Copying slides with a digital camera

Most of my astrophotography is using an Olympus OM-1n or a Pentax 6x7. Prime focus and piggy-back with the Olympus OM-1n and piggy-back only with the Pentax 6x7 using 300mm, 165mm and 105mm lenses. My film of choice is either Kodak E200 or Fuji Provia 400F, both slide films.

I recently "discovered" that using a light table, an 8x Horizon loupe and my Olympus 3000 digital camera, I can make acceptable digital copies of the slides using an afocal method. (Essentially just placing the lens of the digital camera right on top of the loupe, setting the camera to the close-up mode, turning off the flash and underexposing the photo (range of -1.7 to -2.3, with -2.0 being a very good compromise). Posted is a recent picture of M-42 taken in January with Fuji Provia 400F thru my Brandon f/8 130mm APO (1040mm f.l.) The original was a 60 minute exposure.

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You have basically scanned your photo except with a camera. Now use photoshop and bring out more detail like what I did here with your photo.

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Thanks for the heads up Barry. The only thing I did in Photoshop was adjust the levels to bring out the faint details and added a little green to warm up the nebula. The running man does look a little greyish though. Its hard to do much and not completely blow out the center of M-42. The same thing happens when I dupe my negs. onto SO-279 and then recopy onto velvia. Lots of contrast and color but the bright areas tend to burn out.


Joe