Digitizing 120 film 6X9 vs 6X4.5 format

So far i am developing my 6X9 negatives and digitizing them using a home made light box and my mobile phone with a quiet good results considering the equipment. I was wondering if i will have the same results with 6X4.5 negatives.
Or because they are smaller i need to use better equipment like a film scanner? Has anyone try it?
Thinking to buy a 6x4.5 camera to have 16 images rather than only eight.
Thomas

The 6x4.5 negative is smaller. Bring the mobile phone closer to the negative so that the mobile phone camera frame is filled.

Yeah friends - with such a workflow every comparison ended in the past with a statement that simple APS C format is much better with 14 MP as a bw 4 x 5 inch on Delta 100.
Sorry to state but this is nonsence.

4,5 x 6 has 2,9 x the square of 135 and 6 x 9 is round the double of it. The sensor of a mobile phone may have 6 MP, 8 MP, to me - it may have 26 MP - it isn`t the issue. The square of a mobile sensor is of importance. It is indeed the most little square at all you´ll find : in mobiles.
A flat bed scanner is the 2. worst failure if you want to have quality from films.

So have a use of simple 135 if your workflow is this you describe. Do you use 4,5 x 6 or 6 x 9 it is no difference - but it is much more expensive.

You want to see what 6 x 9 will give you in addition to 4,5 x 6 ( it is just the double of resolution ) you have to use a drum scan !!!!!
Will you do so - it cost you more as the method with your mobile phone but you still will have data around 400 MB of a simple frame ( max. resolution ) but may be your mobile isn´t able to open it .....400 MB to each picture .............

Please forgive me but if I realy hate something so it is nonsence due to resolution comming from digital workflow !!!

with regards

Like Trendland says, you certainly are not going to get the best out of your big negatives using a mobile phone. You would probably save money by shooting 35mm and digitizing that. However, it will be fine for posting and sharing on the internet.

As for any difference between 6x9 and 6x4.5, I doubt you would see any difference at all in your digital results because the mobile phone only has a limited resolution to start with.

As mentioned, fill the mobile phone frame, shoot, and share to your heart's content.

gordinir8 said:

So far i am developing my 6X9 negatives and digitizing them using a home made light box and my mobile phone with a quiet good results considering the equipment. I was wondering if i will have the same results with 6X4.5 negatives.
Or because they are smaller i need to use better equipment like a film scanner? Has anyone try it?
Thinking to buy a 6x4.5 camera to have 16 images rather than only eight.
Thomas

Click to expand...

Sorry but I do not realy believe what I read twice : You need better equipment ?.......... friend - perhaps it is time to understand you need equipment - because you havn´t any equipment !!! Please understand this - a mobile with autofocus on a little moving handshake isn´t equipment. But you can use it for example to inform you about equipment via phone - is this an good idea ?

with regards

I am not a photo maniac and i am not intend to be one either. I am just a guy that has a couple, maybe more, old box cameras, that shooting and developing film at home and feel very happy about it. I guess that an expensive scanner will do the work for me but i m not going to invest on this because i am not going to buy any hi-end film cameras either, i just like old box style, which i know they are dead simple and you can't get lot of things out of them. How about a 200-300$ scanner, can i consider this as basic equipment?
Thomas

An Epson V500, V550, V600 or some other flatbed film scanner (it's important that it's a film scanner so it has a second light on the top lid) should be a lot better quality than a cell phone camera and a light box. It won't be the highest quality scanning option in the world, but it should be a significant improvement. You could spend more money on an even better flat bed scanner or a dedicated 120 film scanner and get better results, but the question is, are those improvements worth the extra money to you?

In all honesty, if what you are doing now is working for you, why change it?

If you have money to buy 645, you have money for used Epson V500 flatbed. It does great scans of 645 and 6x9.



70$ camera and $70 scanner.

Well i am not happy with mobile scanning it is very basic but the picture above looks nice for what i want to do. So i will have a look for those suggested scanners.
Thank you

gordinir8 said:

I am not a photo maniac and i am not intend to be one either. I am just a guy that has a couple, maybe more, old box cameras, that shooting and developing film at home and feel very happy about it. I guess that an expensive scanner will do the work for me but i m not going to invest on this because i am not going to buy any hi-end film cameras either, i just like old box style, which i know they are dead simple and you can't get lot of things out of them. How about a 200-300$ scanner, can i consider this as basic equipment?
Thomas

Click to expand...

Thats right - gordinir8 but I have to provoke the issues you mentioned from digital scanning workflow a bit.
Now we may have a basis from discussion.
At first : sure digital scanners are not cheap at all.
If you ask me - forget they all !
I also can't afford a fine scanning machine too. But I also have no urgend need to buy one (imacon/flexicon).
A couple of years ago Kodak Photo CD wasn't too bad from its quality.The intention was to consumers - to watch their photographs on TV. But it was total nonsense (Ntsc/pal) - HDTV was just a decade later avaible. But soon this medium advanced to a worldwide standard to DTP. The resolution was ok the proffessional version (Kodak photo CD pro) was in max. resolution ~ 4000 x 6000 - to that time it was phantastic.
Today you may get from some labs a consumer scan as jpg. to cheap prices around $,-90 a frame or cheaper.
If you will not spent such cheap, sum you otherwise are wasting your 120 films.
Think about .....
with regards

Ko.Fe. said:

If you have money to buy 645, you have money for used Epson V500 flatbed. It does great scans of 645 and 6x9.

