Scanning Your Film with Negative supply

Hey! I'm Oliver, and a quick introduction about me - I work for Georges, and I'm our resident expert on technical products; I primarily shoot film. I've used many different systems over the years, but I'm currently loving using an Eos 3 and all my EF glass I've bought and built up over the years. I came across Negative Supply whilst looking for scanning solutions for my film. I wanted to do it myself and make more adjustments than currently using our existing Fuji scanner. I also didn't want to be going and using a Hasselblad FlexTight as beautiful as those machines are; they're costly and highly specialised. I also didn't feel a flatbed improved on what you'd gain from the commercial Fuji 35mm scanners.

Negative Supply comes in; they make various digital darkroom products for 35mm, medium and large formats. I'll get this part out of the way. They are expensive, but the flexibility they afford you if you shoot a lot of film is fantastic and are not happy with your lab's scans can make it very worthwhile. Especially when you compare it to the quality of a traditional flatbed scan.

I love to tinker with what I'm doing, and when I saw what Negative Supply was offering, I felt it was an excellent middle ground. This isn't sponsored, but if you want my recommendation here, it is: I would buy them; although my biggest qualm at the time of filming was the cost; this has come down dramatically. Negative Supply now has a more extensive range of options, including the basic scanner and riser at a reasonable price.

Although the machine metal inclosures of their pro kits make it hard to miss, especially if you want to leave them as a feature piece of your home (they do look damned good!). Their greatest strength the customisation and tinkering is also the most significant weakness, at least at first, I can scan a roll quicker than a Fujifilm SP500 or SP3000, with a single roll taking me around 2 minutes, and depending on the resolution of the camera you use, they far outshine the 18-megapixel scan you can achieve that takes 12 minutes with the Fuji mainly due to the high DPI output and the raw files you get from your digital camera (SLR or Mirrorless generally)

If you don't currently have an SLR or a mirrorless with a macro lens, the costs go up quite quickly; this really is for photographers who want to use their existing digital cameras to produce high-resolution scans. One of Negative Supply's significant advantages is there are already online communities working on digital darkroom solutions. Especially when it comes to converting negatives using Lightroom and Capture One, things become pretty tricky. Inverting your digital files is something I've discovered takes a bit of getting used to.

However, the resolution, especially if you're using a Nikon Z7 or A7RIV, is ridiculous, and if you can get your shot right will give you an incredible finished result.

I feel the options with Negative Supply allow me to do more with my film scans than before, and I'm excited to use their tools to produce prints of more work. Another thing I love about their equipment is that it is mechanical rather than digital, which means their products are timeless. If looked after, they could be used forever, won't need upgrading like our cameras and lenses do, and can take advantage of new sensor technology as it becomes available. You could genuinely use a Fujifilm GFX100 to do your scans and get a 100-megapixel result, which would be grand, especially for medium and large format scans.

For the time being, I hope you enjoy a few quick scans that we've done; feel free to come into the store to see the Pro Riser with the 35mm Carrier and riser.

Negative Supply on Georges Cameras TV

In our latest video on Georges Cameras TV, Oliver takes us through film scanning with Negative Supply film carriers. Negative Supply develops high-quality film scanning setups for professional photographers. Instead of relying on a costly lab to take care of your film scanning, Negative Supply setups allow you to scan the films at home or in your professional studio. What’s more, the scanning process uses your existing DSLR or digital mirrorless camera while connected directly to your computer. That way, you can instantly adjust the exposure and colour balance to your liking. The flexibility of a Negative Supply film scanning setup is also ideal for those who want to develop their films.