High quality film holder for 35mm and 120mm

dsiglin · Aug 8, 2013

Hey guys, I just received my bellows and enlarging lens. This is part of my setup for "scanning" film with my Nex5n. I took some test shots last night and have been impressed with the potential to make high quality scans quickly. However I really need to ensure the film is very flat. I was going to buy some film holders off ebay but wanted to get some ideas on what to look for. For instance, does the Epson V600 have holders that keep the film flat? Or maybe some other holder you've been impressed with. Any input would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

compur · Aug 8, 2013

Gepe slide mounts.

gsgary · Aug 8, 2013

why not just buy a V600 and do a better job

dsiglin · Aug 8, 2013

Compur, thanks for the recommendations, looking at the site though it seems they make holders for just slides? I'll be shooting negative strips.

Gsgary, good question, it's a long answer but I like the speed, flexibility, and actually even the quality of doing it this way. Here's an article that goes over the general idea of what I'm doing. My method will be a little "cleaner" and the lens I'm using is an enlarging lens, not a macro lens but the general idea is still the same. I'll be creating a thread soon with my trials and tribulations of this method.

compur · Aug 8, 2013

dsiglin said:
Compur, thanks for the recommendations, looking at the site though it seems they make holders for just slides? I'll be shooting negative strips.

A neg can be mounted just as a slide would be. It does require that the individual frame be cut however which would be a lot of work for numerous frames. I do this (gepe mounting) with certain negs that I prize and print them via an enlarger this way. Just a suggestion since you said you bought bellows and enlarger lens. The glass gepe mounts use anti-newton glass and are extremely flat.

dsiglin · Aug 8, 2013

Ok gotcha, you actually answered a question I hadn't thought yet, preserving the cream of the crop negatives. Files on a computer don't get dust, etc. so hadn't thought of long term storage yet.

Light Guru · Aug 8, 2013

gsgary said:
why not just buy a V600 and do a better job

You may not know this but unless you are getting a negative drum scanned you can actualy get better quality digitization using a camera then a scanner.
Why You Should Digitize Your Film Using a Camera Instead of a Scanner

dsiglin · Aug 8, 2013

Add to this the ability to better diffuse the backlight, cutting down the dust reproduced. Shoot, in my really quick test shots I was able to focus past the dust onto just the negative. The ability to adjust the DOF (via aperture) is very nice as well.

Here's a photo of my far from final setup. This is just for proof of concepting.

The bellows are an Asahi Pentax AutoBellows II I nabbed from KEH.com for around $30.
The enlarging lens is an el Nikkor 75mm f4. About $30 on ebay. Mine the guy claimed had been used twice. To say it was mint is an understatement. Even had the original price tag on the box.
At the end of the bellows is a slide copier that sometimes comes with these bellows. I've placed a single 35mm negative in it and am using a halogen bulb. This is far from my final setup. I am planning on building a vertical light table of sorts using opaque plexiglass as a diffuser and a ring of LEDs spaced behind for lighting. I would then create rails for the negative holders so I can move them horizontally across the camera's field of view. That's the end goal. For now I'm going to build the light table and tape the negatives to the plexiglass. I appreciate you going into detail about your setup, especially what materials you used.

I found this fairly cheap 35mm negative holder, looks promising.