FilmLab is a film negative scanning app for smartphones

That might be useful to identify what is on the roll of film, but without a close up lens no chance of making a useful photo. A cheap flatbed scanner with a transparency feature will deliver far better results. The Nikons were the best film scanners, but they are getting pretty rare. BTW, anyone with a light table probably already has a scanner :-).

Nice solution looking for a problem - let's face it, basic flatbed scanners are dirt cheap these days (probably costing less than a Kaiser lightbox) - and you will be guaranteed better resolution and elimination of distortion using a scanner compared with hand-holding a iPhone over an illuminated film strip.

And then there is the proposed SUBSCRIPTION?!

Bye bye Filmlab!

Brian

I was about to post a really snarky comment about the Library of Congress being finally able to free up all those shelves of crusty old negs, but I watched the vid and something changed. The developer seems sincere and while, seeing his Leica and his fancy pencil all perfectly arranged leads me to believe he has a proper scanner, some folks who have nothing, may benefit from the app. It does try to maximize the quality it extracts, even though the constraints are severe (realistically, no proper light source, the film is not flat, the phone lens is dusty and gummed up, the phone is not held steady and is at an angle, and the minimal focusing distance means low res). Yet, it will help, I believe, many folks to extract web-quality or slightly better pix from negs, and some of those negs may get irrecoverably lost thereafter.

The comments here are just remarkable. The fundamental point, and value in a workflow of immediate visualisation of negatives on a light table seems to have flown straight over all the know-it-alls heads. The assumption that the FilmLab developer is a complete idiot, or some kind of charlatan, who has no idea of the app market or of what is already out there is arrogant beyond belief.

Well, whatever. He's got my contribution. If he can make the app work then the amount of time it will save me is easily worth the tiny amount of money he's asking for.

The rampant, enthusiastic negativity in the DPReview community is really sad.

Don't need the lightbox. Just put it on the iPad and run one of those soft box apps.

I placed a slide on a small light box. I placed a loupe on top of the slide and took a photo with my iPhone thru the loupe. The result was comparable to the same slide scanned with an Epson flatbed scanner, which is — for better or worse — how most people are scanning slides and negatives these days (even printers).

Try asking your photo lab for 24MP scans of your next roll of film. You'll get a blank stare and "we scan film at 600 DPI," whatever that means. The problem is, all scanners and scanning software today measure scan resolution in DPI instead of megapixels. Is your lab's 600 DPI the same as 600 DPI on your slide scanner? Is 2400 DPI better, or just interpolated? Who knows. Could you imagine the chaos if DPI was used for camera sensors!

If you use Dr_Jon's method and mount a DSLR (with a 6000x4000 pixel sensor and a good macro lens) on a copy stand and get a good photo of a slide or negative illuminated on a lightbox, you know the resulting "scan" will be 24MP.

I no longer use Nikon Super Coolscan 4000 ED because of flare problem for slide film and it cannot be resolved as I try to clean etc, nothing resolved. So I stick to Plustek Opticfilm 120 which is much newer and does not introduce flare and it comes out a lot cleaner scan, even has much better colour and white balance stability than old Nikon. Nikon has much narrow depth of field which is not very good, so it scan with shallow focus compare to Plustek is fixed focus but wider depth of field which is much better and more sharpness. I scan at default 5300 DPI not allowed up/down scale as it will ruin the quality of image. It can be done later in post process. Plustek scanner however is much slower than Nikon but better result I am happy with it. Bad thing from Plustek is no auto focus or manual focus adjustment mean that the slide film scanner will not be good thing. Nikon seems to be the best choice for slide mount film.

I think the subscription will be a turn-off to people, for something you'd probably only use occasionally. Also how useful it is depends on how many film types it understands and how much you can tweak stuff. (A lot of people will not be sure what type a film is if they only have the negatives.) Shooting multiple images hand-held and combining them also sounds tricky is the aim is high resolution. It can be done but cellphones probably move about in more directions that you'd like (distance, tilt and rotation, for example).
BTW I scan film with a light table, high-MP DSLR and a macro lens. Works pretty well and generally faster than scanning. (That's old film, I pay the lab to scan any film I shoot these days, which reminds my I have two rolls sitting in my bag that should be in the post...)

I've used an app called "Helmut" to do this but the results were very low resolution, even when using files loaded onto my phone from my K3. If this goes ahead it would be nice, but I wish someone would write a Windows program to do the conversion, rather than having to transfer files to a phone.

The biggest problem with scanners is getting the colour right, but they also suffer from low resolution. Using a DSLR and macro lens to scan and then having some kind of application to get the colour right would be great.

