film recorder as neg restoration tool thoughts?

[Mike Wilde]

I have some old colour neg stuff from many years ago that is never going to enlarge optically without some major d**** intervention.

Does anyone have experience with doing a scan, and then manipulating, then been happy with the results when a fllm recorder produces the output for subsequent enlarging?.

This thought might see me banished to hybridphoto land, however the desire is to start with a (deteriorated) legacy of colour negatives from my childhood, and end up still printing them optically, as a d*** manipulated/restored negative, i.e. something that has a chance of working.

What got me thinking on this track is that film recorders are on the verge of being thrown out the door for free at lots of businesses that once used them.

I own the computer to drive most of them already (scsi II card is a vestage of fast disks that feed off of it) already, have a scanner for the digital that clients ask for, but don't want the hassle of keeping a competent large format ink jet alive with only sporadic use, let along the cost of buying the thing and keeping it in consumables..

 

[ben-s]

I've no direct experience of this type of process, but it should work.
I have seen slides from a lasergraphics unit, and they looked pretty good.

 

[dr5chrome]

This is the best possible solution for what you are contemplating.

8-16K crt machines will do a great job, but if you require 'as good as the original' replication an LVT is where you need to go.

These machines while the only solution for this purpose, all the companies producing this equipment have gone out of business.

In 5-8 years all these machine will be gone and in disrepair with no companies able to maintain the machines from lack of parts and service.

dw

www.dr5.com

 

[Mike Wilde]

Thanks for the thoughts

I agree that the film recorder machines are on thier way out. Polaroid kicked theirs line of these things out the back door in one of thier latest reorganization death spirals, and it was always very much a nche market even in its heyday, with all vendors combined.

I am not afraid of keeping them 'ticking' in the short term - I have to put that long ago electrical engineering design lab course to good use once in a while, but once the CRT/imaging transfer tube goes then poof you are out of business. Actually I have an aquaintance who bought up a batch of surplus russian military CRT's on the *bay, and some of them are so 'cute' I think I might buy it and mount it as a paperweight - like the ones with 2.5x4" screens.

While my ardour for dodging, perspective control correction by tilting the easel etc. may die out some day, perhaps also the lambda style laser exposure direct to photo paper units of today will be some day be a commercial labs junk, and may be able to move into my basement. Then the wet darkroom and digital restorations could come together with one less intermediate step.

 

[Chan Tran]

I prefer to print my negative optically but if the negative need digital manipulation then I would not bother to make a negative from the digital files.

 

[skillian]

About 15 years ago, I worked for both Polaroid and GCC Technologies and was responsible for marketing these film recorders. (The GCC version was an OEM of the Polaroid units for the Macintosh market). We sold a lot of them to people in the medical field and folks who used them to create slide presentations. If you can get one cheap, it might be worth the hassle, but as you've already pointed out, it would require SCSI and getting ancient software drivers to work on your machine. I also question if the resolution would be good enough for what you're trying to do. My recommendation would be to find a service bureau who is willing to output your files to an imagesetter. Best of luck...

 

[dr5chrome]

..we do this as a regular service. as long as we can get spare parts for our units we will provide the output. A lambda is not sharp enough for film output if you are wanting original-like quality. CRT 8K to 8x10, LVT to the size of a large wall.

regards

dw

www.filmrecording.net