use your camera to digitize large-format negatives. - digital doc camera

The problem with the last few years is that I have scanned all my 35mm negatives and now have a digital copy of all the negatives (over 14,000 -phew! ).
But I still have hundreds of very old ones-
The format negatives my family has taken for decades and I can't scan because they are too big to fit into my scanner.
I have some prints made of negatives, but the print scan quality of 300 DPI is trivial and the dynamic range of prints is absolutely limited.
To make matters worse, for those negatives that are not printed, it is impossible to know who or what they are.
I want a quick and easy way to turn the negative into a front and decide that my new digital camera can create these digital copies for me --
All I need to do is try and see what it can do.
The proof of concepti placed a negative in the sun window and took a photo (
The reverse is my dad-
In 1919, he lived on the Indian Reserve in Rosebud. )
I can see that the details are fine, but there is a lot of glare and obviously the negatives need to be flat on the image plane.
I need a fixture that keeps the negatives flat and eliminates excess light and reflection.
Fixture required to meet the following requirements: it must keep the negative on the plane.
It must spread the light source so that there is no hot spot.
It must keep the negative in the focal plane of the camera.
It has to be firmly installed on my digital camera.
It must have a light cover to minimize the glare of foreign light.
Fast and convenient loading and unloading goods.
Plastic material
The camera side of the negative Holder "sandwich.
Translucent plastic
The light side of the negative bracket "sandwich.
The spread of this light can eliminate hot spots. Angle bracket -
Hold a negative holder. Metal bar -
Install the negative bracket on the camera. Cardboard -
Do light shield.
Screws, clips, tape and hinges-
Connect everything together.
Apart from plastic, most of the material I have on hand is placed in various bins that I keep for these purposes.
I bought two plastic from the trash in Tap Plastics
So all of meof-
Pocket investment is about $2. 00. (
Plastic usually has a protective paper cover on both sides.
As long as it is possible for human beings, keep it open all the time --
I don't, there are some very good scratches on the surface now. )
With the largest negatives, you have to determine where to cut the aluminum angle bracket from.
Cut the bracket into length (7").
Cut out the internal part and leave room for the negative so that the camera can see it when the plastic negative bracket is finally mounted on the holder.
Cutting transparent plastic sheets (7-1/2 x 4)
This way it will extend beyond the bracket.
This extension is where you install the light shield.
Cut the translucent diffuser sheet into a smaller size (6-1/2 x 4)-
You want it to completely cover the negative so that it spreads all the incoming light that the camera can see.
The paper is also smaller than the transparent paper, so you can turn it on and off and put it in the negative.
Place the transparent plastic sheet on the bracket and clamp it in place to drill the mounting holes. (
In this photo, the transparent plastic is still covered with its protective cover. )
Drill a small hole through the bracket and transparent plastic.
Then, tap the transparent plastic to accept the mounting screws.
Make sure your screws are short so they don't highlight the plastic and interfere with the diffuser sheet.
Next, use a larger bit to make the holes on the stand larger so that the mounting screws can go through the stand and mount the transparent plastic on the stand.
I hinge the diffuser sheet onto the clear plastic in order to make negative changes quickly and easily.
I used small hinges and was going to melt them into plastic.
I used the tip of 800 degrees on the soldering iron to melt them in place.
The hinge works fine, but I have to be very careful not to let the plastic get too hot and twist it.
The melting temperatures of these two plastics are different, so I have to be careful not to overheat when trying to melt the hinge to another plastic.
In this photo, you can also see the threaded holes with transparent plastic on the holder.
I used a piece of 3/4 "x 1/8" x 14 "metal to fix the fixture on the tripod holder of the camera.
I cleaned up the mounting screws from an old potato.
Masher-style flashlight holder for connecting fixtures to the camera.
The mounting screw is fixed on the Flash, once screwed through a hole on the flash holder, so I copied this with No in the remote hole of the holder
7 drill and then use 1/4-20 NC tap.
Place a piece of rubber gasket material between the holder and the camera to securely secure the holder on the camera.
After assembling the negative mount, attach the camera mount to the camera, and then place the negative mount on the mount so you can see the entire negative in the viewfinder and can
It is important: try to place the negative bracket from your lens.
