Contact Sheet Frames + Walter Mitty Film

I generally don't have a digital side to my photography as I really can not be bothered to scan anything, and thus in my reasonably tradition workflow, I print contact sheets, quite a few of them.

up to now I've been using sheets of glass, as I can never seem to fit that last negative (for 35mm film (the 37th and possibly 38th frame)) into any frames I've seen. What are the options/ what do you guys do?

Also on a side not, I was watching "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" and they put the negatives in the initial bit into that frame thing, seems like a pretty neat idea. Is it for contact sheets? What exactly is it called?

I do my contacts under glass for 3 reasons, the one you mention, the second is I've never been happy with the sharpness when leaving the negs in the sleeves even though most people say doing this is fine. I did some tests at the time (years ago) and decided I could see the difference and have used glass ever since. The last reason is it's quicker and less chance of adding a fingerprint to a neg than wrestling with the proof printer that I do have. It's tabs to hold the negs in place are just too tight.

frama

1. You can shoot the standard 36 frames as God and Mr. Barnack intended or 2. you can cut some thin strips of contact paper and contact print those errant two or so frames by themselves. After processing you can tape or staple the errant frames to the others.

thanks for the replies,
after browsing through ag-photographic (online analog photo supplier in england) I was thinking that I could buy a 8 inch roll of paper, and just cut it a tiny bit longer than 10 inches, and thus have more than enough space for the extra negatives while still being able to slot it into clear sleeves or something like that!

however I haven't dealt with roll paper before, and have the feeling the curl might be a big problem....

tiktianc said:

Also on a side not, I was watching "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" and they put the negatives in the initial bit into that frame thing, seems like a pretty neat idea. Is it for contact sheets? What exactly is it called?

Click to expand...

It's been a while since I saw the movie, but wasn't that frame made of metal? I have a couple of Saunders Super Proofer thingies that are the same idea in plastic (bad iPhone picture ahead)

Duncan

I've got one of the metal ones - pretty cool, but I also have a sheet of glass in a homemade easel as well. It works easily enough, slide each end into the clip holder and expose on an 8x10 sheet.

I just use a protective sheet that holes 7 strips of 5 negs and invariably there are duds (blank frames or totally clear frames or what have you) and so I just cut those off to make room for the good (or potentially good) ones.

Speaking of that Saunders Super Proofer.
there is one on Ebay for $9.99 (make offer) right now.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Sau...2777a32&pid=100005&rk=2&rkt=2&sd=111877545840

I use 8.5x11 Ilford RC paper for my contact sheets. I mainly do this because I store them in binders, behind the Printfile sheet of negatives, in inexpensive sleeves I buy at Staples.

The nice thing about 8.5x11 is that it gives a little bit of extra room to display the information written on the top of the Printfile sheet or, in the case of 35mm, to wedge those last couple frames in somewhere.