Scanning and preserving a 80-year old negative

[twelvetone12]

a bit of backstory: when my grandmother was around 18-20 she had some shots of her professionally taken. That was quite some time ago, since she is 98 now (and still rocking BTW). We still have a beautiful framed print of her from this photoshoot.
Well some years ago I was goofing aroung grandmas house and found in a box what seemed a negative of that photo. I made a duplicate but then I lost track of the original, which I thought was lost in a recent home renovation. Until today, when I found it at the bottom of a huge box of photos (and dealing with that will be a future post!). Sorry for the long backstory, but I'm quite excited!

Now to the questions: the negative is on Ferrania P3 35mm, which AFAIK is on nitrate stock. I'm not sure if it is the original or a copy, but there are other frames of her in the same setting as the printed photo. If it was to be original, it should date between 1938 to 1941 circa. So the first thing I would be interested in some pointers on how to properly store and preserve this roll.

Secondly, I would like to make a high-res scan of it and have it restored. At least my grandma's portrait. Does anybody have any suggestions on a place that can do this in Europe? Bonus points if they can make an optical duplication of it, I would love to try and print it myself in the darkroom (but this is just an extra )

 

[Kino]

Practically speaking, you'd be best off getting at least a 4K scan of the negative (wet if possible) and then having a film recorder output the image to a negative stock.

If you went the photochemical route, you'd have to go through an intermediate positive stage and back to a negative. Contact printing (emulsion to emulsion) would be the choice here and I doubt you'll find anyone who would do it for a reasonable cost in relation to what you could do in with a scanner/film recorder workflow.

 

[PhilBurton]

Practically speaking, you'd be best off getting at least a 4K scan of the negative (wet if possible) and then having a film recorder output the image to a negative stock.

If you went the photochemical route, you'd have to go through an intermediate positive stage and back to a negative. Contact printing (emulsion to emulsion) would be the choice here and I doubt you'll find anyone who would do it for a reasonable cost in relation to what you could do in with a scanner/film recorder workflow.

I'm not the OP, but where does one find a film recorder these days? And if the hardware is available, is it only for obsolete PC connections like SCSI? And if the software is available, does it run under modern versions of Windows or MacOS?

 

[Kino]

DIGITAL-SILVER / FILM RECORDING - digital-files to film-Output
http://www.dr5.com/digitalsilver.html

Don't try this at home folks...

 

[alanrockwood]

a bit of backstory: when my grandmother was around 18-20 she had some shots of her professionally taken. That was quite some time ago, since she is 98 now (and still rocking BTW). We still have a beautiful framed print of her from this photoshoot.
Well some years ago I was goofing aroung grandmas house and found in a box what seemed a negative of that photo. I made a duplicate but then I lost track of the original, which I thought was lost in a recent home renovation. Until today, when I found it at the bottom of a huge box of photos (and dealing with that will be a future post!). Sorry for the long backstory, but I'm quite excited!

Now to the questions: the negative is on Ferrania P3 35mm, which AFAIK is on nitrate stock. I'm not sure if it is the original or a copy, but there are other frames of her in the same setting as the printed photo. If it was to be original, it should date between 1938 to 1941 circa. So the first thing I would be interested in some pointers on how to properly store and preserve this roll.

Secondly, I would like to make a high-res scan of it and have it restored. At least my grandma's portrait. Does anybody have any suggestions on a place that can do this in Europe? Bonus points if they can make an optical duplication of it, I would love to try and print it myself in the darkroom (but this is just an extra )

What is the condition of the negative? Is it fragile?

You mentioned that it is 35mm. I think your best bet would be to have a drum scan made of it. That could be expensive, but it would give you the best quality, and for a family heirloom photo it could be worth it. To be sure of the very best quality you could ask for the highest resolution possible. I think some drum scanners can go as high as 8,000dpi. That might sound like too much, but the cost increment is probably not too bad, and with the highest possible resolution scan you can always make lower-resolution files as copies from the original high resolution scan file.

Here's a link to site that seems to be in the UK.

http://www.drumscanning.co.uk/about/resolution/

For 35mm they recommend scanning at 6000 dpi. They say that once you go beyond a certain point (presumably 6000 dpi for 35mm film) you are only getting better resolution of the grain. I say "so what's wrong with that?" or in other words, I don't think you are going to lose information by scanning at higher resolution, and who knows(?) there might even be information in that higher resolution of the grain that could be useful some day.

Here's another service in the UK.

http://www.precision-drum-scanning.co.uk/

So far in a quick search I haven't found drum scanner services in Continental Europe, but I am sure there are a number of them there.