There’s a really long thread about “DSLR scanning” already on the forum, so think of these posts in this thread as a child of that conversation that might be useful for people who want to build a straightforward, cheap and reliable way of “scanning” 4x5 negatives with readily-available equipment. Needless to say there are endless other ways to do this – many of which have already been mentioned in the big “DSLR Scanning” thread. Think of this posting as some detailed notes on one specific approach. If what I’ve done meets your needs, the approach is relatively easy (and cheap!) to replicate.

My goal was to develop a system for easily producing “scans” of my 4x5 negatives at 2,667 ppi. I’m not interested in scanning at the highest possible resolution I might potentially need; if I ever need more than I can produce using this approach, I’ll have the negative drum scanned. Instead, I’ve designed a system to give me what I actually need most of the time. Note that the basic design is easy to adapt (e.g., if you need more ppi).

In addition to some notes on the “hardware” I’m using, I’ve also written up some comments for people, like me, who are working mostly in Lightroom (last post in this initial set).

If you find this useful, great. If you have suggestions for how to improve the design of the system -- also great and most welcome.

Rob de Loe
Guelph, ON