After developing a love for taking photos on film I have been looking for a way to save my images to my computer. Unfortunately I currently do not have the money required to buy a decent scanner, therefore I have been forced to use alternative methods to digitize my images.
I have talked briefly about using a DSLR to scan photo prints, and overall I have been quite happy with this method. Currently all of the film images on this website have been scanned with this method.
I decided I wanted to try and skip the whole printing process entirely. And so I asked the question, is it possible to use a DSLR to scan film negatives directly? The answer is yes, and no. While it is possible, my current setup does not deliver great results.
Below are the results of my first test. They are both scans of the same negative, however they both look completely different. This just goes to show how sensitive this process can get.
Image Test #1
Image Test #2
As you can see, the images have kind of an old retro photograph look to them. Not that that's a bad thing or anything, but they are pretty bad compared to the original print.
Original Print. Printed on Ilford paper and scanned with a DSLR.
I feel as if most of the trouble has to do with how I was preforming the scans.
My setup for this project was simply putting the negative in between a plastic CD case and holding it up to a light box while I took the picture. In theory this should work, the only problem is that I did not have an adequate lens to capture enough detail from the negative. Ideally a macro lens would be the best fit for this type of work, and unfortunately I do not have one. Instead I had to make do with using my 18-55mm kit lens, and my 75-300mm zoom lens. Both of which did not deliver acceptable results.
Even though this was a failed attempt it still delivered some really cool results. I am still happy with the two test images I got out of it, they just don't seem to fit this particular image. Im sure I can think of a theme that would suit this style perfectly, but until then I will just consider other means for importing my images.
Just for fun ill post the original RAW file below so that you can see what I had to work with. Ill also post the original cropped negative with the colors reversed so that you can see how far I went in terms of post processing.
Original RAW File.
Original Positive Without Any Post Processing.
As you can see it's just not worth it to use this method, at least with my current equipment. At this point it's probably cheaper just to buy a scanner that's built for this rather than trying to do it myself.
Thank you for reading. Let me know if anyone has had any better results.
-Nick