converting old negatives to digital

"jeremy" writes:

I find scratches all over the newly-developed film. It must be the
processing machine. Without ICE3, I'd have given up on film. A film
scanner without ICE3 is simply a waste of time.

I had the same problem at a photo lab I used. They swore they'd
checked and corrected that problem in their machine, but still I got
the scratches. I then switched labs and have seen only one scratch in
one picture during the last year. I don't know what equipment the
previous one used, but the new one has Fuji Frontier equipment (older
and newer machines during the last year I've used their services.)

My house is very dusty no matter how much I try keep it clean, probably
due to my two cats, so dust is my main problem with film. ICE3 makes the
dust a complete non-problem for me on color negative and slide film.
Black and white negative film must be handled very religiously to avoid
excess dust. I wish they developed a "ICE3 for B/W film" technology already.

In message , Toni Nikkanen
writes
snip
My house is very dusty no matter how much I try keep it clean, probably
due to my two cats, so dust is my main problem with film. ICE3 makes the
dust a complete non-problem for me on color negative and slide film.
Black and white negative film must be handled very religiously to avoid
excess dust. I wish they developed a "ICE3 for B/W film" technology already.


I love b&w photography but only take colour slides (and colour digital
images). I convert to b&w on my computer, and get a lot more options
doing it that way than starting out with b&w film. Also D-ICE works a
treat with Fujichrome!

--
Surfer!
Email to: ramwater at uk2 dot net

Surfer! writes:

I love b&w photography but only take colour slides (and colour digital
images). I convert to b&w on my computer, and get a lot more options
doing it that way than starting out with b&w film. Also D-ICE works a
treat with Fujichrome!

That's a good option but I like the self-developing part, messing with
chemicals and so on. Granted I could develope color slide film myself
as well, but I have always told myself it's too much more troublesome
to do myself.

Toni Nikkanen wrote:
Surfer! writes:

I love b&w photography but only take colour slides (and colour digital
images). I convert to b&w on my computer, and get a lot more options
doing it that way than starting out with b&w film. Also D-ICE works a
treat with Fujichrome!

That's a good option but I like the self-developing part, messing with
chemicals and so on. Granted I could develope color slide film myself
as well, but I have always told myself it's too much more troublesome
to do myself.

You certainly *can* develop slide film yourself. I've done it, to a
total of probably over 100 rolls (with various friends; I never did it
as my own primary way to get it done). Modern color emulsions are
designed for automated processing -- so they depend on accurate
temperature and time control to a degree that's hard to do manually, and
very easy in automated equipment. Also, unless you shoot a lot, your
chemicals my expire from old age before you get your full use of them,
which runs the price up a lot.

The amount of variation you can get by applying various B&W developers
to various B&W films is so huge that I can see the attraction of
continuing to do it. I've got the darkroom in boxes still, and I had
planned to not give up the tanks and reels and basic developing stuff
even if I did finally sell the enlarger (which is by now worth nothing;
should have done it 20 years ago).

On Sun, 28 Jan 2007 14:29:23 -0600, David Dyer-Bennet
wrote:

THO wrote:
In article ,
David Dyer-Bennet wrote:

THO wrote:

That's crazy. There is a century worth of slides and rollfilm from the
1900s that individuals and institutions will be moving to digital for
many years to come.

Stuff that old will be scanned using flatbeds with transparency
adapters, mostly, rather than dedicated film scanners. And *certainly*
not with 35mm film scanners :-).

The stuff isn't that old. How many of us have 20-50 years worth of film?

Hmm; 1900s meant solidly the first part of the century to me, and mostly
the first decade. If you take it to mean the whole 20th century then it
includes lots of 35mm stuff, sure, including most of mine.

Then again, I don't think film that hasn't at least started moving to
digital has much chance. I'm not *done* yet, but I'm on my second 35mm

Why would you say it doesn't have much chance?
The film will probably outlast the digital media on which its placed.
Only if the digital information is properly caredfore and updated
periodically will it sustain a long life.

scanner (currently on loan to a friend for *him* to get caught up on old
film).
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

In message , THO
writes
In article ,
David Dyer-Bennet wrote:

THO wrote:
In article ,
David Dyer-Bennet wrote:

The long-strip scanning sounds interesting -- if you have your film in
long strips, which nobody I know does. It's certainly not how
non-photographers would have it. (I believe the original poster said

I think you're talking about the primefilm scanners which have the
ability to pull in an entire roll of negatives. They would be uncut
because you'd ask your lab or local drug store to not cut the negatives.
They'll usually deliver them in an old 35mm canister. Going this route,
you avoid the cost of prints and may only pay $2 for C41 developing.

