Hello and welcome to GMax Studios, my name is Gorky M and today we are going
to be talking about how to get your old film negatives and slides into the
digital world. If like us you have been shooting a lot of film or have some old
film negatives or slides, reversal film lying around then you might know that
scanning them is quite a pain. That is where the Nikon ES-2 film
digitizing adapter comes in
The ES-2 consists of eight parts. The diffuser screen, the locking screw, view
angle adjustment ring, holder insertion slot, two 62mm adapters the fh4 strip film
holder, and the fh5 slide mount holder.
So what else do you need apart from the ES-2?
Well you do need a camera and we are using the Nikon D850 because this camera
apart from having a high megapixel count has the function where you can turn
negatives into positive images.
If you don't have the Nikon D850,
then we have a little trick which will tell you later to be able to use any
kind of camera.
Then, you need a macro lens. We are using a 60mm micro lens
because it has a diameter of 62mm which matches the adapter perfectly.
You also need a tripod
to keep the camera firmly locked into place.
And you need a light source.
while natural light will also do, but we are using a LED light.
In fact, there is a warning here that do not use hot lights because they might damage your film.
If you are slightly obsessive like some people are,
then you can also use the timer mode to prevent any shake that might occur
make sure that your lens is clean and there are no filters like an ND, UV, or polarizer in front of it.
So you need to mount the adapter in front of the lens and then
mount the screen diffuser in front of the adapter.
Thereafter the procedure is really simple
take the film holder this is the FH4: where you can put your negatives.
Once you have the strip of film in the holder it is a matter of
sliding it into the slot.
once your film is in place you need to move the adapter back and forth until it
is perfectly in focus you also might need to turn the ring to get your
photograph absolutely level and then once you have reached the perfect
position you need to lock it in with the locking screw.
You press the 'I' button and
you get the option of the negative digitizer. You press OK, and you can see
that it has turned into a positive if you need to turn it into a monochrome
you can select this option otherwise this is it.
And you can control the brightness
by pressing OK. And once the brightness reaches the level that you desire,
check the focus once again
all you need to do is press the shutter button.
One limitation of this feature is
that it only allows you to shoot pictures in JPEG.
If you need to shoot in RAW,
then you should not activate the digitizer but take a normal picture,
and you can always convert it to a positive in Photoshop.
once you have imported your
photograph into Photoshop, all you need to do is press Command+I or CTRL+I
and BAM. Your photograph turns from a negative
into a positive.
So you can use this trick of post-processing your image
in case you don't have a Nikon D850.
You can make it work with practically any other camera.
Digitizing slides is just as easy if not easier.
Once you have got the slides into the slide holder FH5
all you need to do is put it in the slot
and you can take the picture.
Just remember, that while digitizing slides you need to set the white balance
unlike while digitizing negatives where you have no control over the white balance at all.
For more videos on photography and filmmaking or anything related to film
or digital, subscribe to our Channel GMax Studios, and I will see you in the next video.
Until then, bye bye.
Nice Photographs!
even though I've shot them myself, but still