographing Negatives, Unpublished.

Canon. (2019) Canon 5D MK III Manual. Available at: http://gdlp01.c-wss.com/gds/8/0300007348/06/eos5d-mk3-im8-en.pdf [Accessed 04 August 2019]