Scanning old negatives - obsolete formats

[Scott Whitford]

I've recently been given a mother lode of old family negatives (that had literally been stored in old cookie tins for the past 60-70 years) for the purpose of printing and archiving. There are hundreds of them.

I've been slaving away in the darkroom making prints of select negatives (on fiber paper, polysulfide toned for long-term image stability), but I also want to digitize the whole collection if feasible. I'm a darkroom kind of guy and do not own a scanner, but am considering buying one expressly for this purpose.

The negatives are in mostly good condition considering the fact that they were all jumbled together in the original envelopes from the corner drug store where they were processed during the '30's and '40's. At least half of the negatives are on nitrate base but have not decomposed. Yes, I have researched nitrate negatives and understand the issues there.

The biggest challenge I see for scanning is that there is a bewildering assortment of formats - many of them long obsolete.

They range in size from 4x5 sheet film down to 35mm (but only a handful of 35mm).

The majority are various sizes of roll film...127...6cm X 6cm.....4 cm x 4 cm....up to 125 format roll film, and many bizarre sizes in between. The 125 was a fascinating roll film format...the negatives measured about 3 1/4" x 5 1/2"! About the right size to contact print to post card size. Yep, the spools were nearly 4 inches high!

I'm thinking a flatbed scanner like the Epson 4490 or V700 might be the best solution.

Again, my biggest concern is the plethora of odd formats. Surely they don't make film holders for these crazy old formats. Can the negatives simply be laid on the glass (in an arrangement similar to the way you'd make a contact print on 8x10 paper) and still get a decent scan?

Any comments or recommendations?


Scott

[Oren Grad]

You might try contacting Doug Fisher (http://www.betterscanning.com/) to see what he recommends.

[PenGun]

You can put them on the glass. That's the way 8x10 is scanned on my V700 anyway.

The only problem would be something like the 8x10 'area guide', used to I guess position the negatives, but I would guess you can make what you want with mattboard or corefoam if you feel the need.

You might need a bit of acrylic, or preferably some 'anti newton' glass to flatten some curly ones

[Joanna Carter]

I would buy any scanner that supports Doug Fisher's scanning mount; it comes with sheets of masking material that can be cut to any size.

[dwhistance]

I'd start by scanning them all on the glass. Then when you know which ones you want better scans of invest in appropriate holders/mounts.

David Whistance

[PenGun]

I'd start by scanning them all on the glass. Then when you know which ones you want better scans of invest in appropriate holders/mounts.

David Whistance

You get 4800 SPI on the V700's glass. Whatever that number might mean it will be enough for any reasonable use.

[drew.saunders]

You could get a big 8x10 or so slab of AN glass from http://www.fpointinc.com/glass.htm, lay all the various and sundry negatives on the V700's glass, then place the other AN glass on top to flatten them all out and keep them in place.

When I was doing Type 55 on my Epson 3200, I used post-its to "tape" the film to the glass and a 5x7 piece of AN glass from that above site to hold them down. Worked just fine.

[Jim Galli]

I just lay mine right on the glass. Occasionally I get newton rings but not too often. I've also made holders by cutting a window the right size in 2 pieces of mat board and taping them together to make custom sized neg holders. I use those in the enlarger too.