70$ camera and $70 scanner.

Click to expand...

Thats right too - but (please forgive me)
I also hate this stuff ....!
It may be ok from concern of resolution.
But here it comes : r e s o l u t i o n is very relative.
Your example already shows a nice picture with fine details.To $70,- there is nothing against to say.
But I realy hate "flatbed" it was designed
(from beginning) to scan a text. It was designed also to a couple of pictures (out of a magazine). It gave good results
also to scan prints in 5x7 a.s.o.
And you may say : "the last generation of flatbed is also best to scan sheedfilm - it gives best quality to all kind of films."
It is relative.!
The use of a $245.000 Heidelberg Drum scanning machine has a relative lost (some say nearly 50%) of the full image
quality in all film formats.
But normaly it doesn't matter anything,the question is why it doesn't
matter? Because it is for a screen - to watch it.
If you need a print in a good quality in
140m x 160m or lets say you need a print in best quality in 1,00m x1,40m
you 1) are the lucky guy with own darkroom allready equiped to such formats.
2) you need a highly resoluted and realy expensive film scanner in midt format - if you prefer mixed workflow.
3) you can forget 135 film (look again to the size of prints )

with regards

PS : Forget also the new Apple i phoneX
as scanning machine.....

The phone lenses are generally wide angle, so you'll have a fair bit of distortion introduced. a flatbed Epsom scanner as mentioned will do a better job.

gordinir8 said:

I am not a photo maniac and i am not intend to be one either. I am just a guy that has a couple, maybe more, old box cameras, that shooting and developing film at home and feel very happy about it. I guess that an expensive scanner will do the work for me but i m not going to invest on this because i am not going to buy any hi-end film cameras either, i just like old box style, which i know they are dead simple and you can't get lot of things out of them. How about a 200-300$ scanner, can i consider this as basic equipment?
Thomas

Click to expand...

Have a lock the this scan - it is with very low resolution / the cheapest quality from scanning service :
...and I have to state it is with additional
data reduction to make it a little faster for internet. So the scan on cd from service should be a bit more sized.
This is the cheapest quality to around $-,35 a frame $ 4,90 a full film.
It is 135 film - but prices with 120 films are also real cheap.
Anything less than this with expensive 120 films and fine old cameras is like :
"Perls before swine"

with regards

(moved to scanning area)

unfortunately and I can't understand why here in Greece the cost per image from a lab is 2 euros, that's 16 euros per film. So for sure I will cover this expense within a year if I buy my own scanner.

gordinir8 said:

unfortunately and I can't understand why here in Greece the cost per image from a lab is 2 euros, that's 16 euros per film. So for sure I will cover this expense within a year if I buy my own scanner.

Click to expand...

My be the fault lies with the euro ?

with regards

[QUOTE="Ko.Fe., post: 2014590, member: 68hand full you have money to buy 645, you have money for used Epson V500 flatbed. It does great scans of 645 and 6x9.



70$ camera and $70 scanner. [/QUOTE]

Or put another way , for the cost of a hanfull or rolls of 120 film , you can get the benifit of using the 120 film .
Either buy a scanner or even an old 10 megapixel dslr and manual focus macro lens .
Either way you'll get far better digitalised copies of your negs than will a cell phone .

Or put another way , for the cost of a handfull

neilt3 said:

[QUOTE="Ko.Fe., post: 2014590, member: 68hand full you have money to buy 645, you have money for used Epson V500 flatbed. It does great scans of 645 and 6x9.

70$ camera and $70 scanner.

Click to expand...

Or put another way , for the cost of a hanfull or rolls of 120 film , you can get the benifit of using the 120 film .
Either buy a scanner or even an old 10 megapixel dslr and manual focus macro lens .
Either way you'll get far better digitalised copies of your negs than will a cell phone .

Or put another way , for the cost of a handfull[/QUOTE]

Yes thats a great statement.
So we agree - if there is the will as great as possible - many alternates are still on the scedule : I never said that it is easy
but it is reachable to avoid cell phones as
"No budget scanners"

with regards

PS : There is an other treath were the OP
is asking if one could have scans from film with the help of a finger print scanner? .......what the hell is going on these days....

Ko.Fe. said:

If you have money to buy 645, you have money for used Epson V500 flatbed. It does great scans of 645 and 6x9.

70$ camera and $70 scanner.

Click to expand...

Wow! Nice scan!

trendland said:

..

Click to expand...

Forgive me as well, but it is all theoretical from you.

It is not about resolution, but color and tonal range. And getting it in TIFF format for non destructive editing.