I didn't do that and there was a problem with it.
After determining where to attach the negative bracket, mark the position and drill holes and tap holes on the mounting rod.
Then drill out the support hole with a larger drill bit so that the screw can pass through.
Align the stand with the camera stand and tighten the mounting screws.
Finally, remove the plastic parts and paint all the metal parts in black to minimize light reflection.
At this stage, the fixture has been assembled and is almost ready to be used.
The large binder provides a quick and easy way to fix the hinge diffuser sheet.
The small binder is something that eventually fixes the light shield on the assembly.
Unexpected side benefits: I was going to cut off the camera holder section projected outside the negative holder, but I was lazy and left it for a long time.
Later I found out that when I opened the diffuser sheet, the extension part perfectly supported it, reducing the stress on the hinge.
The light Shield eliminates external reflections on the back and sides of the camera.
The raw material I use for the light is some re-
Special cardboard and adhesive tape.
The light shield needs four pieces of cardboard: 6 "square cut two pieces.
These are for top and bottom.
4 "x 6-cut two pieces1/2".
These are for both sides.
You will cut these parts into a ladder, tape them together, and install the finished assembly on the negative bracket with the small opening of the camera lens.
Mark the center on one side (at 3")
From there, make a mark 1-
1/2 "per side ".
Then, cut to each mark from the corner at the other end.
Mark the center on one side (at 2")
From there, make a mark 1-
1/2 "per side ".
Then, cut to each mark from the corner at the other end.
Assemble the light cover using tape.
Make sure the extra material on the large end of the side block protrudes outside the edge of the light cover.
Bend the extra 1/2 on the large end of the two side blocks to create the "ears" used to attach the light cover to the negative bracket ".
When assembled, the large opening of the light cover will be matched with the negative bracket, and the small opening will extend to cover the camera lens.
Ensure that the opening of the large end is smaller than the diffuser sheet after assembly-
You want to prevent all the extra light and reflections from entering the camera.
Install the light cover on the negative bracket, and then install the camera on the fixture (No display here-
It's hard to do it with only one digital camera. )
When copying the negative, the best way to illuminate the negative is to place the light source on each side of the negative and shine it in at an angle of 45 degrees.
You don't want the light to shoot directly to the camera because it creates a hot spot.
Make sure to configure the camera to record the image in black and white and compensate the light source (
Natural, incandescent, fluorescent).
The picture below is a UN
The modified image of the negative film and bracket taken with my lens is enlarged to the widest position.
This is how I shot it so you can see how the diffuser film completely covers the light cover opening and how the light cover blocks all the foreign indirect light (
You can see a little light shield around the edge).
Please also note that the negative impact is a little small, but also good --
The final result was very good and completely exceeded my expectations.
The final test was a direct comparison between the scan print and the negative of its shot.
On the surface, the print of the scan looks very good, but this is mainly the result of some postsScan processing.
The difference is in detail.
Zoom in to each and you can see huge differences in quality and resolution. The first positive
300 DPISecond scan printing-
The third positive-
Take a negative fourth positive at 4 mb Pixel resolution-
Negative details what different things will I do next time?
You can see that negative emotions are affected.
This is probably because I put the negative bracket too close to the lens.
The solution is to move the bracket further away from the lens.
The camera mounting screw that I liberated from my old flashlight works fine-
It perfectly holds the camera in place.
However, I also use it to install the entire assembly on my tripod.
So when on the tripod, everything is completely unbalanced.
The simple solution is to find the center balance point on the mounting rod, then drill the hole and click on it to accept the tripod installation directly.
Even if I painted the inside of the light shield black, you can see that it still reflects some light.
A possible solution would be to glue the black cloth, or stick it inside with a felt, trying to reduce excess reflection.
Another way to copy a negative number is to straighten out the negative number and center it, and then zoom in to eliminate all the other external effects in the lens.
Since then, I have copied about 300 negatives and found that it is a very important time to try to center them precisely and locate them --
Consuming and often frustrating processes, so I started putting them in place and then doing all the adjustments and corrections on my computer.
Diffuser sheets can be used with some centering marks to help pre-
Position negative.