Finnish photographic brand Valoi has released a new version of its easy35 film-scanning holder.
The easy35 v2 is a follow-up to the original version of the scanning device, which has a built-in backlight and attached directly to the front of a DSLR or mirrorless camera’s lens.
Valoi said about the new version: “Achieve professional-grade scans at home with the Valoi easy35 v2 – our latest film scanning solution. Built on countless hours of development and refined through years of user feedback, it’s engineered to streamline your workflow.
“This plug-and-play tool attaches directly to your macro lens, scanning 35mm film and smaller formats up to 10× faster than a flatbed. The easy35 v2 is a complete redesign of Valoi’s most popular camera-scanning tool, featuring significant mechanical and illumination upgrades.
“By attaching directly to your macro lens, it eliminates bulky copy stands and tripods, providing a stable, light-tight environment for high-resolution digitising.”
Valois says the unit has undergone a number of improvements compared to the first version, including:
- Improved backlighting: Valoi says the unit now has 99% light uniformity compared to the 81% of the original model. It says it “ensures edge-to-edge illumination even with wide-angle lenses, effectively eliminating the “orange corners” and vignetting issues common in home scanning”.
- Optimised colour balancing: The system is designed to automatically tune out the orange mask of colour negatives, but will also work with black-and-white and positive films.
- Stronger body: Instead of 3D-printed material, the unit’s body is now made from injection-moulded ABS plastic. It’s new all-metal rotation system ensures much tighter tolerances. A new spring-loaded ball-bearing system “ensures your film holder locks perfectly in place, keeping film perfectly parallel to the sensor”.
- Longer battery life: The easy35 v2’s rechargeable battery now lasts up to four hours without recharging. The unit can also be plugged directly into the mains using a USB-C cord.
The easy35 v2 has native compatibility with 62mm lenses but can be mounted to 39mm, 46mm, 49mm, 52mm, 55mm, 58mm, 67mm filters using the supplied filter thread adapters.
The easy35v2 is available to pre-order now for a launch price of €199, with the price rising to €229 after launch.
I'm a New Zealander who has been living in London since the mid-1990s, shooting film seriously since the year 2000. Kosmo Foto was launched in 2012 and has since become a film brand, with the release of my first films Kosmo Foto Mono 35mm (2017) and Kosmo Foto Mono 120 (2019).
I’m doing everything I can to promote film photography in the 21st Century, and help it survive and thrive. If you want to write something for Kosmo Foto, please drop me a line at foto.dowling@gmail.com.
I’m glad to see they are doing this. I provided detailed feedback to Valoi on the original and its shortcomings, which I self-engineered solutions to resolve. At the time, Valoi responded to me with disdain, claiming that their product needed no improvement, and the changes I’d made were pointless and actually worse than the original. As both a customer and as an expert in my field, that didn’t feel great. I hope they have truly learned the value of listening to customer feedback and will continue improving their products.