Peter,

In your experience, would you expect that a 640 W/s unit (Alien Bees B1600) would have enough power for a softbox + baffle + plexiglass triple diffused lighting set-up? With your 800 W/s unit are you in the middle of the power range or near the high end?

Thanks,

John

In case anyone is interested, here is a view of the rig I am playing with now.  Very similar to Peter's using a Nikon PS-5 stage and major RRS parts, but using a 100mm macro (on full frame). I took advantage of a few RRS parts I had in the drawer.

John



also here are photos of the PS-5 as stock and disassembled





and undergoing modification to remove flange


John

I don't have any experience with the 60mm macro, but understand it is a very sharp lens, and as mentioned does 1:1.

I use a 100mm macro on a full frame body, and get essentially a full frame of the slide (minus the area cropped off by the slide mount). A 60mm macro on a 1.6x body has a field of view equivalent to 96mm on full frame. That should be pretty close to getting you a full frame.

The difference between 50mm and 60mm on a 1.6x crop body is larger than you might think.  The 50mm lens has a full frame field of view equivalent of 80mm vs. 96mm for the 60mm lens.

Before you buy one, you might rent one and try it for a week.

http://www.lensrentals.com/rent/canon-60mm-f2.8-ef-s-macro/for-canon

John

For a 1.6x crop body, you might consider the Canon 60mm EF-S macro.

Thanks for the reply.

 The color sensitivity I was referring to relates to how diffuse the light is.  More diffuse light seems to give better color accuracy.  I am going to invest in a decent flash head for this work, and was interested in what others are using.

Thanks again.

John

Hi Peter,
 
I have a few questions about you lighting.  I have found the lighting set up to be very critical in terms of getting accurate colors, and I wanted to see what exactly you were using? How many watt-seconds?, what size softbox?, set-up how far away?, etc.  Any chance you have a photo of your lighting set up?

Thanks!

John

Thank you for the reply Peter.

I was thinking about shooting a GMB ColorChecker as well.  I have not shot a roll of film in 5 years, but I think Kodachrome can still be processed by Dwaynes till 12/30/2010. The 12/31/2009 date was for mailers (I think)?

I agree about film formulas changing over time, I can see that with different batches of Kodachrome within the same year.

John (sorry I forgot to sign the last post)

I am getting OK colors in the camera duplication of Kodachrome slides, but some aspects of the color are off in subtle ways that are not simply an adjustment to white balance (yellow-blue) or tint (green-magenta). Has anybody developed any camera calibration methodology for Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw?   I'm using Lightroom 2.6 for RAW conversion and a Canon 1Ds Mark III for duplication with a 100mm macro and a strobe for illumination.

 I tried duplicating a Kodachrome IT-8 scanner target and then eyeballing changes to the R, G, and B channels using the "camera calibration" tab in Lightroom. Here is an example before and after tweaks:



here is the same target with the same white balance but with increased saturation in the R, G, and B channels using "camera calibration" in Lightroom



Here is an example image from a Kodachrome 25 original, colors are nearly perfect except that the yellow lettering and flowers are much too pale. I would like to develop a camera profile that can give more accurate colors without having to make extensive solor adjustments that are unique to each image. Any suggestions? Thanks.

Another question.

Is there any reason to keep the frosted plastic diffuser in place vs. removal and shooting at a white background lit with a flash? Thanks.

John

Thanks for the reply Peter.

Now that I have a Nikon PS-5 in-hand, I can see the mods are indeed trivial.

What are the relative merits of using a 50mm focal length vs. a 100mm focal length for the purposes of camera scans? The set-up length will be shorter and more convenient with the 50mm, but what about the image quality?  Any differences?

Thanks,

John

Hello, a few hardware questions.

Can you elaborate on the modifications required to use the PS-5? What exactly are the modifications (e.g. drilling/tapping etc.)?

Also, if using the Canon 100mm 2.8L, would the 18 inch MPR be the appropriate rail? Thanks!