In practical world, I have 8x10 and Letter sized prints scan files on 135 film and by Epson V500 flatbed scanner. Framed and on the walls. No IQ issues.
Mural sized prints is not practical talk to me, sorry

Well - first real prints I made years ago in bw was sized in 1.00m x 1.40m (135 film)
with 120 format it looks much much better to me.
With full optical workflow it is a decision of your enlarger lens if you can get real fine art prints.
The best enlarger lenses are most expensive - but you can also reach the last 12% remaining quality wich were absolute reachable. The general lost of resolution is caused from the optical system of enlargers.
But we know no enlargements without enlarger lenses in the past. So it was like best quality we can get on a first view from our enargements.
Cause we can't imagine what a film theoritical may show without physically restrictions.
With digital workflow and laser prints - there are complete new ways possible.
But physically restrictions have not changed.
So it becomes the task to the scanner equipment to avoid a lost of quality.
But with 8x10 enlargements (hope not to missunderstood you so we are not talking about sheed films) .....with such enlargements it doesn't matter at all.
It becomes an issue of interest if you need the max. quality in max. size of several diferent film formats.
Then the scanner system (flat bed/ film scanner / drumscan / multiscan) is in the same resposibility to allowe max. quality
as the enlarger lens from typical analogue enlarger system.
Because (I hope so) the resolution from the laser print system is above the losses
of scan and above the losses of any optical enlarger system.A typical machine to reach fabulous print quality is this here :

...the d-lab 2 plus from Agfa.
It reaches 400dpi print resolution with color deep of 12bit.
But the including scanner unit isn't the absolute best I must state.
If you want to have a little more of all you should make your scan seperately with this scanner :

...its the imacon flextide 848 one of the best scanning machines ever built
The optical resolution is 8000dpi with 16bit. You also may have the possibility to make multi-shot scans to spread the resolution a bit more. (so if your software is able to handle the data of 400MB Tiff / frame x the multisssion rate.)
If you want big enlargements without visible grain - you may have no alternate to highest standards from my point of view.
Exeption : Simple use of 8x10 films with
8 x 10 optical enlarger and Zeiss /Rodenstock lenses.
That is indeed unreachable in all issues of max. quality to big sized enlargements.
If we are talking about 8x10 enlargements - I have a next example.
My son made a nice shot on landscape with a cheap film c41 ISO 200.
A simple 8x10 enlargement from a drugstore has made him happy.
And thats the issue from format to me.
Notice : Poket110 was't to bad on very smal prints.2 MP digital equipment make also sence in same format on a sreen.
But big stuff isn't so easy to handle - I am real glad about - because grandma smith
is never able to reach it with her modernst equipment ....

with regards

trendland said:

Have a lock the this scan - it is with very low resolution / the cheapest quality from scanning services

Click to expand...

That image has been heavily manipulated, probably in Photoshop. It doesn't show what a typical film image looks like in a flat bed or professional scan.

trendland said:

The general lost of resolution is caused from the optical system of enlargers.

Click to expand...

The weakest link - in terms of actual details resolved, is the paper itself.
Unless the optical system is just the worst ever made, it will far outresolve any paper's very low resolution. Even with the glossiest paper - paper with highest print resolution, you would have to make considerably much larger prints to be able to see detail captured on film. For instance, details resolved by 4000dpi scans on 35mm Fuji Provia 100 will require larger than 20" X 30" prints on glossy paper to actually see detail.

I've been very happy scanning 6x6 with an Epson V700 for roughly 9 years or so. It's a step-up cost-wise (and quality-wise) to the cheaper flatbeds, but I've heard good things about the other more affordable Epson scanners mentioned above. The V700 (since replaced by the V800 and 850) is still a flatbed, but when I compared it to a Coolscan 9000ED, I felt there was essentially no difference when scanning B&W, and the workflow of the V700 is far better in my mind--I can scan pretty quickly using Vuescan, and can make contact sheet preview scans. There are quite a few online comparisons too, and the consensus from the really thorough ones seemed to be you get an image that needs less work with the Coolscan whereas the Epson needed a bit more manipulation, but if you know what you're doing in Photoshop the results are nearly indistinguishable. However, you can't repair Coolscans anymore, and despite being quite old they are very expensive. The modern medium-format film scanners seem to all have underwhelming reviews, and if I felt like the Coolscan didn't give me that much better results than the Epson, I can't imagine the modern film-scanners will compare.

On the other hand, I don't know how much practical difference there is between using a DLSR to "scan" your negatives compared to the Epson. I've never tried it. I've heard about it, and I guess some people feel it's better than using dedicated film scanners. What I can say, however, is you would absolutely notice a difference in digitizing from a quality flatbed compared to using a cell phone.

Of course, it really depends on what kind of look you're going for. It's possible the images you shoot and the look you're aiming for could actually be aided by the less refined cell phone camera scan--there's a reason lots of people like Holgas.

If you're very happy with your current setup and it gives you the results you want, then I think you'll be plenty happy using your phone to digitize 6x4.5. Sometimes we get so caught up in spending a lot/having the "best" equipment (or just more equipment) that we forget to focus on whether it really makes any meaningful difference, and (more importantly) if it actually increases our happiness.

If you are using a box camera such as a Brownie, your camera phone ought to be good enough to make pictures to share. Way back when you got album size contact prints from your negatives to show family and friends, and enlargements cost extra.