DIY Film Digitizer / Scanner
22 74 Share TweetDo not have a film scanner?
You can make one for yourself using just a shoe box, everything you need is LESS THAN $5!!!
Believe it : )
I got this idea somewhere on the web, and the main materials are just few pieces of paper, small piece of cardboard, some stationary, and… a SHOE BOX, which you were thinking to find a not-too-lazy weekend to throw it away.
Materials needed :
- Shoe Box
- White Papers
- Black Cardboard
- Knife
- Glue
- Ruler & Pencil
To make it works, you will also need :
- A Flash Gun that can be remotely triggered
- Digital Camera
Ready, here we go :)
Step 1 – Draw the film frame size that you want to scan on one side of the shoe box with pencil (the near-square side, not the long rectangle side), and cut it out with knife, making a small film size ‘window’ on the box.
Step 1 – Covered all area inside the shoe box with white paper. Just use normal A4 white papers, cut it into small pieces that fit the inside of the shoe box and glue it on is good enough.
Step 3 – Measure the top size of your flash gun, draw it on the middle of the shoe box’s top cover. Cut it out making another ‘window’ on top of the box cover for the flash.
Step 4 – Cut the black cardboard into a long bar, stick it right below the ‘film window’ (this is for the film to ‘slide’ on it for scanning). Then, make another 2 pieces of small black cardboard and stick it on the left and right side of the ‘film window’, stick it on top of the long slider cardboard (this act as film feeder to hold the film during scanning).
Tadaa…. that’s it!
How to use :
First insert your film roll into the feeder, it will sits nicely on the long cardboard. Slide your film to the frame that you wanna scan to the middle of the ‘film window’.
Insert your remote flash gun into the ‘flash window’ on top of the shoe box.
Now you are ready to digitize!
Just use your digital camera to properly focus the film surface, and snap it.
The flash will trigger inside the box and you can see your film been ‘lighted up’ from the back.
Its now in negative, so you know very well whats the next, just import it to your PC and invert it using picture developing software like Photoshop or Lightroom.
I had tried it out, and its WORK!
Here are some of my film digitized using this shoe box digitizer…
Extra Tips :
- Measure your 35mm film including the sprocket holes, this will allow you to include the sprocket holes in the picture!
- This method works well for medium format films too! Just cut another bigger ‘film window’ for medium format like 120. Cut it on the opposite side of the shoe box, now you can scan 2 different film format in 1 shoe box : )
- If the flash light inside the shoe box is too strong, you can add something inside the box to block the flash and defuse the light, eg: tissue paper, white paper… etc
- Precisely focus the surface of the film is very important in order to get sharp image.
Enjoy : )
written by watttan on 2011-04-11 #gear #tutorials #film #diy #negative #digital #sprocket-holes #tutorial #scanning #tipster #scan #scanner #invert #requested-post #top-tipster-techniques #digitize #digitizer #shoebox-flash
22 Comments