Your one stop shop for everything photo-video
Negative Supply has announced its new Basic Film Carrier 35 MK2 (buy here). The successor to 2019’s original Basic Film Carrier, includes a number of features and parts in common with the company’s now discontinued Pro Film Carrier.
The company says it offers superior film flatness compared to its predecessor for better results. It also supports all 35mm film formats including half frame, full frame (standard 35mm), and panoramic sizes in a single capture.
While uncommon, DIY medium-format digital cameras aren’t really a new thing. They’ve been around for years, with photographers hacking apart flatbed scanners for parts. Then they rebuild them inside something that vaguely looks like a camera, complete with a slide mechanism for the linear scanning sensor. That’s how this camera from Yunus Zenichowski works, too, but it looks a lot more finished than most.
Yunus has taken a lot of time and consideration into the design of his scanning camera to get things just right. And they’re still not perfect. Yes, it shoots massive 489 megapixels, but he says that it’s by no means a final design and that it would be difficult for anybody to replicate at the moment. A final version is on the way, but he has released the files for the camera in its current state.
There are several ways to scan your film, be it a lab, a dedicated scanner, or a cheap DIY approach. Each has pros and cons, and VALOI easy35 wants to take the best from all worlds.
This gadget makes 35mm film scanning a piece of cake. It’s small and portable, yet it has everything you need for film scanning. You can simply attach it to your DSLR’s lens and shoot away, and VALOI promises not only ease of use, but also high-quality scans.
There are a lot of options out there for scanning film these days, but there’s just something about building a device yourself. This one from Benjamin Bezine does so using Lego and a Raspberry Pi. What makes this solution a little special, though, is that it uses machine learning and vision AI in order to determine the edges of frames, so you don’t need to sit and operate it manually or worry about the number of turns changing as roll thickens and thins out or counting sprockets.
It’s called RoboScan, and Benjamin’s been working on it for a while now (it’s his “lockdown project”) but he’s not finished yet! It’s an open-source project and he’s been uploading the code to GitHub. Only 80 images were used to “train” the Raspberry Pi so that it knows what to look for, but it seems that it’s very effective with just that limited set.
The Nikon ES-2 Film Digitizing Adapter was announced way back in August 2017, along with the Nikon D850. It looks like somebody finally bought the $140 plastic tube, though, because a sort-of review and how-to has been posted to DPReview.
The D850 came with a feature specifically designed for use with the ES-2, and so does the new Nikon D780, which is what’s used in the video. Although you don’t have to use one of these two cameras. You can use it with any camera, as long as you have a macro lens.
macOS Catalina killed support for 32-Bit applications. This includes many (still) popular applications like Aperture and iPhoto, but also a lot of hardware for which no 64-Bit drivers exist. Including scanners. The two applications I mentioned have been saved, but now thanks to the folks at VueScan, so have thousands of scanners after they reverse-engineered the drivers.
In this age of the fight against plastic, cardboard has become a common construction material again. Coffee places the world over have switched out to cardboard straws, Google Cardboard remains one of the most popular VR “headsets” for your phone, and now Kodak is using cardboard to make their new Mobile Film Scanner.
“Scanning” film with a phone or digital camera is not a new idea, but it typically comes at a heavy expense. But for those who want to scan with their phone, they usually don’t want to spend a lot of money. Kodak’s new Mobile Film Scanner only costs $40.
There’s a new Kickstarter up from a company going by the name of Negative Supply. It’s for the “Film Carrier Mk1”, a 35mm roll film holder for “scanning” with your DSLR or mirrorless camera. Not exactly a new idea, although they think they’ve come up with a new way of doing it.
For those developing their own film, it could be a handy way to get your shots into the computer quickly with the least amount of fuss. They claim it can let you do it in 5 minutes or less. It’s not cheap, though.
I believe that quite a few of us have played with flatbed scanners and “took photos” with it. But Maitha Demithan took this to a whole new level. The Dubai-based artist creates dreamy portraits with a large format scanner. In her work, she has scanned people as well as animals to create beautiful, ethereal images.
Scanning film is one of the biggest issues with shooting film today. It’s not that it’s particularly difficult, it’s just a pain because most of us tend to do it so little. Maybe a roll or two every few weeks. Pulling out the scanner and hooking it up can be a chore, so we put it off and just never get around to it. I’ve got plenty of rolls here that have been developed but not scanned yet.
Photographer, Matt Day, however, has a simple solution to this problem. A solution that’s compact, quicker to set up than a scanner on your computer, as well as being faster and easier to actually “scan” in your images. Using a simple copy stand and an LED panel, he can get through a lot of film through very quickly and easily.
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
Alex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe
Dave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.
John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!