Question:
I have hundreds of 35mm color slides. Can I use my Olympus digital camera to digitize them?

Answer:
Normally, digitizing 35mm slides is done with a film scanner, which can be a costly accessory. In addition, scanning can be time consuming, especially if the slide archive to be copied is large. Your Olympus DSLR or PEN cameras can be used to digitize slides for viewing on a TV, computer or for making prints. You will have to build a simple slide holder to hold the slides in position. All you really need is a small block of wood with a groove cut across it to hold the slide upright in front of the camera. Tape the block of wood down to a surface so it doesn’t move. Behind the block setup a white card at a 45 degree angle, and illuminate the card with a lamp to that the slide is backlit. Then mount the camera on a tripod so that you can line up the camera with the slides.

To copy slides you will have to set up the camera for macro photography. If your camera came with a 14-42 mm Zuiko Digital lens, you can make it into a macro lens by mounting it on the camera with the EX-25 Extension Tube, which mounts the lens 25mm from the sensor. Moving the lens forward this way allows the lens to focus much closer, but the lens will not be able to focus beyond macro distances. You will need to move the distance of the slide to the lens and try different zoom settings until you can fill the viewfinder with the slide in focus. If you have other lenses, you can experiment with using them with the EX-25.

You can also use the Zuiko Digital 35mm f3.5 Macro or the Zuiko Digital ED 50mm f2.0 Macro lenses to digitize slides. Being macro lenses, they do not require the EX-25 Extension Tube to fill up the frame with a slide.

If you are shooting with a PEN camera, in order to use the above setups, you will need the MMF-1 or MMF-2 (Four Thirds Lens Adapter to Micro Four Thirds lens Adapter) to mount Four-Thirds mount equipment to a Micro Four Thirds PEN camera.

Instead of autofocus, use the Manual Focus (MF) focus option to critically focus the image of the slide on the Live View display and use the enlarged view to arrive at even finer focus accuracy.

Set ANTI-SHOCK in the camera’s menu to at least five seconds to minimize any shutter vibration when you shoot. Be sure to set the White Balance to agree with the light source, and use a medium f-stop (f8.0 or f9.0) for better sharpness at such close shooting distances.

You have the option of using the various camera menu settings to make corrections and enhancements of each slide as you shoot. Remember to dust off each slide on both sides with a blower brush or ”canned air” before copying so that you will have less cleanup later on in post-processing.

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