Old photograph negatives - Can they still be printed from?

[John M Upton]

Hello

 

My soon to be Father in Law has very kindly loaned me his childhood collection of photograph negatives which he took with a simple Box Brownie type camera back in the mid 1950's.  Mostly steam around Horsham but also some views from further afield.  Despite the simplicity of the camera (and the youthfulness of its operator at the time!) a lot of the images are really good and worthy of being properly printed.

 

I have a negative scanning holder and function on my scanner and have managed to do a couple of shots with some success but the problem is all of these scanners are set up for standard 35mm film, these are individual negatives measuring 3.5" x 2.5" so of course they don't fit.

 

Do any photographic shops have the facilities to print new decent definition prints from such negatives now or better still is their a negative scanner than has an adapter that will take this format?

 

Thanks in advance!

 

 

[eastwestdivide]

If you've got a flatbed scanner with an illuminated lid for negs and slides, you can just leave off the holders, place the negs on the glass, and the software should (at least mine does) allow you to select what you want scanned. Some software has an auto-find function for whatever you lay on there

I did it OK with some 126 negs, which didn't fit any holders, not that the results were worth much from an instamatic.

[ZiderHead]

For medium format negs I would just use a good quality flatbed scanner, the size sounds like 6x7 and scanning frames for these used to be available.

 

Edit: rereading your post it sounds like you already have a flatbed with film hood, the film frames must be available, hit up google

[Katier]

As for printing - most definitely - despite first impressions film is most definitely alive and kicking. The film you describe is 620 which is essentially 120 medium format for printing purposes I believe.

[DaveF]

If using a flatbed scanner with a film hood it is possible to cut your own frames/masks from black card.  I've done that for my 127 negs from the Brownie I had as a child.

 

David

[John M Upton]

Some useful ideas to investigate, thanks!!

[Alastair-I]

 these are individual negatives measuring 3.5" x 2.5" so of course they don't fit.

 

 

There are a number of places that will scan for you, if you buy a copy of Amateur Photographer you'll find the adverts in the back.

 

I scan my own 120 film, but your negatives sound substantially larger.  I found some negatives about the size you describe in a box being thrown out at work several years ago.  I finally got around to scanning them this year.  It's relatively straight forward with the right type of scanner, I use an Epson V500 which is a combination flat-bed film scanner.  Film scanners generally have a light source in the hood to shine through the negative/slide, but you should get decent result for these very large negatives with almost any flatbed - as the hood light area isn't large enough anyway on most domestic scanners.

 

The trick is knowing how to scan, if the image looks good straight out of the scanner you haven't done it right!  This is the best guide to scanning negatives I have found.  The principles are the same for any scanner.  You concentrate on getting maximum image data and then make it look good later!

[Froxfield2012]

I suppose I just confirm what others have written.  I am in the process of scanning black and white images (mostly) from the 1950s and 60s.  I use an Epson Perfection V700 flat bed which comes with masks for 120 film and larger images.  This larger frame was just too big for the quarter plate images on glass I was trying to scan so I made some thin card masks to help.  Having taken advice from those more experienced than I, I scan at 300 dpi BUT I enlarge the source 120 film to 20 inches across:  the resulting images are thus in the order of 6000 pixels across.  Then I edit in Photoshop set at 100% image size to remove "all" visible flaws.  Then, to make files a manageable size I make a further copy of the image at 3000 pixels across.  This produces some spectacularly sharp images on my HP x22 LED screen.  They print equally well, up to about A3. 

 

You can have a look at the results on the web-site linked in my signature.  Or in a back issue of British Railways Illustrated (June 2013).  People in the publishing business tell me that any greater amount of data doesn't yield much benefit.  And of course, the grain on 120 FP3 or HP3 pretty soon breaks down anyway.  Colour uses dyes rather than grain, but can still lack crucial definition.

 

Richard