Digital BW, The Print

I thought I would relay this technique, maybe others can use it.

One piece of equipment I never got around to purchasing was a good  
film scanner for digitizing my older 6x7 cm B&W negatives. I did try  
some film scans on my Epson 2450 but it always felt the scans where  
lacking in comparisons to what I knew I could get with a good  
dedicated film scanner. There is no good way to focus the 2450 and  
none of the available software for this scanner does exactly what I  
want when scanning B&W negatives. I also contemplated  sending out  
for scans but I was looking at $50+ for a good 16 bit scan and I  
really like doing these kind of things myself!

On a whim I tried shooting my medium format negatives with my Canon  
5D and I am thrilled with the results! Here is my setup:

I mounted my Canon 5D with a Canon 100mm macro F/ 2.8 USM lens on my  
copy stand. For a light source I'm using a Kaiser Prolight lightbox.  
I put down a sheet of black mat-board on top of the lightbox and cut  
out an opening the size of a single 6x7 cm frame. My exposures are  
approximately 1/6 of a sec at F/ 11. With these exposures I'm using  
the mirror lock up function of the 5D. I shoot in a dimly lit room.

I'm shooting Raw and converting the Raw riles using CS3 with camera  
Raw 4.1. Camera Raw allows amazingly good control over the contrast /  
tonality of the capture. Once in Photoshop I invert the image to a  
positive and do some further adjustments. I'm using the "reduce  
noise" filter in CS3 to smooth out the grain of my film negatives.

I'm VERY pleased with the final results... If I had sent out my  
negatives to be scanned at $50 a pop and gotten these results I would  
have felt I got my $ worth.


Has anyone else tried this technique? Anything to add?

-Jeff