This video shows a prototype do it yourself dslr film scanner. The camera is a D600 with a 55mm Micro Nikkor at 1:1 magnification. The scanner takes 25 pictures to scan a 4×5″ piece of film. It is controlled by an Arduino Uno, with two EasyStepper drivers for the stepper motors. For serious use, the lens would be masked, and there’d be dark material keeping outside light off of the film carrier.
A bunch of us at the large format photography forum are working on a DIY film scanner. Right now, there’s a big gap in quality and price between consumer film scanners, such as an Epson V700, and pro scanner, such as drum scanners (e.g. Aztek Premier) and pro flatbed (e.g. Screen Cezanne). In addition, pro scanners are getting difficult to keep running, as they often rely on old computer systems, and repairing the scanners is very expensive. As a result, some of us film enthusiasts are working on a film scanner, ideally one that can be scaled to various sizes, will give higher quality than a consumer flatbed, will be easy to build, and won’t be too expensive. Our idea is to use a dslr with a macro lens to take many pictures of one frame of a negative. We’ll then use software to combine the images.
Adafruit has had paid day off for voting for our team for years, if you need help getting that going for your organization, let us know – we can share how and why we did this as well as the good results. Here are some resources for voting by mail, voting in person, and some NY resources for our NY based teams as well. If there are additional resources to add, please let us know – adafruit.com/vote
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
