35mm Contact frame recommendation

I am currently producing contact sheets by placing my 35mm negatives in the
typical, clear, 3 hole, binder punched, sleeve pages and then sandwiching
the thing between photo paper and a pane of glass for exposure.

With the light passing through the glass and two layers of polyethelene, it
results in fuzzy images that leave something to be desired.

Any contact frame recommendations?

On 4/28/2005 2:17 AM Michael J Rodney Sr. spake thus:

I am currently producing contact sheets by placing my 35mm negatives in the
typical, clear, 3 hole, binder punched, sleeve pages and then sandwiching
the thing between photo paper and a pane of glass for exposure.

With the light passing through the glass and two layers of polyethelene, it
results in fuzzy images that leave something to be desired.

Any contact frame recommendations?

Depends; I made my own, basically a "window", a stout wood frame that holds
the glass, hinged to a piece of plywood. I put thin sheets of foam rubber
underneath the film/paper sandwich to bring it up to the level of the glass,
then lock the frame down with a latch. Works extremely well. Requires minimal
woodworking skills.

If these you lack, I guess you have to buy a ready-made contact frame. eBay?
(I've got one on there right now, but it's only a 5x7.)


--
It's a good guess that one of two things is going to happen in the
coming days and weeks: Either Bolton goes down—-or we start learning
a lot of unpleasant things about Sen. George Voinovich.

- _Slate_, 4/19/05 (http://slate.msn.com/id/2117028/)

In article ,
"Michael J Rodney Sr." writes:

Any contact frame recommendations?

I picked up one of these recently:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...u=46133&is=REG

It's basically just a hunk of plastic with grooves for seven 5-frame
strips of film, so you can fit 35 exposures on one 8x10 sheet of paper, at
least if cutting the film in 5-exposure strips is acceptable to you. It
does the job; however, the emulsion side of the film passes awfully close
to a sharp plastic edge, so I'm nervous that I might end up scratching
film. (I've only used it to proof one roll of film, but didn't scratch any
negatives.) It's also awfully expensive for a fairly simple piece of
plastic.

--
Rod Smith,
http://www.rodsbooks.com
Author of books on Linux, FreeBSD, and networking

"Rod Smith" wrote

I picked up one of these recently:

[Saunder's Super Proofer]


http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...tails&Q=&sku=4
6133&is=REG

I also use one. It is the best thing I have found so far, but for
convenience I contact a page of negative sleeves: faster; less chance
of finger prints; mediocre image quality.

It's also awfully expensive [$19.95] for a fairly simple piece of
plastic.

True of much photographic equipment.

If product volume is low then the price has to
be high to recover the cost of tooling. Tooling
costs of $100,000 are the norm - if sales are
1000 units/year then the interest cost on the
capital is $10/unit.

--
Nicholas O. Lindan, Cleveland, Ohio
Consulting Engineer: Electronics; Informatics; Photonics.
To reply, remove spaces: n o lindan at ix . netcom . com
psst.. want to buy an f-stop timer? nolindan.com/da/fstop/

Thanks to all who responded.

As Rod and Nicholas suggested, for twenty bucks, I'll order the Saunders and
try it.

Twenty bucks is a lot to spend on photo gear, but what the hell.

While I am waiting for it to arrive, I will also make one similar to David's
suggestion, from a bit of aged plywood my bride threatened to throw out long
ago, the glass pane I already have, and a bit o' foam.

Black and White Magazine, here I come.......


"Michael J Rodney Sr." wrote in message
...
I am currently producing contact sheets by placing my 35mm negatives in the
typical, clear, 3 hole, binder punched, sleeve pages and then sandwiching
the thing between photo paper and a pane of glass for exposure.

With the light passing through the glass and two layers of polyethelene,
it results in fuzzy images that leave something to be desired.

Any contact frame recommendations?

Michael,

A couple of thoughts. When I first started out doing my contacts with
glass, I used thin (1/8 inch) picture frame glass. This is clearly not
robust enough to hold the negatives to the paper. I stopped by a glass
store, and they had a piece of slightly irregular 11X14 1/4 inch
glass(for free), which has worked great- just sand the edges and be
carefull of the dust. Also, make sure that the emulsion side of the
negative is next to the paper. Lastly, if your negs have been recently
developed, they may still have some curvature., which tends to push the
neg away from the paper- i may press gently along the glass edges
during exposure to keep them flat. Good luck.

"Pathos" wrote

A couple of thoughts. When I first started out doing my contacts with
glass, I used thin (1/8 inch) picture frame glass. This is clearly not
robust enough to hold the negatives to the paper. [I use] 11X14 1/4 inch
glass ... sand the edges and be careful of the dust ...

Bringing to mind another capitalist consumer creation for contacting.
"Print File" (?) makes (made?) a proofer just for their negative
pages made from a sheet of ground edge 1/4" glass hinged to
a foam covered metal back. IIRC it worked well.

--
Nicholas O. Lindan, Cleveland, Ohio
Consulting Engineer: Electronics; Informatics; Photonics.
To reply, remove spaces: n o lindan at ix . netcom . com
psst.. want to buy an f-stop timer? nolindan.com/da/fstop/