And, in every case I've examined, have an *amazing* level of scratches
on the film, from rubbing layers against each other. You can get
develop-only film returned cut still.

Of course, you can get it cut.

And then you can't use one of the roll feeders (Nikon do one as well as
PrimeFilm) to scan the whole lot in one go, which is where this bit of
the thread came from.

--
Surfer!
Email to: ramwater at uk2 dot net

Roger wrote:
On Sun, 28 Jan 2007 14:29:23 -0600, David Dyer-Bennet
wrote:

THO wrote:
In article ,
David Dyer-Bennet wrote:

THO wrote:

That's crazy. There is a century worth of slides and rollfilm from the
1900s that individuals and institutions will be moving to digital for
many years to come.
Stuff that old will be scanned using flatbeds with transparency
adapters, mostly, rather than dedicated film scanners. And *certainly*
not with 35mm film scanners :-).
The stuff isn't that old. How many of us have 20-50 years worth of film?
Hmm; 1900s meant solidly the first part of the century to me, and mostly
the first decade. If you take it to mean the whole 20th century then it
includes lots of 35mm stuff, sure, including most of mine.

Then again, I don't think film that hasn't at least started moving to
digital has much chance. I'm not *done* yet, but I'm on my second 35mm

Why would you say it doesn't have much chance?

It'll be thrown out when the photographer dies, mostly.

The film will probably outlast the digital media on which its placed.

Not if it's color.

Only if the digital information is properly caredfore and updated
periodically will it sustain a long life.

We'll see. Color film is often significantly faded in 50 years. I
think good CDs and DVDs are going to turn out to mostly make that
benchmark (accelerated aging tests are suggesting a couple of hundred
years might work).

Black and white silver-gelatine film lasts a lot better, and probably
would outlast the digital media if both were unmaintained.

"Toni Nikkanen" wrote in message
...
Surfer! writes:

I love b&w photography but only take colour slides (and colour
digital
images). I convert to b&w on my computer, and get a lot more options
doing it that way than starting out with b&w film. Also D-ICE works
a
treat with Fujichrome!

That's a good option but I like the self-developing part, messing with
chemicals and so on. Granted I could develope color slide film myself
as well, but I have always told myself it's too much more troublesome
to do myself.

Ah, brings back memories. Still got my old Nikor SS tanks and reels
downstairs somewhere (probably even a can of Microdol-X too).
Used to be able to load that 35mm reel in about 30 seconds flat.
Always got a kick out of the static "glow" you got when you peeled
the tape off the end of the film at the hub. Nothin like a good
sniff of stop bath to clear the old nose @!@

mikey

On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 10:34:39 -0600, David Dyer-Bennet
wrote:

Roger wrote:
On Sun, 28 Jan 2007 14:29:23 -0600, David Dyer-Bennet
wrote:

THO wrote:
In article ,
David Dyer-Bennet wrote:

THO wrote:

That's crazy. There is a century worth of slides and rollfilm from the
1900s that individuals and institutions will be moving to digital for
many years to come.
Stuff that old will be scanned using flatbeds with transparency
adapters, mostly, rather than dedicated film scanners. And *certainly*
not with 35mm film scanners :-).
The stuff isn't that old. How many of us have 20-50 years worth of film?
Hmm; 1900s meant solidly the first part of the century to me, and mostly
the first decade. If you take it to mean the whole 20th century then it
includes lots of 35mm stuff, sure, including most of mine.

Then again, I don't think film that hasn't at least started moving to
digital has much chance. I'm not *done* yet, but I'm on my second 35mm

Why would you say it doesn't have much chance?

It'll be thrown out when the photographer dies, mostly.

The film will probably outlast the digital media on which its placed.

Not if it's color.

The key in color processing is generally the wash. properly
processed, washed, and stored negatives and slides should easily last
50 if not a 100 years. I have many that are over 50 in good shape. I
have a few that are showing deterioration in 20.


Only if the digital information is properly caredfore and updated
periodically will it sustain a long life.

We'll see. Color film is often significantly faded in 50 years. I

I would not say often based on my own experience. I certainly do see a
few, but not enough to come near saying often. Typically the stuff
I've processed myself is in better shape than the commercial labs.
OTOH the best is those of the Kodachrome lineage. I have maybe a half
dozen of those that have shown a color shift, but those had led a hard
life and spend a lot of time in a projector. With Ektachrome OTOH I've
seen a number of rolls that have a definite darkening and blue shift.
That has to be something in the processing. I'd guess (more than
likely) it is due to either insufficient bleach or insufficient wash
before the bleach.

think good CDs and DVDs are going to turn out to mostly make that
benchmark (accelerated aging tests are suggesting a couple of hundred
years might work).

