On which consumer flatbed scanners can you do wet-mount scanning of 8x10?

[Duolab123]

Can a person do a 8x10 wet scan on a basic Canon or Epson scanner that will scan slides and 120 film? I have a Canon unit ($250?) I bought about 18 months back that I've scanned 6x17 Fujichrome from a Fuji G617. I went out to my friends lab and he made me 12" × 48" RA4 print that I think is quite good. It's too much of an enlargement if you get too close, but still it's quite stunning from 5 feet back. I have a Nikon Coolscan V that I use with Vuescan software, for my Dad's early Kodachrome slides it's amazing.
I am a scanner moron. I've never wet scanned anything. I can't enlarge any COLOR negative bigger than 4x5. Love looking at the large format Fujichrome, I've got the urge to buy a box of Velvia or Provia in 8x10, shoot some spring.
Best Regards Mike

[Steven Ruttenberg]

I would use the Epson V850 and wet mount. I use that for 4x5 wet mounted with better scan wet mount set up and works great. You can mount to a piece of ANR glass from Better scanning and then our on scanner. Just remember focus and aperture are fixed. If focus out hopefully in the direction you can shim glass with negative to raise it up. Best flat bed scanner I have used b

[Peter De Smidt]

One thing to know: If your film is at all curly, it can be very difficult to mount it properly, i.e. without bubbles, on a flatbed. On a drum scanner, the mylar cover sheet is taped to the drum, and as it's tension-ed, it pulls the film against the drum. On a flatbed, when you tape the cover sheet and pull the sheet tight, you're not pushing the coversheet and film onto the glass. Yes, in both cases you use rollers, squeegees....but in my experience, that doesn't always work. And then you have a negative which will never be as clean as before wet-mounting, even if cleaned properly with something like Kami cleaning fluid. This just happened to me last week with a medium format Acros negative.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Wet mounting is straight fwd, but requires practice. For 4x5 work I get really tight flat film mount with no air bubbles. As pointed out, you can't pull the mylar onto the glass plate, so you gotta really pay attention to details. I try not to touch my negatives at all, but always 1 or 2 that say otherwise.

I use an anti static ionizing air blower, ionizing fan air purifier and humidifier and have been able to get rid of 50-75 percent of my dust problem.

My drum scanner will be here this summer so I have a new learning curve to get over.

[Peter De Smidt]

What I"m saying is that negatives can be trouble even with a lot of practice. I've been wet-mounting on flatbed scanners since the mid 1990's. Sheet film tends to be fine, but non-flat roll-film is another story. In my experience, it's best to flatten curly film as well as you can first. If that doesn't solve the flatness issue, then sandwiching the film between two anti-Newton surfaces is a better idea than trying to wet-mount the film. That, by the way, is standard practice on pro-flatbeds.

[Alan9940]

I've been wet mounting 8x10 directly on the glass of an old Epson flatbed for years. Since that size negative takes up a major portion of the glass bed, I run tape around the bed edges to keep scanner fluid from seeping under the glass. I guess I don't scan curly film because I've never had any issues after rolling out bubbles.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

So far I scan my roll film on the Nikon LS4000 Cool scan. I have never scanned it on a flatbed, altho I am will to try that on Epson. I have two sheets of ANR glass I can use.

[Duolab123]

OK, since I have no desire to spend money on a scanner. At some point I may try wet scanning an 8x10 transparency on my Canon bargain scanner. Before I spend big money on a scanner I would buy a LED head for my 5x7 Zone VI enlarger to print color negatives from my G617. I have a D850 that I bet I could make a pretty good image of an 8x10 color transparency.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

To me, digitizing with a digital camera is not straight forward and requires a lot of extra work. My V850 cost 1000 bucks. Probably get off ebay for much less I bet or used from BH.