Since Low-Fi is all the rage, I'm sure this guy'll make a few bucks. But seriously, get your ass down to a Costco, people! Film developed, printed, with very decent scans included. For anyone without the correct scanning gear, this is an extremely cheap, and reasonable way to get both analogue/digital. files.

Meanwhile, for more than a decade, my trusty V700 continues to turn out great scans, of all my formats, except 8x10 (Newton ring prone).

Polaroid?

<crickets>

I don't really understand people still like / shoot film. Because an escalator can be used as steps as well. Shoot digital turn off auto preview. Do not see the images in back screen bring them home and see in computer only. If you need just take the camera to super market comeback then view it in your PC to simulate you went to studio to develop it. don't shoot more than 24/34 pictures. Now you get the feeling of shooting film. Fuji cameras are more like mechanical cameras.

If you can't control mind. Go to a meditation club. Do not shoot film to learn calmness.

In this video he says he has problem with negative scanners. No there is no problem with scanners. Problem is applying chemicals to the film before we could scan.

Film and digital - enjoy the worst of both worlds and pay a monthly fee while at it. Great.

What stupidity....get a scanner. I'm laughing my fingers off.

A paid subscription so I can use my iPhone camera to take pictures of my negatives... Sign me in!!

Am image is only as good as its weakest link....... i get my film scanned by a good lab.

Just what we need. A way to convert high quality 35mm film images into cheap quality iPhone pics. Last place this should be pushed is DPReview. I'd expect to see this in a cheap product magazine in the back of the airplane seat in front of me.

No thanks to subscription services. Especially for something gimmicky like a mobile film scanning app. W-T-F! Enough is enough.

Hard to believe that the quality is really going to be all that good.... and then it seems that folks who are bothering with the hassle of shooting film aren't going to be the types who need something so convenient on the scanning end of it. The fact that you can scan with a dedicated camera and then load the files into your phone to be processed by the app doesn't sound very useful either... because again, if you're going to all of that trouble to shoot film and then scan with a good digital camera, you're probably going to have the software on your computer to deal with it... and deal with those images in a much better way.

I'd be happy to be proven wrong but I just don't see a market for such an app... It seems to me that if folks really want that kind of convenience that they'd just be shooting with a cell phone in the first place. The fact that it's a subscription type thing too makes it even less attractive.

No way I would opt for a sub. The subscription model is getting out of hand. I get why companies like it etc. but I'm getting close to my limit. I can only justify keeping so many subs going a month/year and after that, if you don't give me an outright purchase option, then I'm not buying.

Here is a cheap alternative -if you have a macro lens.
http://friedmanarchives.blogspot.be/2017/02/turn-your-ipad-into-high-resolution.html
(= Use a tablet as a lighttable and put the negative on a piece of glass above it.)

This is up there with the motorbike ashtray and the chocolate teapot.

Real film folks make 'making of' pics with their phone at the moment they make an anolog photo. ;-)

Mayby it's an idea to make an film camera with a built in phone-like digital camera to share your analog picture digtally...

Or even better: a mini digital camera to put on the flash hotshoe of an film camera. That would be quite automatic.

I have lots of old negatives from family that span back into the 1930s. But why would I want to photograph a negative with another camera, especially a smartphone camera? That is stupid unless you really don't care what quality you get. If you are going to post an old photo on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., then it probably doesn't matter. But if you want quality images of old memories, then use a good film scanner. They only run about $300 and create 16-bit TIF images which can be edited like RAW images in Photoshop and other apps. Do it right.

Marketeers just don't get it. Us retro folks don't want software subscriptions. Charge me a fair price and I'll use it on as many computers and for as long as I want.

I use my A7 to scan my 35mm film. Very practical.

Laughing so hard it hurts. Maybe if it was FREE someone might give it a second look... *sigh* ...thanks, I needed a good laugh. :-) Oh, wait, I just did a quick search on Google Play, and there are already several negative scanner apps FREE like Helmut. Is it just me, or is FilmLabs coming sorta late to this party?

You buy a nice leica M6 and a roll of Tri X with a £2,000 lens and then photograph the negative with a phone, hmmm.

I guess this is pretty cool for a quick preview or to share on social media... But effectively using a phones camera in a crop mode aint exactly ideal...

Who needs big expensive lenses for resolution? That are just bugs that can be sorted out by clever software.... yeah...
I'll wait for the Studio Scene Comparison Tool image :-)

I'm using my DSLR on an light table and blacking out any existing light between the film and camera. Imagine an iphone would have even more reflections and whatnot.

If it's on Kickstarter, I'm out.