Hello
I have lurked here for a long time and have a question.
I have a coolscan 9000 and am seduced by LF (but not by the fact that decent LF scanners cost the earth)
Has anyone attempted the (sacreligious) cutting of a 4x5 neg into quarters and then scanned them into a 9000 ?
Obviously a fair bit of photoshop manipulation would be necessary to restitch them.
If I have time I will try this with a 6x7 neg this week but would be interested if anyone wlse has tried this
Cy
It's the "cutting" part that would be problematic. Generally with stitching you would want to have some overlap between scans to make the stitching seamless. If you cut the negative then you will have no overlap. I have never tried it, but stitching 2 cut pieces of scanned film back into one seamless images sounds like a very difficult proposition. You would have to but the 2 layer together in photohop, which I'm pretty sure leave a very noticeable seam. You would then be left with the chore of making that seam disappear.
Hi Greg
Thanks for the response. Those are my concerns as well.
Also, compensating for any slight rotation in any of the scanned quarters (which would be inevitable) appears on first blush to be extremely difficult.
I will have a root around and see if any suitable software exists.
Cy
Actually "decent" scanners cost relatively little. A new Epson 700/750 costs about $700 and will do an excellent job with 4x5 and 8x10 film as long as you don't print larger than about 16x20.
Brian Ellis
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you do criticize them you'll be
a mile away and you'll have their shoes.
Yes. You can get a scanner that does a reasonable job with LF film for about the cost of a single LF lens. And a mid-level used lens at that. I'm not talking about a 110mm SS-XL here.Originally Posted by Brian Ellis
Cutting the film will invariably damage the film along the cut by definition. If you enlarge this much at all you'll have trouble covering up the damage. And damage like this is particularly difficult to repair because the eye is so good at seeing straight lines. I'm just saying if you are expecting to make a large print, say an 8x enlargement, you are probably wasting your time.
As usual, the only way to know for sure is to try it and find out.
Bruce Watson
If you were able to scan four parts with some overlap there would be no problem stitching four parts of a 4X5" negative. In fact, Photoshop CS3 or higher could do it for you. However, apart from the obvious downside of cutting a negative into four parts, stitching it together would be very difficult because you have broken the link between the files and the only way to stitch would be manually, and you would have to repair the entire stitch line. I do a lot of stitching of MF negative and will assure you that this scenario would be nothing short of a nightmare for me.
My opinion is that you will get far better results with an Epson V700 or V750 than with the method you propose.
Sandy King
No no no, don't do it. Get a flatbed scanner set up for 4x5!
Actually, I just got a brand new V700 for around $550, including shipping. And for all the complaints about it not being as good as a drum scanner..... it works a lot better than cutting and stitching, I'm pretty sure.
Thanks for all the useful replies
It makes sense that if you're going to enlarge significantly, any blemishes/defects arising from the cut area will be magnified.
If you're locked into 4X5 and can only scan 60X90 mm You can take four shots on 4X5 (presuming a static scene) then cut each of the four images to 60X90 mm size with sufficient overlap of the four interior edges to facilitate an easy stitch. Helluva way to go about it but you will end up with around 320 Mp file from a Nikon 9000. This would certainly far exceed the capability of a V750 scan.
Nate Potter, Austin TX.
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