Digital helper in an analog darkroom

[Flotsam]

Just a head's up on the chance that anyone is interested in a similar item:
I 've been looking for an inexpensive flatbed scanner with a transparency area that is large enough to scan a whole roll of 35mm or 120 at once. That way I could look at my negs as positives, enlarged and check detail, composition expression etc. quickly, without setting up trays and contacting, washing and drying. Sadly, it seems that most of the current home scanners just take a strip or two of 35mm or 120 at a time. Way too time consuming to be worthwhile.
I had just about given up when I stumbled on the HP Scanjet 4890. It has a full 8.5x12.5 transparency area and will scan a whole roll of 35mm as individual files in one pass or 120 or 4x5s or even an 8x10. Now I can pull the negs out of the drying cabinet, see them as enlarged positives right away and be completely prepared to dive into my next printing session whenever that might be. Once I start scanning all of my negs, it will also make it possible to start thinking about coming up with an organized and efficient computer filing system.
Yeah, right. :rolleyes:

 

[David Brown]

Epson 4990 should to the same. I also read something recently where Epson has a couple new film scanners coming out. These things are in constant flux.

But I'm with you. I contact sheet everything, and doing it this way is appealing.

OMG, have we violated the APUG code?

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa ...

 

[Flotsam]

I almost went for the 4990 before I ran across the HP but it would have been a compromise. It has a smaller area and can't do a whole 36x35mm or 120 roll at once.

As far as being APUG appropriate. It is like asking about recommended filing software or palm pilot software for recording exposure information. I never see the circumstance where I will ever actually make anything like a real print from the scanned negs. Why would I? I've got a real darkroom that makes actual photographs. Maybe an occasional print-out for reference or color snapshot for grandma. Mainly I'll just view them on the monitor and make a few printing notes. Scanning and looking at the images is independent of the analog process of exposing, processing and printing
Personally, I choose not to even post neg scans in the gallery.

ALSO, As a correction. The transparency area is 8.5x10.5 not 12.5, Sorry

 

[Flotsam]

I forgot to mention that the HP also only cost me about 200 bucks at Staples. Much cheaper than the prices that I've seen for the 4990.

 

[Craig]

That would be really useful for scanning large format transparencies as well, as making colour prints from transparencies is expensive.

 

[DeanC]

If you're talking about prints from big slides you probably want to think about what kind of quality you're going to get for $200 @ Staples, but that's a discussion for another place. Lot's of good stuff about this over at the LF Forum.

Dean