Easy way to make digital contact prints?

[JoelBelmont]

I work with B&W 4x5" negs, and always make traditional contact prints/sheets (four to a page) for reference.

Is there anyone out there having success with a quicker way to scan/print them? I was thinking something faster like a document scanner (since it would take a long time to do a few hundred on a traditional flatbed), but not sure if the quality would be good enough...?

Also, it would be useful to me to have them in a digital format.

Thanks for any advice.

~Joel Belmont

[Steve Wadlington]

I scan 4 at a time on Epson 4990 for contact use at 600dpi.

[ignatiusjk]

Just make 4x6's and snip a little off of each side. Or you can make 3 1/5 x 5's.

[JoelBelmont]

Not sure if you are getting my question. I am looking for a way to scan 8x10" plastic sheets (each holding 4-4x5" negs) that is QUICK, like a document scanner. I don't want to run 400 scans on a flatbed... there has to be an easier way.

[Steve Wadlington]

If 4 at a time on a flatbed is not fast enough for you! Put them on a light table and shoot them with a digital camera, it would be good enough for contacts.

[sanking]

Shooting the negatives with a digital camera would surely be the fastest way to make the contact prints.

However, scanning them four at a time, with the negatives in plastic negative sheets, is also very fast. I figure one could easily do 80-100 sheets of film in an hour scanning four at a time at 300 dpi.



Sandy King






If 4 at a time on a flatbed is not fast enough for you! Put them on a light table and shoot them with a digital camera, it would be good enough for contacts.

[JoelBelmont]

If 4 at a time on a flatbed is not fast enough for you! Put them on a light table and shoot them with a digital camera, it would be good enough for contacts.

Interesting idea... way to think outside the box.

[Steve Wadlington]

I ran a test using a Nikon D200 to shoot a 6x17cm neg in 5 sections (camera turned vertical). Density range on tmx in pcathd was easily covered, overall all image quality surpassed my epson 4990 at 2400dip. I hate stitching. Did I mention, I really hate stitching!! PS CS4 is supposed to handle stitching much better, when I update I may try again.

[Jeffrey Sipress]

I set up a Beseler 4102 slide duplicator with a 4x5 diffusion box and make digital images of my films with my 1Ds Mark III. Thirty seconds a shot!

[David A. Goldfarb]

Just for the web and small prints, I've been using the copy stand/lightbox/digicam/stitching method for years just with my little 3.3 Mpix Coolpix 990, and it's not too bad actually, and much quicker than a scanner if you can do it in one or even two shots. With a modern DSLR, a decent macro lens, and stitching I wouldn't be surprised if you could do better than a consumer flatbed.

Here's a two image manual stitch in CS2 using the above method from a 4x10" color transparency (8x10" Sinar P, half-darkslide mask, Fuji Astia, 81B filter, 12"/6.8 Gold Dot Dagor)--

http://flickr.com/photos/davidagoldfarb/3103179918/sizes/o/

The full size image is 3544 x 1384 pixels and makes a respectable 4x10" inkjet print.

For 4x5" and smaller, I put the neg or transparency in one of my Omega D glass neg carriers on the light box, with the neg oriented in the carrier as it would be in the enlarger, but the carrier is face up on the light box, so the emulsion side is toward the lens. With larger formats, I put the neg face up with a sheet of glass over it. Then I flip the image digitally.

The main thing I use the camera and copystand for is archiving documents, which is way faster than using a flatbed scanner. For opaque things like documents and prints, I've got two Norman LH-2 portable strobe heads with 19" octaboxes and a little Norman 202 AC power pack. I can easily do 150-200 pages in about a half hour, and the quality with maximum file compression is still good enough for OCR, if I need that.