How would you do it?

[duhast]

Found my old boxes of 4x5 negatives from college 40 years ago. I think I'd like to digitize some of them. How to go about it?

 

[KmH]

You use a scanner and scan them.

 

[amolitor]

There's a bunch of technologies out there. As KmH says, a flatbed scanner works tolerably well.

Depending on how many you want to do and how much money you want to spend, you can send them out to be scanned. Good places will wet-scan them on a drum, which I gather is the gold standard for scanning these things these days (assuming I am remembering what Helen said a while back).

 

[vintagesnaps]

I've been scanning some of my 35mm film images; it takes time so it just depends on if you want to scan them yourself and have time to do it, or if you want them done more quickly and send them to a lab. Or you could do some of both (which I've done). I found that using a higher res setting works best.

It might depend on how you'd be using the photos if you'd need a hi res professional quality scan. For me to just have some of my older photos in a digital format for my own use (or for sentimental reasons) I don't need the highest quality scan; but if I want to use a photo for another purpose I like to have higher quality than what I'm able to do with the printer I have currently so I send out to a lab as needed.

I read that scanning a good quality 4x6 print can work too, and I've gotten some nice results that way. I find it depends on the original photo how good the quality of a scanned copy will turn out.

 

[gsgary]

There's a bunch of technologies out there. As KmH says, a flatbed scanner works tolerably well.

Depending on how many you want to do and how much money you want to spend, you can send them out to be scanned. Good places will wet-scan them on a drum, which I gather is the gold standard for scanning these things these days (assuming I am remembering what Helen said a while back).

In the UK it can cost £40 (80mb)per drum scan

 

[Derrel]

A flatbed scanner with transparency adapter would be the an economical way to make decent digitized images, I think. You could also I suppose, use a macro lens and a light table or light box, and a decent d-slr and actually "take a picture of" the various negs and or slides, and go about it that way. 4x5 film is pretty large, so even "home scanners" from EPSON can make a passable scan for non-critical uses.

Like so many things, it alllllllll depends--on whatcha' want, how much time and money and effort you wish to expend.

 

[duhast]

There's a bunch of technologies out there. As KmH says, a flatbed scanner works tolerably well.

Depending on how many you want to do and how much money you want to spend, you can send them out to be scanned. Good places will wet-scan them on a drum, which I gather is the gold standard for scanning these things these days (assuming I am remembering what Helen said a while back).

I have a regular flatbed. Are you talking about the top-lit ones?

 

[Light Guru]

There's a bunch of technologies out there. As KmH says, a flatbed scanner works tolerably well.

Depending on how many you want to do and how much money you want to spend, you can send them out to be scanned. Good places will wet-scan them on a drum, which I gather is the gold standard for scanning these things these days (assuming I am remembering what Helen said a while back).

I have a regular flatbed. Are you talking about the top-lit ones?

Only if that scanner has the capability of scanning 4x5 negatives, most do not have the ability.

 

[duhast]

A flatbed scanner with transparency adapter would be the an economical way to make decent digitized images, I think. You could also I suppose, use a macro lens and a light table or light box, and a decent d-slr and actually "take a picture of" the various negs and or slides, and go about it that way. 4x5 film is pretty large, so even "home scanners" from EPSON can make a passable scan for non-critical uses.

Like so many things, it alllllllll depends--on whatcha' want, how much time and money and effort you wish to expend.

So, that is those top-lit scanners, right, not just a regular flatbed like my HP All-in-one?

 

[duhast]

There's a bunch of technologies out there. As KmH says, a flatbed scanner works tolerably well.

Depending on how many you want to do and how much money you want to spend, you can send them out to be scanned. Good places will wet-scan them on a drum, which I gather is the gold standard for scanning these things these days (assuming I am remembering what Helen said a while back).

I have a regular flatbed. Are you talking about the top-lit ones?

Only if that scanner has the capability of scanning 4x5 negatives, most do not have the ability.

Thanks...How can a regular scanner be used?

 

[mishele]

Sorry, I had too!! LOL

 

[Derrel]

Yes, the "top-lit" kind of scanner is the type that is suitable for scanning film.

 

[duhast]

Sorry, I had too!! LOL

I see a running gag starting to form here...

 

[compur]

Thanks...How can a regular scanner be used?

I have scanned negs using a regular scanner. I placed a small battery powered light "table" (the type used for viewing slides) on top of the negs and scanned away. For my purposes at the time it worked fine.

As Derrel suggested I have also placed negs and slides on a light table and shot them using a macro lens for quick 'n dirty digitizing or even held up 35mm slides to an overcast sky and shot them with a DSLR. These methods work OK if you don't need high quality.

 

[mishele]

I see a running gag starting to form here...

I promise no more. lol I'll just play it on my end!!