Nikon ES-2 Film Digitizing Adapter Set

Worked great to archive and digitize my old slides from my family. Make sure you have the correct equipment to use this. I used a Nikon D7100 with a nikkor 60mm macro. I also used a lume cube behind the slide.

This is vey simple to use. The results are as good as the original negative/slide.

I'm pretty happy with this product, which I am using on both slide film and negative film in conjunction with the recommended Nikon AF-S FX Micro-NIKKOR 2177 60mm f/2.8G ED Standard Macro Len and a Nikon d610. See the various online video reviews / advice on using this tool to figure out ideas on how to use it -- the provided scrap of paper "instructions" is pretty useless. Note you can also use it with a 40mm Macro lens and a DX camera (I haven't tried that). You will need a cable or wifi release and a sturdy tripod. And you need a good light source -- which needs to be "cool" not "warm" when you are working with negatives -- the wrong light source can lead to weird color results -- I had weird results when I tried to use "white" LED lighting. I played around using a SB-600 strobe light off camera in "Commander" mode but then you need a separate "modeling" light and I was getting color casts / shading from the interaction between the modeling light and the SB-600 -- I'm sure I could have figured it out if I studied how the strobe / camera and "Commander" mode works long enough -- but there again the provided Nikon documentation for these devices is also horrible. After trying several things I now just use an "always on" "off the shelf" Home Depot Philips "cool white" 50w halogen spot bulb up close -- turn it off when not shooting to avoid cooking your film. "Zoom" and limits on focus are adjusted using a simple slide tube with a thumb screw to more-or-less hold that setting. If you get "too greedy" and try to push the film too close to the lens then you will have focusing problems with the camera lens not quite being able to focus -- especially if you film has curl [and what old film doesn't?] I have better luck being less greedy, and leaving a little margin for focusing and an edge to crop. It is very easy to get rotational alignment wrong, requiring a rotation/crop. I also use a "light blue" Tiffen 52mm 82A Filter when taking picture of negatives to help correct some of their strong orange cast -- this makes the inversion process using Lightroom or Photoshop so much easier and successful. There is a steep learning curve learning to work with negative film and Lightroom or Photoshop, but once you learn how to "Think Negatively" then it is really a lot of fun! Taking pictures of pictures is so much more fun than waiting *hours* for a flatbed scanner!

I have somewhere in the range of 10,000 slides. I have switched over to digital and wanted a way to duplicate my slides to digital. I doubt I will do them all, but there are plenty of pictures I do want. Inverted. I have an earlier model of this duplicator I used with my D camera. Now I have a Z. This is much easier to use with my Z camera.

There's very little that Nikon makes that's not first class. From their stellar glass to bullet-proof camera bodies, you can always expect and appreciate their products for functionality, design, and utility. This adapter set is a perfect example of attention to detail in design. Everything works smoothly, with a high level of durability. Coupled with a Nikkor 60mm macro lens, you can bang out large numbers of frames of 35mm film strips and 2"x2" mounted slides, much faster than using single frame and flat bed film sheet scanners. I find that I need to perform some level of post processing with just about every shot, but you may feel that your results will be exactly what you need without further work. So why only 4 stars? Well, for what you get, the price seems to me to be a little higher than it should. In materials and machining, there just isn't that much tooling and raw materials used to warrant the retail price. This is not a complex product, and you could replicate the results using a home-made copy stand, a tripod, and a light box. It's just that the Nikon ES-2 is a way more elegant method for those who don't have a copy stand, tripod, or light box.

I have a pretty large collection of slides which I have attempted to digitize over the years. I had a pretty good slide (Konica Minolta Dimage Scan Elite 5400) scanner but it was too slow for a large collection. I have sent them out to a scanning services but the quality was not great and it would have been expensive for a large collection. Being a cheapskate I purchased a Nikon's ES1 first and coupled it with my new Z7 and a macro lens and got great results but the ES1 is a little finicky to load. That prompted me to buy the ES2. The ES2 has a two slot slide carriage, similar to old slide projectors, which is both fast and accurate. I can do about one slide every 5 seconds. The front glass material does a great job of evening out the light however it does take a lot of light which can make the focus slow. I get my best results when pointing it at a neutral white board in bright sunlight. The Z7 is not quite as fast at focus is some of Nikon's traditional DSLR and I expect the focus issue would be less with a D850 or similar. I have found that a 14bit RAW image of a slide with the ES2 is the best possible digital result hands down over scanners or other ways of digitizing images.

When I bought this to digitize my 35mm film, I didn’t realize you need a macro lens to be able to use it. In fact in the instruction manual it lists 3 or so macro lenses to be able to use it. Now I have it set up to use with my 50mm, but also had to order macro extension tubes and a 52mm to 62mm step up ring and now it works quite well. It’s effective and not super expensive. I like this product.