From https://www.flickr.com/groups/canondslr/discuss/72157620448786604
Well, I've archived over 500 shots this weekend and it's working really well. Since you asked, here's exactly how I did it :-)
*
Tripod with legs barely extended, splayed wide for stability so the
camera body is only about 40cm off the ground. Fully-adjustable ball
head and/or horizontal centre column. I use a Manfrotto 190 with
standard rubber feet.
* DSLR with a macro lens with 1:1 capability - or near enough - pointing straight down (use a spirit level on the screen.)
*
Lightbox - I got a tiny lightbox (size of a small paperback book) from
the clearance bin at Jessops in London. I chose a small one for cost
(didn't want to waste much money on an experiment) and the fact that my
apartment is small and cluttered. In fact, the box's small size turned
out to be an asset during shooting, as you'll see.
As I was set
up on the wooden floor, I needed so sit on the floor for extended
periods so a cushion was necessary :-) If you can set up on a low coffee
table so that it's comfortable to sit on a chair while you peer through
the viewfinder then that may be a better solution. Don't set up on a
carpet or rug - you need a hard, smooth surface. Also remember to set up
somewhere fairly shady and without overhead lighting. Reflections from
the surface of the lightbox or negative will ruin the shot.
Here's how it looked:

*
Fiddle endlessly with the tripod to get the focus and framing exactly
right - you want to capture the full frame plus a little of the
surrounding area. Without a little room to maneuvre you'll spend ages
framing each shot to avoid slicing off bits of the frame. If you have a
lot of negatives to get through you'll regret it. On the other hand, the
more megapixels you have in the actual negative the better the
resolution. With ISO 100 consumer colour print film I found the grain to
be quite a bit bigger than the pixels on my 8MP 20D, so a 10% margin
all round was fine. This part is tedious but crucial. I used my trusty
old 20D so that it could be left set up for a few days without
interfering with my normal shooting. If you only have one camera body
then make sure you have a quick-release plate so you don't have to
fiddle with the tripod or head between sessions, it'll drive you crazy.
Failing that, or if you can't leave the tripod set up in between
sessions, measure the leg extensions and head height and make notes so
they're easier to replicate later.
* Focus on a negative, switch to manual focus and tweak until you're sure it's a sharp as possible.
*
Set the ISO to 100 and take some shots of blank and non-blank negatives
to determine the required exposure very carefully. You want to 'expose
to the right' but without any possibility of blown highlights in the
negative itself. Some/most of the sprocket holes will blow out (and
flash during histogram review) if you're doing it right. Bear in mind
that the base colour of different films varies quite a lot, so be
cautious and do your experimentation on one of the lightest films you
have - Agfacolour for example is a light lilac colour, whereas some of
the Kodacolour films are a deep orange. You won't have the patience to
check the histogram with every shot, and blown highlights are impossible
to recover. On the other hand, I suppose, they translate to 'blown
blacks' so the effect isn't disastrous - you'll probably find the dark
parts of the shot pretty ugly anyway if you've got used to digital.
Anyway, I digress. Once you've calculated the correct exposure, use
manual mode with the aperture on the lens set to f/8-f/16. The shutter
speed will work out somewhere between 1/10 and 1s unless you have a
weird lightbox. You need the small aperture for decent depth of field -
some negatives are a bit curved and although you can reduce that by
flattening the frames either side you risk scratching them and will slow
yourself down. The curvature's correctible in post processing, unless
it's really extreme. Flattening with a glass sheet, by the way, is not
recommended. Not only do you reduce contrast and risk scratches, you
also risk interference patterns ('Newton's rings') from the trapped air
layer, which are really ugly.
* Set capture mode to Raw+smallest jpg.
*
Take a shot of a blank neg and set the white balance to 'custom' and
use this as the reference point. It doesn't matter for the raw shot but
the thumbnail jpgs will look nicer 'out of the box'.
* If you
haven't worked with film for a while I should remind you of the
vulnerability of negatives to scratches and fingerprints. Individual
shots can also be messed up by dust and hairs and you might not see them
throught the viewfinder. Keep a rocket blower handy, keep your gear
clean and wash & dry your hands regularly. Cool clothing helps
reduce hand sweat too.
* Set 'Mirror Lockup' to ON in your Custom
Functions menu and set the drive mode to Self Timer. On my 20D it
defaults to a 2s delay which is perfect.
* Try to get the
orientation of the neg strip correct before shooting. It's not much
effort to flip/rotate the files on the computer but it's almost zero to
get it right first time.
* Shoot a whole film and then go to the
computer and do your final checks for highlights, pixel-peeping for
sharpness (i.e. focus and/or shake). During shooting I found positioning
the negatives to be fairly easy if I just dropped the strips onto the
light box 'any old how' and then fine-tuned the position by moving and
rotating the lightbox itself. It's much easier to be precise and avoids
too much touching of the negative. This is the reason that a small
lightbox is better - you don't want it knocking your tripod legs or
needing two hands to move because you'll have one hand on the shutter
most of the time. Try to ensure the edges of the negative and viewfinder
frames are close to parallel - rotating shots by a degree here and a
degree there is a pain.
Here's an example jpg straight from the camera:

*
On the computer, batch invert all the jpgs so you have 'thumbnails'
that can be understood without the need for LSD, and leave the raw files
alone. Resist the temptation to fiddle with the raw files before
they've been properly archived and backed up.
* Be organised -
shoot a whole film, then put the negs back in their sleeves and file
them away in a separate place so they don't get mixed up with the
yet-to-be-shot ones. Same goes for putting them in separate
directories/folders on the computer. When you get in the groove you'll
be churning through a 36-exp film every 3-4 minutes, so the shots
quickly mount up. Shoot on two different memory cards so one is
downloading while the other is being shot.
So, how to produce the
finished article? Open up a raw file, invert it, adjust the exposure
with reference to the histogram and then fix the colours, which will
have a pronounced blue cast. I found the 'black dropper' (using the
unexposed frame edge if necessary) and 'white dropper' to be sufficient
for 95% of the shots, with only occasional recourse to more careful
channel adjustment needed for some of my very oldest films.
Here is the finished product, processed from the raw file of the jpg above:

Beats
paying money for a big slow scanner you might never use again (and
fighting with crappy software, for that matter). Let me know if you have
any questions, and feel free to add your own tips.