35mm Color Negative Contact Print?

[JeremyLangford]

I have a folder full of 35mm color negatives that are sitting in some Print File negative preservers. Each preserver is sized to be able to make an 8x10 contact sheet. I would love to have a contact sheet for all of my preservers because it's nearly impossible to tell what is on the film.

The cheapest scanner that I know of that can make 8x10 contact prints is the Epson V700. At $600, this is way too expensive for only making contact prints. (I already have a Coolscan 9000 for scanning film)

Another option that I've read about is simply placing the preservers on a light box and taking a picture of each one with a digital camera. This option would probably work fine for me. It won't matter which digital camera I use will it? Should I consider a webcam or any other scanner?

Thanks

 

[charjohncarter]

I've done a lot of negative photographing with digital camera, probably 4000. They have all been single negatives, but if you are not too concerned about color quality you can do it. The print file will make things make worse, but you don't care.

By the way, you can just hit 'invert' in your processor to get the positive and then 'save as' and then delete the negative version.

 

[ChrisCummins]

I am a full time digi-cam / negative / lightbox user, having never owned a negative scanner. I just spent £130 on a top quality lightbox with totally even illumination and a viewing arear about 12x20". I just need to source a decent sheet of optical grade glass to hold the negatives flat. The technique works very well, but I've found you'll spend a long time playing with your curves tool to get the right colour balance and contrast the first time. Just hitting 'invert' will produce a very heavily blue tinted mess with little to no contrast.

Here's one of my contact prints, Ilford HP5+. Sadly my computer's bust at the moment so I can't show you any of my colour sheets.

Regards
Chris

 

[JeremyLangford]

Those look good, thats what I'm hoping for. I'd love to see your color negative prints whenever you get your computer fixed.

I am a full time digi-cam / negative / lightbox user, having never owned a negative scanner. I just spent £130 on a top quality lightbox with totally even illumination and a viewing arear about 12x20". I just need to source a decent sheet of optical grade glass to hold the negatives flat. The technique works very well, but I've found you'll spend a long time playing with your curves tool to get the right colour balance and contrast the first time. Just hitting 'invert' will produce a very heavily blue tinted mess with little to no contrast.

Here's one of my contact prints, Ilford HP5+. Sadly my computer's bust at the moment so I can't show you any of my colour sheets.

Regards
Chris

 

[ChrisCummins]

Hey Jeremy,
I'm not a big colour user. I appreciate a lot of colour photography but personally I've had a hard enough time with just shades of grey never mind colours! 🙂 Unfortunately I lost all my old digital files when my computer broke but I was trying out a new technique of making digital prints today so I chucked in a couple of frames from a roll of cheapo colour film I made when testing my new camera.

Sorry they're not very good quality copies (or good quality pictures! I just picked the first bit of film I saw with colour in it). As I said earlier, the hardest thing is manually getting the balance between colours. I've included the two shots as they come out of the camera. Download them and try and do the colours yourself.

(sorry for the light bleed. This was the first roll of film I shot through this camera, and I managed to open the back halfway through unwinding!)

On the other hand, slides represent a totally different problem. The colours are a lot easier to manage, but the dynamic range is phenomenal. The digital sensor in my camera doesn't extend from the deepest shadows in a slide through to the bright light coming through the almost-transparent highlights.

Hope that's of some use
Chris

 

[MartinP]

Why not just make RA4 contact prints ? You can develop them in 10x8 trays and only the first bath is very temperature sensitive (bearing in mind these are not final prints). It will cost you a hell of a lot less than $600.

On the other hand, if you can scan the negs already with the Coolscan, then surely you can also use software to make your fake "contact" sheet and whatever ink-jet printer you have for printing them ?

 

[JeremyLangford]

Why not just make RA4 contact prints ? You can develop them in 10x8 trays and only the first bath is very temperature sensitive (bearing in mind these are not final prints). It will cost you a hell of a lot less than $600.

On the other hand, if you can scan the negs already with the Coolscan, then surely you can also use software to make your fake "contact" sheet and whatever ink-jet printer you have for printing them ?

I use a glass film holder that only allows me to scan one frame at a time on the film. Because of this, I'd like to have contact prints that would help me to only scan the frames that I'll use.