Practice is already showing they have been highly optimistic in those
tests. There have been some unexpected things such as a fungus, and
layer separation without any real explanation as to why. The Kodak
Gold CDs were probably the best by far, but they are no longer
available as far as I know. Now we need something like that in DVDs
and dual layer DVDs. Dual layer brigs up another "?". With the Blue
Ray and HD DVDs coming on line what is going to happen to the regular
dual layer DVDs?

This also brings up the question: What good is a 100 year guarantee if
you most likely will not be able to read the media in 20 years, or if
the company changes hands, or goes out of business?

http://www.rogerhalstead.com/scanning.htm


Black and white silver-gelatine film lasts a lot better, and probably
would outlast the digital media if both were unmaintained.

Maintenance is one of the important tasks.
The biggest problem with digital media besides an indeterminate life
time is format. With the rapid changes in technology it's doubtful
we'll be reading the same CDs and DVDs for much more than a decade
which will require transferring the contents to new media. So we can
probably plan on needing to transfer to new media about every decade
even if the storage is perfect as in a short time the hard ware to
read the media may no longer be available.

BTW speaking of media: I have a computer in the basement that uses
dual 8" floppy disks. I have the computer (OSI C2-8P), dual 8" drives,
and two big boxes of disks. Finding something to read those big disks
that hold all of 320K each could be a problem. OTOH I really don't
have any need to read them, but today's media is facing the same sort
of obsolescence.

One other instance, last week I was backing up files. I had about 25
DVDs on a spindle that is about two years old. I went through 10 with
five failures on file validation. I threw out the rest and used new
ones with no failures. Speeds were set properly and all of the drives
are relatively new. I had some old CDs on which they worked fine.

Also storing on digital media is shifting to DVDs from CDs. I've
scanned over 30,000 slides and negatives in the past couple of years.
Most of these files are 68 to 130 Megs. I now shoot mostly digital
but those files are on the order of 15 megs (give or take) each when
uncompressed into TIFFs from NEFs. I end up shooting about 70 to 100
Gigs a year in recent years.

At any rate the long term storage (CD or DVD) for the average user
needs to be verified at the time of writing and again every few years
at most. IF any deterioration shows up the checking time should be
cut in half for safety. But once any deterioration shows up the
entire batch needs to be moved onto new media. Keeping track of
several hundred DVDs full of images is a job by itself. When you pass
500 it's work. Much more than a 1000 and it's nice to have help and
that usually doesn't come free. About the only thing more boring than
checking disks for data integrity is cultivating Navy beans the first
time through. Only an old farmer would under stand that one. :-))

Magnetic media as well as DVD R/W and CD R/W disks are not viable
media for long term storage. External HDs are good for short term
storage and back up and more cost effective than DVDs or CDs even when
they are free as my last batch of 50 were.
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

On Sun, 28 Jan 2007 07:11:02 +0000 (UTC), (Geoffrey
S. Mendelson) wrote:

jeremy wrote:
Lots of families have tons of negs and slides--many probably that were taken
by family members who have passed on by now--and there may not be enough
interest in spending more for a film scanner than one could spend on items
that are perceived to yield a lot more service to a lot more people.

My wife's sister is a typical user. She has collected all the family
photographs she could find, going back to her father's youth. She scans
them at 300dpi on a flatbed scanner. She made up a CD-ROM of the jpegs
and sent it to her brother and sisters. As she finds new ones she emails
them.


Might I suggest http://www.rogerhalstead.com/scanning.htm as a place
to start for scanning, particularly the "old family slides and
negatives", and go from there.


At 300 dpi the pictures look fine on the screen and make decent same size
prints.

This can be done with almost any flat bed scanner.

Negatives are another issue, Epson makes nice 4800dpi flat bed scanners
with a slot for 35mm negatives (up to 6 at a time) and a place for slides.
These scanners sell, AFAIK, for less than $200 in the U.S.

Since most people have negatives cut in strips of six, a 36 or 40 roll
film capability, APS, or medium format, are expensive items they never
really need. 1200 DPI is more than sufficient for the average home
user, it gives the equivalent of 2MP. 4800 gives you 16 times that,
around 34MP.

With those capabilites, relatively low price and added ability to scan
prints, papers for faxing and copying, etc, no one wants to spend more
for a dedicated film scanner.

Geoff.
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com