diy film holders for scanners

[Mark_3632]

I realized that I can scan 6x17cm negs on the old man's scanner if I can make a negative holder. Has anyone done this? I don't want to scratch his glass? would cut matboard work or maybe a beware of dog sign? I modified a dark slide so I can take two 6x17 images on one 5x7 now I need a way to make them bigger.

[David A. Goldfarb]

The simplest and best I've found is just to sandwich the neg or transparency between the scanner glass and another sheet of glass. If the scanner has anti-newton glass, you can scan emulsion side up to avoid Newton's rings and flip the image, or if not, then use anti-Newton glass on top. I find I get MUCH sharper results this way on my Agfa Duoscan than I do using Agfa's glassless carriers.

[paulr]

if your scanner is fixed focus, you can use the oportunity to find the actual focal point. it's often quite a bit higher than the glass.
and if you're going to use glass, you could experiment with wet mounting using drum scan mounting fluid.

[tim atherton]

Mark - try that flexible magnetic sheet (like they make fridge magnets out of) - signwriting places usually will sell it from a big roll for a few doallrs for a couple of square feet.

cut two sheets the right size so they 'stick" together back to back then make the cutout for the film (you can cut it with a sharp craft knife). I hinge mine for 8x10 film with tape down one side. I also found I needed to add a piece of same size matt on the bottom to raise it to the sharpest point for the scanner lens.

What is nice about it is that once the two magnetic halves are closed it will hold the fim quite taught and tight

[Mark_3632]

I don't know anything about computers. Would the magnetic stuff harm the scanner?

[tim atherton]

Hasn't seemed to on any of mine I've used them on...

[Mark_3632]

thanks very much

[isaac]

The magnetic material won't be all that healthy for floppy disks (if you're still using them for some reason). It will also deflect the electrons in a CRT as they travel from the gun to the phosphors, so you'll see some nice interesting effects if you get it too close.

I can't think of anything in the scanner that should care, though. I don't think the CCD should be affected. It's possible that a photomultiplier tube would be affected by a magnet, but these flatbeds don't use them.

All bets are off if the magnet is really strong: no running the scanner in a MRI.

Cheers,

[Frank Petronio]

You can buy a decent one from this guy:


http://home.earthlink.net/~dougfisher/holder/mfholderintro.html

I got one because I was lazy. It works well, and it would have taken me several tries and many hours to arrive at anything as effective.

[Kirk Gittings]

I concure with Frank the Doug Fisher holders are relatively cheap and work well for varied 120 formats. Plus Doug is a great guy who will work with you. He is a regular on the Yahoo forum for various Epson scanners including this one for the 4870 and 4990 scanners.


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/epson4870/?yguid=197497774