Review of the Opteka Slide Copier

[fmw]

I've decided to embark on a project to digitize some of my color transparencies. I have tens of thousands of them so I will take on only a small portion of them. There are basically two ways to photograph a transparency. You can scan it or you can photograph it. I've had pretty good luck with scanners on medium and large format transparencies but they never seemed to be enough to handle 35mm slides effectively. While browsing Amazon last week, I encountered the Opteka Slide Copier. It was around $30 and I ordered one.

Basically it is a tube with 52mm threaded end and a slide carrier with a frosted glass on the other. In also includes a 10 diopter close-up lens which you can use or not as needed. There was also a 67-52mm step up ring included. The slide carrier holds three mounted 35mm transparencies which should be oriented shiny side toward the camera. There is a locking screw on top that allows you to rotate the tube to align the slide carrier with your viewfinder and lock it. On the bottom is a spring loaded pull lock that indexes the slides. Add a light source and you are in business. Daylight or flash or virtually any light source will do the job as long as you can adjust the white balance. That's it. Index a slide and take a picture of it.

I used my Nikon D7000 for the job. I started by mounting a 50mm Nikkor lens because it has a 52mm filter size, the included close-up lens and the Opteka unit. I connected my SB-800 speedlight to the hot shoe and held it via the extension cable to shoot right into Opteka unit in TTL mode. The results were exposed OK but were pretty noisy. I wasn't happy.

So I disassembled things and mounted my Micro Nikkor 60mm lens and mounted the Opteka with the step up ring and a 67-62 step down ring. No need for the close-up lens since the macro lens handles a 1:1 repro ratio. For the light source I just took the front off of my light tent and aimed the camera at the white back of the unit. I tried a few aperture settings to settle on f8 and synched the camera to my strobes. I think the results were acceptable.

You can see a few of my images that were taken with a roll of Fujichrome 200 on a shoot along the Michigan shoreline of Lake Michigan back in the late 90's. The camera was a Nikon F3 with 16mm fisheye and 85mm f1.4 lenses.

The manufacture recommends against using a full frame digital camera, explaining that the images will be cropped by the camera. They also recommend the use of a normal to telephoto lens. My 60mm worked famously.

It is cheap and it works just fine once you tune in your lens, lighting and exposure. I think it outperforms scanners. I recommend it for anyone wanting to digitize slides.

 

[tirediron]

An affordable and effective bit of camera gear; that's something you don't see too often! Nice review.

 

[fmw]

Thanks. I'll certainly get my money's worth out of it.

 

[Designer]

Micro Nikkor 60mm lens ..

Does the lens focus on the slides? What about a longer lens? I don't currently own a Micro lens, but I were to to obtain one, what would I expect with a 105 mm? You used a speedlight, but is there a recommendation for light color temperature? What about using "natural light"? Could I aim the thing toward a window? Would that be the right color of light?

 

[fmw]

Micro Nikkor 60mm lens ..

Does the lens focus on the slides?

Of course. The slide is the subject

What about a longer lens?

The issue, of course, is the ability of the lens to focus on something a few inches away. The enclosed close-up lens can solve this for many lenses. It certainly worked for the 50mm but I wasn't thrilled with the results. As one would expect the best tool for macro photography is a macro lens. I only tried the 50 and the micro Nikkor. I would think a zoom lens would be fine as long as you can get it focus on the subject.

I don't currently own a Micro lens, but I were to to obtain one, what would I expect with a 105 mm?

I don't know. I think a 105 is a bit long for a crop sensor camera so I don't have one.

You used a speedlight, but is there a recommendation for light color temperature?

Daylight. I set my raw files to daylight color temperature in post process. Actually I ended up using my light tent and a pair of studio strobes. I didn't like the result I got from the speedlight.

What about using "natural light"? Could I aim the thing toward a window? Would that be the right color of light?

Sure. What could have more of a daylight color temperature than daylight itself? I use my studio strobes every day so I'm comfortable with them. I did make a natural light exposure and the result was the same as with the strobes. The strobes are just faster, more convenient and more consistent from exposure to exposure. But daylight is fine.

 

[smoke665]

I'm in somewhat the same situation with a ton of slides from my father. Curious as to how fast the process is. How many can you effectively copy per hour?

 

[480sparky]

..........The manufacture recommends against using a full frame digital camera, explaining that the images will be cropped by the camera. ............

But a crop-sensor camera won't? This makes no sense.

....... I think it outperforms scanners. I recommend it for anyone wanting to digitize slides.

It would all depend on the camera and lens you use, of course. But I personally think you'd be hard-pressed to find a DSLR/lens combo capable of extracting the grain from fine-grained film. Whatever pair you use, you're limited to the resolution of the camera & lens.

 

[fmw]

That is what the enclosed instruction said. Perhaps it would work with a wide angle lens. They don't recommend wide angles either so perhaps that is the issue. I don't have a full frame digital with which to test it but I hope you will jump in with your results if you decide to try one.

I don't know what the "resolution" of Kodachrome was so I couldn't say. I can tell you that I can crop and enlarge images from my DSLR's further than with any 35mm color transparency film I've ever used. However, transparencies aren't a good medium for making enlargements. I just don't know the answer.

 

[fmw]

I'm in somewhat the same situation with a ton of slides from my father. Curious as to how fast the process is. How many can you effectively copy per hour?

Shooting them is trivial once you have a workable setup. I could do a few hundred in an hour. It is the post processing that takes the time. The process will capture dust, specks and any imperfections in the slide right along with the image. I set my white balance, tweak the exposure from the raw file and them use the PS spot healing brush to clean up any dust or specks that came through. I can see that I missed on the lighthouse image.

I'm making large TIFF images to display on the TV monitor in a similar fashion to how I displayed them with projector and screen back in the day. I want to digitize my national parks images and my Asian images as well as images that I just like such as the ones I posted above. I don't care about my commercial work. I probably won't do more than 1000 or 2000 of them. We'll see.

 

[fmw]

I found this upgrade on Ebay for $60 plus shipping.