Scanning Minox Sub Min negatives

[MDenton]

Has anyone found a way to scan Minox sub min negatives on a a Minolta 5400 scanner ?

 

[Timmyjoe]

Are Minox negs 9mm? I used to shoot a bit of Minolta 16 film (which is 16mm motion picture camera film), so maybe a bit bigger than Minox. I use a Nikon Coolscan 9000 and originally would lay the negatives down on a Newton glass carrier (for 120 film) I had for the scanner. It worked pretty well, but there was a lot of post processing to extract the little images from the large scans. Turns out Nikon made a 16mm film holder for the Coolscan 9000, and I was able to find one of them (they're pretty rare), and now I use that.

If you have a flat glass negative carrier for the Minolta 5400, you might try laying the negatives out on that. And maybe Minolta made carriers for the tiny negatives as well.

Good luck. It's surprising the quality that can be extracted from those tiny negatives.

Best,
-Tim

 

[Murray Kelly]

Has anyone found a way to scan Minox sub min negatives on a a Minolta 5400 scanner ?

Although not listed Negative Solutions are open to requests for holders that aren't listed

https://www.amazon.com/sp?_encoding...derID=&seller=A3DSVQESWE9D5E&tab=&vasStoreID=

 

[jbrubaker]

I used to scan Minox film with a Minolta Multi-pro scanner. I made a black paper mask/cutout to fit the 35mm holder. I now have a Plustec 7600 scanner, and the same proceedure works. I try to stay away from glass holders because of the dust problem. The Minox negs are so small that keeping them flat has not been a problem.

 

[MDenton]

Thanks for the comments.

I'm going to try the mask route,possibly in my Lomo Lisa scanning
mask,but using my Epson flatbed.

Work in progress.

 

[Godfrey]

I've been scanning Minox 8x11 mm negatives with a variety of scanners and copy camera techniques since 1996.

Nearly any flatbed scanner returns, at best, web resolution results. They simply can't place the film with enough accuracy to obtain their full resolution capabilities.

A 4000 ppi film scan obtained with a Nikon Coolscan V using a thin card stock negative carrier/mask that fits into the six-strip 35mm carrier and using VueScan (so that I can target the precise point on the film for the scanner to focus on) returns excellent resolution scans that are 1260x1732 pixels in size (2.2 MPixels). I've made very nice prints up to 6x8 inch in size from these scans. Larger is possible if you up-rez the image by 1.414x (netting a 4 Mpixel image and up to a clean 11x14 inch image at a reasonable print density).

My more recent approach is to use the Leica SL as a copy camera. Using a Focusing Bellows-R at near-full extension (around reproduction ratio 2.7:1) and a Summicron-R 50mm f/2 lens nets a 21 Mpixel image of the Minox negative that can make exhibition quality photographs. Example:

Deutsches Museum - Munich 1997

Minox B, APX100 - HC110
Processed 01 Mar 98, Taken Nov 97
20100515-0015-20​

Here's the negative:

And here's the capture setup:

From top to bottom:

Leica SL
M Adapter T
R Adapter M
Focusing Bellows-R
Summicron-R 50mm f/2
flat panel light box
​

I normally use a black card stock mask to hold the negative strip and make it easy to handle. (This sample photo I simply slid the negative strip under the lens and centered it.)

G

 

[Timmyjoe]

Here's the quality you can get with a slightly bigger negative (Minolta 16) with a Coolscan 9000.

Best,
-Tim