through the Nikon F-Mount - Nikon ES-2 review

Nikon ES-2 Film Digitizing Adapter review

May 13, 2018

The Nikon ES-2 was announced along with the D850 in summer 2017. Nine months later, the ES-2 became available in Germany. If you have a look on Nikon's websites, you get the impression the ES-2 is only usable in conjunction with the D850. Well, the D850 has got a special mode for photographing negatives and converting the images to positives. Nevertheless, the ES-2 is usable with every DSLR. Software that reverses the colours is not an invention of Nikon - I use vuescan for it, see my article How to digitise your slides and negatives. But it would be a good idea for Nikon to include such a software into the ES-2 package or to offer software updates for their current DSLRs!

What's in the box:

First of all there is the ES-2 itself. The built quality is good. Film and slide holder are loaded from the side. On the top there is a screw that locks both extension and rotation. That is a huge improvement over the ES-1, which lacks such a screw! The built-in extension tube is made of metal and has a 52mm male screw mount.
For using the ES-2 in conjunction with the 60mm Micro-Nikkors there are two 52mm-62mm adapters. The shorter one (extension: 9mm) is called "62mm adapter A", the longer one (extension: 33mm) "62mm adapter B". Type B is for the former Micro-Nikkors 60mm f/2.8. Because the current AF-S Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8 is a heavy breather, it needs the short type A. Both adapters are made of plastic. If necessary, there are a lot of metal made alternatives available: use a 52-62mm screw mount adapter in conjunction with screw mount tubes.
The FH-4 film-holder can hold 35mm film stripes with up to six images. When loaded into the ES-2 it clicks into place for each image, which simplifies the handling significantly!
It is not possible to put a single slide mount into the ES-2. For slides, you always have to use the FH-5 that can hold up to two slides. Like the FH-4 it clicks into place. The combination FH-5 plus ES-2 only allows to hold slide mounts with a thickness of 2mm or less. That is a terrible design flaw!

The slide mount issue

A Kodachrome slide from the 60s and a Y2K slide in plastic mount from the Fujichrome lab. The FH-5 works fine with these slide mounts.

The FH-5 works fine with thin slide mounts. But with thicker mounts (more than 2mm) the ES-2 setup is simply not usable. You have to dismount your slides, which is not a good idea!

For example: I used Gepe glassless mounts with metal masks - 3mm thick - for many years. Many serious photographers use(d) these mounts. They don't fit into the FH-5!

Moreover, Nikon does not even bother to publish this restriction!

My 3mm Gepe glassless mounts with metal mask don't fit into the FH-5!

The good news

For photographing film stripes (or slides in thin mounts) the ES-2 is the best setup Nikon has ever produced. While the ES-1 needs re-aligning after each swapping of the source image, it is not necessary with the ES-2 thanks to it's locking screw. Every former setup (ES-1 or a bellow setup) requires a positioning of the piece of film. Due to the click-in-place functionality of the FHs that is not necessary with the ES-2.

Well-working setup: Nikon Df plus AF-S Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8 plus "62mm adapter A" plus ES-2 plus FH-4.

Compatibility

According to the user's manual, the ES-2 set is targeted at the AF-S Micro-Nikkor 40mm /f2.8 DX on a DX camera (no adapter needed) and at the 60mm Micro-Nikkors on an FX body (with adapters as mentiond above).

Furthermore, the manual says, the combination of an FX-format Micro-Nikkor lens and a DX camera would crop out the edges of the film. That is not true for the AF-S 60mm f/2.8, if you use adapter B. I tried this combination on my Nikon D5100 successfully. For the older 60mm f/2.8 you will need an additional screw-mount tube (well, Nikon could have put another plastic-tube into the set...).

Although AF lenses are very comfortable for digitising, you can also use manual focus lenses:

Nikon Df plus Nikon PK-12 tube plus Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 plus Nikon K5 (52mm screw-mount tube) plus ES-2 plus FH-5.