Nikon ES-1 Slide Copier onD7100

So in another effort to calm my G.A.S. I purchased a Nikon ES-1 Slide Copier.Yes I do have an Epson V600 scanner but the thought of using The Beast to copy slides was intriguing. Well I have had it for a few days and have shot the slides in Daylight and tonight I used a cfl lamp with daylight bulb and a very matte white shade on it and my light box light.I shot in "A" and futzed with different apertures. Then it hit me---Use the force !!!! So I left it in "A" and set it to Auto ISO . Yes the power of the Beast's processing power worked!!!!! So here are some Velvia 50 slides that I originally took with a F5. The lens used here is a Micro 55mm f/2.8 on a PK 13 extension .The ES-1 screws into the front of the lens and is push/pull and then the focus ring of the lens gives fine focus and the focus pointers in the viewfinder will do their appointed task. By far letting the D7100 do it's thing paid off. I also shot in RAW with STD color as Vivid oversaturated the stink out of it. Oh and converted to jpeg in Nikon NX-D Here's the slides:

so there is nothing to my eyes like looking at a slide but I gotta say that I am happy with results so far Those punchy greens are there , the reds aren't bleeding and the rest of the spectrum translated better than some of my scanning efforts. Nikon has them for USD $89, but I got mine on the bay for less than 1/2 of that. It also is designed to work with the Micro 60mm lens Yes I would recommend this to a friend as I would the Micro 55mm f/2.8 Ais which is a cool versatile sharp lens ,but that's for another thread. Enjoy!:encouragement:

Very nice... they look good... did you snap a photo of your setup?

Pat in GA

RockyNH said:

Very nice... they look good... did you snap a photo of your setup?

Pat in GA

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just did. ES-1 on a Micro 55mm f/2.8 on a PK 13 on the D7100

Like that custom lens support.

I wonder if they have some sort of setup like that and software that would do negatives? I have a scanner that has the capability to work with negatives but it is just not that sharp.

coolbus18 said:

just did. ES-1 on a Micro 55mm f/2.8 on a PK 13 on the D7100

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Looks like you do have a short spacer between lens and ES-1 to handle DX being too long for slides. I wondered if it was sufficient extension to achieve full frame copy? The 55mm lens on DX has the view of a 82mm on FX, and needs more distance in front of lens (else the slide is cropped substantially).

I find that a 20mm spacer works well for a ES-1 on a 60mm macro lens with DX. 10mm can work for 55mm. This allows the ES-1 telescoping slide to be around the middle of its range, allowing sizing/cropping adjustment. There are a few very inexpensive sources of 52mm extensions on Ebay, from Hong Kong, which I find reliable, but their free shipping takes at least two weeks.


52mm diameter extension tube in Cameras and Photography Supplies | eBay


Not that ISO 400 is any issue, and your results are great, but my notion is there is no need for higher ISO. The slide is attached to the lens, so there is no camera shake... any slow exposure is fine. So instead of ISO 400 and f/5.6 at 1/50, why not ISO 100 at f/8 at 1/6 second?

Actually, I prefer to use a flash for the light source. The ES-1 has the diffuser on it, so a bare speedlight can be aimed directly at the ES-1 (I use an old SC-17 hot shoe cord), at very low power, from 2 or 3 feet. This lets the speedlight focus assist to be aimed directly into the center of the lens, so that auto focus works extremely well on it. And the light is consistent and repeatable (and very fast, FWIW).

Don Kuykendall said:

I wonder if they have some sort of setup like that and software that would do negatives? I have a scanner that has the capability to work with negatives but it is just not that sharp.

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B&W negatives only need simple inversion, no problem (except for mounting them).
But color negatives have the orange mask, and need a lot more.

This can be done in photo editors, but it is a drastic tonal shift, and of course digital clips at 255, so while results can be "good enough" to be usable maybe, they just are never the same as doing it right (in analog).

For color negatives, film scanners boost the exposure of the blue channel about 4x, and boost the green channel about 2x (as referenced to the red channel exposure). This simulates a analog filter on the lens (no clipping). The orange color varies slightly with film brand.

Darkroom printing enlargers (color oriented to the printing paper too) do use filters at the lens (or dichroic light houses), but analog, no clipping.

But digital just doesn't doesn't have range to get it done right. Some samples at bottom of page at Scanning thousands of slides? Try a digital camera

WayneF said:

B&W negatives only need simple inversion, no problem (except for mounting them).
But color negatives have the orange mask, and need a lot more.

This can be done in photo editors, but it is a drastic tonal shift, and of course digital clips at 255, so while results can be "good enough" to be usable maybe, they just are never the same as doing it right (in analog).

For color negatives, film scanners boost the exposure of the blue channel about 4x, and boost the green channel about 2x (as referenced to the red channel exposure). This simulates a analog filter on the lens (no clipping). The orange color varies slightly with film brand.

Darkroom printing enlargers (oriented to the printing paper too) do use filters at the lens (or dichroic light houses), but no clipping.

But digital just doesn't doesn't have range to get it done right. Some samples at bottom of page at Scanning thousands of slides? Try a digital camera

Click to expand...

My scanner has the software to do a pretty good job of scanning and I did have a dedicated scanner for negatives at one point but was never truly happy with it. I just have so many negatives from my years of shooting that I really would like to be able to get some of them back out to digital in as good a shape as possible. I started out in the darkroom 35 years ago and did actually learn to process and print color in my home darkroom. I still have 16 X 20 color prints that I processed the film and printed at home that are framed and hanging in my home today.

well thank you for the great info and tips!Yup I'll drop to iso 100 and give it a try. I've got extension tubes and am using the pk 13 fr0m Nikon as they recommend it. But it's all new so I appreciate any tips. Have a great weekend and once again--Thanks!