I've written about my method before, but in brief I use a Kaiser RS2 XA copy stand, a Kaiser Slimlite Plano as light source, my D810 + Tokina 100mm macro lens + cable release to capture the frames, and a glassless 6x7 negative carrier to hold the 120 film. The carrier works pretty well, although the inner dimensions are actually a bit smaller than a 6x7 frame, so a little on the long edge gets cut off for those; for 6x6 it is fine.
I have just recently got into 4x5. I wanted a good solution to allow me to digitise the entire captured film area without resorting to using glass sandwiches and the Newton rings they can cause (even ANR glass doesn't always avoid this). In other words I needed a 4x5 holder that would only grip the extreme edges of the film where the blank rebate is, yet still hold it flat. I am not aware of any product currently on the market that will do this, with the possible exception of the Beseler Negaflat carrier, but I heard that damages the film with its grippers, which is a big no no for me. Anyway, long story short I ended up making my own:
I got a 2mm thick stainless steel frame custom laser cut to size, and stuck little rubber feet (the kind you use to stop drawers or cupboard doors banging) to the underside:
The upper surface I then coarsened up with a nail file and superglued it to a thin sheet of magnetised rubber:
I then cut the excess rubber off with a scalpel, leaving the steel frame topped with a layer of magnetised rubber:
I then magnetically aligned this with another sheet of the magnetised rubber, and cut that to exactly the same shape. This left me with an upper frame of magnetised rubber which was precisely aligned with the first, could be peeled off, yet would "snap" back to the correct alignment once the two were reintroduced. I originally envisioned having to glue one edge of the upper rubber to the lower to act as an anchor during this process, but it turned out to be unnecessary, and the magnetic "snap" itself works well and the sandwich holds a 4x5 sheet very flat and securely, despite only having about 1mm of film to grip at each side (even blasts with a rocket blower won't budge it at all).
Here is a shot of this custom rig holding a sheet above the light panel (ignore the crappy contents of the frame, it was literally the first perfunctory exposure I made with the camera just to check everything was working as it should):
It's early days yet, and I have only tested it with a single DSLR frame capture, but it appears to work well. I will need to see how it fares in regards to film flatness with higher magnification and multi-shot stitching.
All the materials for this cost me about £30.
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