New Nikon ES-2 Film Digitizing Adapter & Slide Scanner Announced


Thanks Skiff. That shows the D850 pulls incredible detail. But the conversion software is not there yet. But the author thinks Nikon will fix it in firmware releases as they have invested in new film holding hardware and made a big deal out of all of this.

If they don't make it good, then the new Sony A7r3 gets my attention as I can use a bunch more of my lenses w it.
 
Dust spotting is no big deal, prep the negs/slides first to reduce or eliminate the need.

The color inversion is a very cool feature, that is a HUGE workflow time saver.

Will be interesting to see if any third parties engineer a medium format holder. Guessing this would require a different lens/extension tube setup, but a 46mp scan could be quite nice...

Invert with curves. Save the curve and write an action to duplicate it
 

Interesting read. As I've found w/camera-scan, there's plenty of resolution, getting good color/tonality is harder.

Surprising that the software is clipping both highs and lows. With this sensor, there's certainly no dynamic range problem. Should be absolutely no problem with color-neg.

I guess Nikon wanted full-range of tones in the rendered image, but they've gone too far.

Certainly is correctable in firmware. Too bad there aren't any controls.
 
Got some interesting info from a visit to my local Samy's camera shop. I asked why the Nikon ES-2 slide duplicator was not yet available, and they said that Nikon was holding it back until they got the negative conversion software corrected on the D850.
Good and bad news. Good because Nikon is going to improve the software. Bad because I want the ES-2 now to use on my D750!
 
OK, its not 2017 anymore.

Is the ES-2 still a good choice in 2022 or are there better SLR Scanning solutions overall ?
 
I bought an ES2 last year after a long waiting time.

The idea is good but the build quality is underwhelming and you have to do some tweaks if you want to use it on other lenses than those Nikon recommends. For use on my Micro-Nikkor 55mm I had to add a glassless filter ring to extend the tube.

The slide holder appear to be made for use with very thin lab mounted slides. My fairly thin Gepe glassless slides wouldn't fit in the slide holder.
The film strip holder is flimsy and takes a long time to load - kind of contradicts the perceived convenience and speed of camera scanning.

Long story short. I found a used Nikon slide copying bellows set which, after adapted to my camera, turned out to be MUCH easier to set-up and use. It takes all slides mounts and filmstrips of any length - and the price was the same as the ES-2.

If you have more than a very few images to digitise, I highly recommend a good old slide copying bellow. Almost any brand can be adapted to mirrorless cameras.
 
While the plastic build quality is not awe-inspiring, it's a well-designed outfit. Used with a Micro-Nikkor 60/2.8 and a D800/D810 I get excellent results. And it's simple to use. But I gotta say, I really hate scanning and I double-hate having to dust spot the files in Lightroom. Which is why I don't use the device very much.
 
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