Analogue to Digital Scanning Take 3

Negative Scanning
Take 3 Setup

This is now my third set up for scanning film negatives and printed images and the best so far.

The image above shows the setup, my Magnifax II enlarger stand, along with a tripod head hold the Canon 5D Mk3 in position.

The 5D3 which is now tethered to a MacBook Pro, along with the Canon EOS Utility 3 to control the camera settings. The images are copied into a folder on the MBP, Lightroom is then set up to auto import from that folder. It only takes a few seconds before the image is being rendered for Standard Previews in Lightroom.

Negative Scanning

To scan my ever increasing negative collection I have a Kaiser slimline plano led light box as a light source. The negative sits on this with a piece of enlarger glass holding it flat. The glass is of a size large enough for me to be able to move the led box several times before moving the glass for 35mm frames. Medium format is down to one at a time, however, the whole process is still faster than any previous method I have used. The image below shows this setup.

Negative scanning

Scanning Prints

The image below shows a small print ready for scanning, the two led light sources are homemade from Jaycar LED strips for a few dollars.

Print Scanning

I’m currently in the middle of a project to scan all these old photographs that my mother has supplied to me and this setup is proving to be a real time saver.