Negative Supply is a fantastic company based here in California that makes, creates, and invents some of the best gear for scanning your negatives and slides at home. It wasn’t too long ago that we were all sitting at home with our flatbed scanners, Nikon Coolscans, PaKon’s, or even Imacon/Hasselblad scanners that did the job but not always in a way that was both efficient or cost-effective. Little did we know that the best scanning device was sitting in our camera bag all along, our digital camera. Enter Negative Supply. Negative Supply as stated on their site, “exists to create tools for film photographers around the world that want to spend more time photographing and less time scanning.” In short, they make beautiful tools that allow us to quickly scan film using our digital cameras and create scans that rival that of devices that are arguably harder to use and effectively cost far more than a digital camera and a scanning setup from Negative Supply. 

At the end of 2022, we collaborated with Negative Supply to produce a one-of-a-kind kit for scanning film that would be the “ultimate kit for scanning film.” This kit includes everything you need except the camera and lens to develop beautiful scans of your negatives right at home. We didn’t stop there. We took it one step further and put a custom touch on these kits, making them extra special. Each kit has our “Made In Wetzlar” logo on the film carrier and Riser and red anodized knobs. 

These kits are unique to Camera West and Leica Store San Francisco and are available only in limited quantities as it takes extra care and attention to produce these. These kits celebrate the development of 35mm photography from the birth of 35mm photography in Wetzlar, Germany, where the first 35mm negative was made, to the 35mm digital photography tools we have now. This union of analog and digital 35mm photographic tools perfectly represents the ethos behind our collective enjoyment of photography and photographic tools. Of course, we aren’t excluding 120mm and medium format photography. The kit works just as well with a Medium format digital camera, and you can add a 120mm carrier or slide carrier to add even more utility to this kit.

The Negative x Made In Wetzlar Pro Kit Inludes:

  • Pro Riser MK3 MIW Edition
  • Pro Film Carrier 35 MIW Edition
  • Pro Film Carrier 35 Full Border Scanning Cassette
  • Pro Film Carrier 35 Scanning Hood
  • 4×5 Light Source Basic 99 CRI
  • Pro Film Carrier 35 Adapter Plate for 4×5 Light Source Basic

→ Buy the Kit or just the 35mm Pro carrier Here. 

What you will need:

  • Negatives 
  • A Digital Camera (any kind will do!)
  • A Macro Lens 
  • SD Card
  • Rocket Blower
  • Antistatic Gloves
  • a Sturdy Surface for using the gear on
  • Software to convert your Negatives to Positives (We Use Film Lab Desktop)

Optional Items:

  • A Cable Release
  • An Ipad or iPhone with the Leica Photos app or an app that can control your camera (if applicable)
  • A Leveler
  • A tether cable if you’d like to tether directly to your tablet or computer.

General Camera Settings:

  • ISO 200 or below (the lower, the better to get the best image quality)
  • Aperture Priority and an Aperture of F11 (aim for around the sweet spot of your lens)
  • If you’re not tethering wirelessly or wired, or if you’re not using a cable release, you will want to set your shutter to a 2-second delay.
  • Capture Raw files for the most quality and malleability in editing.