Looking though gorgeous self scanned pics on the site, envious as any Lomographer I recently felt the need to buy a scanner recently. But looking around I realized that film scanners are not available at all in Dubai. This is not so much of a hi-tech a city, I thought.
Finding film related stuff is very difficult here. Im swimming against the tide by shooting film… have faced much resistance & ridicule in the process from self-declared digital prophets… but to each one his own. To cut a long story short. I came across A cheap alternative while going though Flickr discussions.
Enter "Opteka slide copier " I think its a pretty good alternative to a scanner. It’s available here I got mine from eBay. I believe you can find one on Amazon too, not a bad of a bargain for 40$
Photo by pushkar
Copied with my Canon 350D | lens EF 50mm | ISO100 | f/22
Scanned by lab
You can see a Hi-res scan here
I’m quite pleased with the result. looks very sharp. I shot it hand held with a white image on my LCD monitor. I think mounting on tripod will give better result. Will soon experiment with Higher ISO and Colour
From the Experiments so far I’ve figured that shooting on f/22 gives the best results. f/11 iso 200 is not bad either for black & white. will have to use lower ISO for colour & slides… but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it :D
What do you think?
Have any of you used this before? I’m aware there is a similar product available from Bower. If you have any tips, please add them in comments.
9 comments
disasterarea
pretty darn'd impressive results i'd say!
wuxiong
Nice idea and quite satisfying results.... <:)
tsingtao
Is it for all kind of film? (35mm and 120mm)
sj85
I would also love to know if this works with 120 film!!
stouf
Hey LSI ! here's a new product for you to work on : ) Nice !
gundamit1
pushkar
@tsingtao its for 35mm film.
pushkar
@gundamit1 you can scan the whole roll by using digital camera as a scanner... its much cheaper than a scanner...
& As I said before its tough to find a film scanner here... no one sells it anymore...
the_detourist
this is the "pro" version of the "ghetto scan" technique! great!