Copying 50 year old slides

Hi,

I've mentioned in another thread about the fact that a 35mm slide copier lens cuts off a large part of the original image when used with a DSLR because of the change in size of the focal length. I used my macro lens and a light box to copy this.




I copied in ***jpeg (I don't know enough yet to process a RAW file, even though just looking at it gave very good results) and cropped slightly (I allowed a couple mm of the mount all round, just to be certain). I then just upped the colour saturation a touch. It's a 50 year old Ektachrome slide taken on Nairobi's high street.

This is dropped to 72dpi, although the original can be seen here.. (just change the view size of your browser to 40% or similar)

http://www.liamsworld.org.uk/pug/IMGP0308v1.JPG

They're my late Father in Laws' and there are many more to do (500+ including all the family shots as well). His National Service saw him doing arial photograpy for the first real set of modern maps of Kenya to be produced, in the 50s. As he was out there with lots of camera gear, he used the opportunity wisely. I've got one of a couple of giraffes out on the plain which looks really nice, so I may add that to the thread if it turns out well.

Mrs Liam wants them archived to CD, with a print of each made and passed to the family.

Questions:

Am I doing a fair job?

How can I improve them?

I can just about read the bottom half of the number plate (309 or 389??) of the orange van in the original, is that as sharp as I'd ever expect from these?

Cheers

Liam

If I were doing this I would use my neg/slide scanner and switch on the Digital Ice to remove any or most of the dust marks. However, the method you have chosen is perfectly viable, although much easier with larger format originals.

50 year old Ektachrome slides will show a marked colour shift, but I have had quite a bit of success using "Auto Colour" in PS7, which can often do the trick. If not, some tweaking of the colour balance will help a lot. I wonder if you adjusted your camera white balance because the results look rather greenish, as fluorescent tubes do.

The technique will be to fix down the slide so it is flat, make sure the camera back is absolutely parrallel to the slide, get the white balance as close as possible, focus very carefully indeed (manually), use a small aperture (tripod essential) and take the pictures in a pitch black room to avoid relections.

It should be possible to make excellent copies, but it will be a slow painstaking process, and rather you than me!

Hi John,

thanks for the reply. I'll have a play with the white balance. My light box is a home made affair, basically an office box file with a lampholder fixed to a short side, and fitted with a long life low energy bulb.. a hole cut out and finished with a section of white diffuser. That would explain the green tinge then. I haven't got PS, but I do have GIMP which so far seems to do everything that PS does, so I'll have a look for it's version of "Auto Colour".

The setup was err.. a bit similar sort of. It was in the hallway with a 60W bulb overhead, and the aperture was wide open. I focussed manually, but relied on focus confirmation for exact focus.. which was to be honest exactly where I thought it would be. My eyesight, to give you an idea, is outside of the Pentax range of dioptre lenses (which IIRC is -5/+3) so I have to get some help, even though I wear glasses. Be afraid.. I drive for a living..

So apart from the setup being diametrically opposed to the proper way of doing things I didn't do too bad then. I'll have another go now and see what I can come up with, and post the result.

One quick one though. On the 6 or 7 slides I'm playing with at the moment, there's a marked brown/orange tinge to them. Is this similar to the orange amsk on a negative or just the slide colour shifting after all these years? A couple turn out very orangey-brown.

Thanks again. I'm going to have another play.

It was snowing here earlier, otherwise I'd be asking questions about bird photography now instead.

Cheers

Liam

The orange tinge could be the light source, a shift in the colour of the slide, or more likely a combination of both.

There is no orange mask on slides, which are intended for direct viewing or projection. If you copy colour negatives, you will need to reverse the tones and colours as well as dealing with the orange mask colour.

A negative/slide scanner is much easier!

Hi John,

No fun.. Ros has a slide scanner but it doesn't do it for her. Even my first attempt, apart from the colour shift, is far superior to it in sharpness. Unless we buy another scanner (we have two already) especially for this, then it's got to be done my way.

Anyway, rather than put up lots of piccys here, you can have a look at the 7 I've done.

http://www.liamsworld.org.uk/galleries/Kenya/

Of course they're dropped to 72 DPI again, but if you have BB they're here as well

http://www.liamsworld.org.uk/galleries/KenyaBB/

(I haven't bothered with presentation for the page.. as you may have noticed)

Perfectly acceptable for 6x4 prints, but I will be doing more, I'm still not happy with the sharpness. Once set up, it doesn't really take that long to do.

Cheers

Liam

I thought the picture looked familiar. We used to go there regularly when I was a kid. We lived up-country near Lake Nakuru.

Note how wide the road is. The main streets in Nairobi were laid out so that a waggon pulled by a team of 32 oxen could turn in one go.

The car in the lion picture is the famous Peugeot 403. It and its successor, the 404, were legendary for their ability to survive a bashing on Kenya's terrible roads. By the mid-sixties there was hardly any other make of car in the country.

G

Hi George,

glad they brought back some memories. When I get the rest done, I'll add a link to the thread. They'll be set up in proper galleries then.

A friend's going to Kenya with a bag full of cameras later on this year as well, so if he lets me, I'll build up some galleries for him and upload them to the site.

Cheers

Liam

Hi Liam D

I have copied loads of slides using a, now old (won't work with XP) Epson filmscan 200, but my current setup is alot better using my *istDS with a bellows attatchment/lens/slide carrier arrangement. For the light I just point the whole gizmos at the sky and use a small f stop f16 or even f22. You can even copy part of a slide. If colour balance is still a problem copy in RAW format and take it from there.

Here is a URL for a unit that is currently on sale with e-bay (usual disclaimer) which shows the layout.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NOVOFLEX-Bellows-M42-fit-Slide-Copier_W0QQitemZ7578836606Q...

Hope this helps Chris

I tried today an experiment. Kodak Carousel, project onto white wall, take photos with the *ist DL. I am indeed impressed with the results. Not super sharp, but as I said I am at the beginning of an experiment. I have acquired on loan a projector screen and the next pictures will be taken of the projected image using the DA 40mm pancake lens, which I find to be a real winner, I am sure glad I bought that as my standard lens.

I have about 16 Carousels to go through. However in each are some badly faded/poorly taken shots. If I have more than 10 slides in some of those carousels worth keeping, I will be pleased. Incidentally, I used to develop my own slides, and it is these ones which have not faded - even though they all date back to the late seventies. Some of the "processed" images are very bad - mirroring what I feel about the usual printing services of today.

When I have one or two images I will put them on my web site for people to see.

I remember seeing a mirror box with rear projection screen built in that allowed you to place a slide projectoe on one end and a camera/videocamera on the other for dupings slides/transfering to video, might work better...too bad I have no recollection on what brand, or where to find one...

Do a quick google search on polestar telescreen video.

The advantage of using RAW is in most RAW converters, there's a white balance tool which saves you lots of time.

In ACR (Adobe Camera RAW), there's an eyedropper that you click on, then click on a neutral color in the scene. Doesn't have to be white, but usually it's better to use white. It will work on gray, too, like if there's a gray card in the scene.

I suspect most RAW converters do something similar, although the only one I've used is ACR.