Digitizing your Slides and Negatives

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This post is meant to inspire you.  Using a Digital SLR with Macro Lens and Strobe to copy slides and Negatives is perhaps the fastest way to get your film based images onto your hard drive.  It is considerably faster than using a Digital Slide Scanner.  Resolution of the image is likely to be higher than a scanner since you are using a DSLR.

Assemble the parts shown above into a configuration that make sense for your camera model.  DO NOT use a cheap optical slide duplicator from E-Bay, because you will not be satisfied with the results.  The package below is ready to copy, just add a strobe.

Here is one configuration using a camera mounted strobe shooting into a white reflector.  You can use a strobe extension cord and shoot directly into the lens as an alternate setup.  That is the one I use.  I dedicated a "clamp lamp" as a focusing light as shown.  You can keep it on when the strobe fires.

Set your camera on Manual and experiment with exposures, bracketing exposures until you are satisfied with the results.

Once you are set up, you should be able to shoot three exposures within 30 seconds.  Don't forget to dust your slides and negatives.

At the beginning I said inspire you.  If you are still unsure about the process and want detailed instruction, check out my one-on-one, on-line / over the phone Seminar.