old brownie film..scanning..help

I wrote:

Or maybe just get a piece of single-strength (thin) glass to place on
top of the brownie negative to hold it flat against the scanner glass,
and forgo the film holder. Jay Ts

I purchased a new 4990 scanner today. I realized now too that my mother
also has 127 format negs. I don't see any problem for me fabricating a
special holder for the 127 and maybe even the 120 film (each frame is
cut separately). I found an very good online hands on review of this
scanner which states the best focusing plane is 1mm above the scanner's
glass. So I'm thinking that sandwiching the negatives flat on the glass
with another sheet of glass is not the best thing to do.

The 4990 may be a little different(?), but each scanner I've used so
far is typical of flatbed scanners. They seem to use lenses with a
very small f/ratio, taking maximum advantage of huge depth of focus to
reduce sensitivity to object placement. For a brownie negative (at
least), being off by 1mm might not make any noticeable difference.
(That is to say, the camera's lens will be the main limitation in
sharpness, by far.)

However, if you want to optimize it, you can try a variable height
film holder for your scanner, available from
http://www.betterscanning.com
On that site, I read that the focus point for Epson scanners
varies from unit to unit. I did a few tests, and couldn't see
any improvement from modifying the film height for my scanner,
so I'm using just the film carriers that Epson provided.

I did try scanning a 120 negative on my 4490 by placing it directly
on the scanner glass, with a 4x5" piece of single-strength window
glass to hold it down. I didn't see any Newton's rings, but maybe
I was just lucky that time. The scan looked to me to be just slightly
fuzzier than when I used the film carrier. YMMV. If your film fits
the provided film carrier, you should probably use that.

Jay Ts

The 4990 may be a little different(?), but each scanner I've used so
far is typical of flatbed scanners. They seem to use lenses with a
very small f/ratio, taking maximum advantage of huge depth of focus to
reduce sensitivity to object placement. For a brownie negative (at
least), being off by 1mm might not make any noticeable difference.
(That is to say, the camera's lens will be the main limitation in
sharpness, by far.)

Sorry, I meant to say 4490.

On that site, I read that the focus point for Epson scanners
varies from unit to unit. I did a few tests, and couldn't see
any improvement from modifying the film height for my scanner,
so I'm using just the film carriers that Epson provided.

Okay, I'll experiment with the height.

I did try scanning a 120 negative on my 4490 by placing it directly
on the scanner glass, with a 4x5" piece of single-strength window
glass to hold it down. I didn't see any Newton's rings, but maybe
I was just lucky that time.

What do you mean by "single strength" glass? Do you mean the thinnest glass
available?

I've always wondered: why not make contact prints and scan those?
There must be some reason why this is not worth the trouble or else
people would do it.

Bob Tenney wrote:

I've always wondered: why not make contact prints and scan those?
There must be some reason why this is not worth the trouble or else
people would do it.

I presume that if you scanned at a reasonable resolution for a single neg
then scanning a complete contact sheet would be impractical due to the size
of a resultant image.

Pete

--
http://www.petezilla.co.uk

Bob Tenney wrote:

I've always wondered: why not make contact prints and scan those?
There must be some reason why this is not worth the trouble or else
people would do it.

There is: quality.
It's just not there in a contact print. So nothing much to scan.

What do you mean by "single strength" glass? Do you mean the thinnest
glass available?

I learned the term from a local glass shop. "Single-strength" is
about 1/8" thick, and is used in mirrors and other places where
the glass will have very good support. And yes, it's the thinnest
they had.

It would be better to use even thinner, anti-fringing glass
made for the purpose of holding photographic film flat.

Jay Ts

"I" wrote:
Jay Ts wrote:
The 4990 may be a little different(?),

Sorry, I meant to say 4490.

I suspect we can blame Epson's marketing department for the confusion. :-)

Jay Ts