We would be deep into the digital age, but film photography has never disappeared. Like records, which survived through tapes, CDs and now digital music, cinema continues. However, while you can develop film yourself quite easily, making prints with an enlarger is still a cumbersome process that requires dedicated space. The cheapest alternative is to scan your film and print it digitally.
Professional scanning is expensive, and professional-grade scanners are expensive too (not as expensive as extending your house to make way for a darkroom, but they’re not cheap either). A popular solution is to photograph the negatives with a high-resolution digital camera. The resulting RAW file can be retouched, fine-tuned and printed like any other digital file.
And lastly, photograph your images. still It is not as easy as it looks. That’s where Valoi’s Easy35 film scanning kit comes into play. It’s everything you need to “scan” your 35mm film in one easy-to-use kit. It’s very simple to set up, quick to scan and produces excellent results.
A series of tubes
Scanning film by photographing it is a complicated task. You need a good light source, you need to keep the film absolutely flat, and you need to have the camera and lens aligned with the film so there is no distortion.
Film photographers have been building scanning equipment for years and there is a lot of great advice on reddit and elsewhereBut if you want a turnkey solution that eliminates the learning curve, the Valoi Easy35 Film Scanning Kit is the best option I’ve found.
Photography: Scott Gilbertson
The Easy35 consists of a softbox, with brightness and temperature controls for the backlight and slots on each side for feeding film. Inside, there is a film holder that helps the film slide and align. A series of tubes form an airtight tunnel between the film you are shooting and the sensor of your digital camera.
The result is consistently excellent digital images of your film with very little effort.
However, there are some caveats. The main one is that this only works with 35mm film. If you’re shooting medium or larger format, this won’t work. It’s a shame, because 120 and up film is where you still have a resolution advantage over digital. I’d love to see Valoi build a 120 scanner, but for now it’s 35mm or smaller (there’s a 110 adapter if you shoot 110 cartridges).
The next caveat is that you should probably have a camera with interchangeable lenses. It doesn’t have to be the best camera, but the quality of the results will depend on both the quality of the camera and the lens you are using. A 100 megapixel Fujifilm GFX will generally give better results than a micro4/3s camera.
Photography: Scott Gilbertson