Scanning Negatives Enquiry

[DanMcGuire]

I could not find a forum that this would apply to, and because I am interested in sheet film negatives I will ask my question here.

What type of scanner do people use to scan their 4x5 and 5x7 negatives. I am completly unknowing about this and I would like to have a look into this.

Thank you in advance for any answers that I may receive.

Dan

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

There's a forum called "Grey area" Just look it up in the forums list, it's the dedicated spot for your question.

[Ole]

Most of the time I don't scan negatives, but make a print and scan that.

When I've said that much, I should also say that my flatbed scanner is an Agfa Duoscan T1200, which is/was capable of scanning film up to 8x10" right out of the box.

However I have found that the scanner is far better at scanning finished work, than scanning negatives and then somehow guessing what the finished prints should have looked like. I'll even make extra small prints for the purpose of scanning - most of my prints are on 24x30cm paper, which is too large for the scanner. So I make an extra print on 18x24cm paper (slightly smaller than 8x10", with better proportions for my prints).

The "correct" place for this question would be in the "Gray Area" subforum under "Alternative Processes", which due to certain quirks of some of the alternative processes is the only place where film scanning questions are "accepted" here.

[jimgalli]

I use a flatbed Epson with film scanning attachment in the lid. Like Ole says though I've never been able to invert a scan and make it look better than just printing and scanning the print.

[Helen B]

I rent an Imacon 949 by the hour for scanning my 4x5 colour negs. They look OK to me.

Best,
Helen

[Bruce Watson]

I could not find a forum that this would apply to...

Ask at the LargeFormatInfo forum.

[Pinholemaster]

Epson V750 M Pro scanner

[donbga]

I could not find a forum that this would apply to, and because I am interested in sheet film negatives I will ask my question here.

What type of scanner do people use to scan their 4x5 and 5x7 negatives. I am completly unknowing about this and I would like to have a look into this.

Thank you in advance for any answers that I may receive.

Dan

Dan,

I use an Agfa Duoscan to scan my large format negatives and it does an excellent job. Unlike Ole and Jim's reply might indicate, scanning and creating a digital image of the negative is not difficult. I can make an ink jet print that looks as good as a print made in my darkroom.

Epson has refurbished 4990s on sale on their web site for $399. I should do an excellent job.

[sanking]

I could not find a forum that this would apply to, and because I am interested in sheet film negatives I will ask my question here.

What type of scanner do people use to scan their 4x5 and 5x7 negatives. I am completly unknowing about this and I would like to have a look into this.

Thank you in advance for any answers that I may receive.

Dan

I scan 5X7 negatives with an Epson 4870. I use a special glass platform and fluid mount the negative. The fluid mount seems to help a lot in improving micro-contrast. I usually scan 5X7 at 3200 dpi, and then immediatley reduce the file size to 1600 dpi. I have tested the resolution and it is about 25-30 lppm. I make digital negatives up to 3X negative size and print in carbon and other alternative processes. Print quality at this size is close to what I get with original 12X20 in-camera original negatives.

If I wanted to make larger prints I would have the scans made with a drum scanner or Imacon.


Sandy King

[L Gebhardt]

What purpose do you want to scan for. If you are just wanting to post to the web almost any scanner will work. If you want to make large prints then you want to get a better scanner. The newest Epsons seem to do a halfway decent job, especially with negatives.

I use a Scanmate 5000 drum scanner.