As an introduction, I'm not a large format photographer, but my father was. I found this forum searching for information on good large format negative scanners.
My father was a professional photographer in Los Angeles and later the Central Coast of California. He graduated from Art Center in 1947 after his education was interrupted by WW II and was a commercial photographer for many years. His long life finally came to an end last September at 100. His body just wore out.
My sister didn't want to deal with the stuff from the estate so she shipped it all to me (I'm near Portland, OR). My father probably had some OCD. He was finicky about taking care of his equipment and kept everything. On top of photography he was also into trains, books, and classical music. There's lots of all categories to go through.
During the Christmas break I started into the photography stuff. My sister would like to get scans of all the negatives so we know what we have. Of the 4X5 negatives, there are probably more than 1000 probably a lot more than that. I haven't found them yet, but there are 8X10 negatives too. When Nikon came out with the Nikon F he began to switch to smaller formats and most of what he shot after 1960 was 35mm with some 120mm.
I found an Epson 4870 scanner, but I have no idea if it still works. It was shipped to me without the locks engaged. I started searching for information on more modern scanners capable of scanning the large negatives. From reading it appears the purists prefer wet mount scanning, but with over 1000 negatives to scan, we need something that we can get a medium resolution decent quality scan quickly, then we can decide if we want to get fiddly with more involved techniques for a few that we want to get done with more detail.
There is also a ton of photographic equipment I'll be selling on. Virtually all of it is in excellent condition. Last weekend I found his Rollie and in another box was the box the Rollei came in. All look virtually new. I've found two 4X5 cameras and an 8X10. One of the 4X5s and the 8X10 are in their own trunks. I've just started scratching the surface of the camera equipment. I may have some questions about what some of the accessories are as I dig them out.
While I can appreciate keeping the old skills alive with film photography and I can appreciate the technical details (being both a history geek and an engineer), my life doesn't lend itself to pursuing this kind of hobby. I have other hobbies I haven't been able to do much with for years. Life's responsibilities get in the way.
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