DISCLAIMER: Photo purists may scoff or cringe, but they just don’t know how to have fun.

So, what we have here is a solution to a problem which has come up recently for me. The problem being that I’ve been shooting mostly film lately and I have a whole bunch of negatives longing to be digitized… So I thought I’d help them little guys out. After a bit of pondering I came up with what you see below.

Pretty simple, eh? All you have to do is find yourself a cardboard box and a piece of matte white cardstock. Cut an appropriate size rectangle in the center of one of the sides. Now insert your cardstock at a 45° angle to the hole you just made. Mount your slide holder [or another piece of cardstock with the same size rectangle cut out] in front of the hole on the outside of the box, then position your desk lamp to shine down inside it. All you have to do now is set up your camera in front of the slide holder [a level on your tripod head comes in really handy here].

A FEW TIPS:

• Center your lens on the slide and make sure it’s level, or else things may look a little wonky.
• Take a white balance reading of the cardstock inside your scanner after it’s been set up under the light source.
• Stop down your lens. f8 – f11 is a good range to be in. This will ensure everything’s in focus and there aren’t any dark corners.
• Use the lowest ISO possible.  You don’t want to have any noticeable digital noise.
• Use an appropriate lens. 1:1 Macros will work best, but 1:2 isn’t bad. Just remember… your scans will only be as sharp as the lens you used to make them.
  
• Use a cable release, or timer. Camera shake is always an issue with any closeup photography, so use your mirror-lockup and cable release.
  
• Shoot in RAW… It’ll make processing your scans a lot easier.
• Have fun! Experiment with different exposures and settings… this is all for fun anyway.
  

That’s it! A great quality scan for next to nothing!

I’ll be doing another post shortly on what to do with your RAW scans to get them to look like positive images you’d get back from the photolab. In the mean time, I hope you have fun making my DIY cardboard box scanner.