Which MF film holder for the Nikon 9000?

[monkeytumble]

Which negative hold would you get for scanning MF film with a Nikon 9000, and why?

Thanks,

Jay

 

[sanking]

If possible I would buy a negative holder that would allow fluid mounting.

Reason, fluid mounting enhances macro and micro contrast and with some scanners minimizes the appearance of objectionable grain without loss of sharpness.

Sandy King

Which negative hold would you get for scanning MF film with a Nikon 9000, and why?

Thanks,

Jay

 

[jd callow]

It also reduces the appearence of scratches and finger prints and other surface crap. The down side is mess and time. I believe there is a glass holder that can be used with or w/o fluid -- I could be wrong.

 

[sanking]

Unfortunately the only two fluid mount systems I have seen for the Nikon L:S 9000 are the KAMI Holder Kit for the Nikon 8000 / 9000 that is sold through Aztek for $570, and the Image Mechanics Fluid Mount Tray, about the same price.

I don't know how the glass mount for the L:S 9000 works, but it is quite a bit less expensive. One might be able to use it with fluid mounting, but having never seen one I am not sure.

Sandy King

It also reduces the appearence of scratches and finger prints and other surface crap. The down side is mess and time. I believe there is a glass holder that can be used with or w/o fluid -- I could be wrong.

 

[monkeytumble]

Unfortunately the only two fluid mount systems I have seen for the Nikon L:S 9000 are the KAMI Holder Kit for the Nikon 8000 / 9000 that is sold through Aztek for $570, and the Image Mechanics Fluid Mount Tray, about the same price.

I don't know how the glass mount for the L:S 9000 works, but it is quite a bit less expensive. One might be able to use it with fluid mounting, but having never seen one I am not sure.

Sandy King

Hmmm... $600 for the holder. Do able, if necessary.

Sandy - how and with what technology do you scan MF film that you only need to magnify 6 to 8 times? And, are you scanning B&W negatives (silver based emulsions), color negatives (C41 films), or color positives (E-6 slide films)?

 

[sanking]

My technology for scanning MF is a very old Leafscan 45. I have a glass mounting board and always fluid mount, with the negative on the board, and a sheet of glass over the negative, with the emulsion of the film facing toward the CCD of course.

Let me remark first that I always scan MF for the largest size I am ever likely to want to print, but that happens to usually be 8X or less with color. If magnification is to be no more than about 8X I scan color negative film at 2540 spi at 16 bit, which allows me to make a print at 300 dpi of 18X22" size from a 6X7 cm negative. If I plan to print larger, or anticipate cropping, I will scan at 5080 spi. This takes a lot longer because in order to get this resolution I have to scan in two passes and then stitch. But the resulting scans are very close to drum scan quality, in fact a lot better than some drums.

When working with B&W negatives I always scan in Grayscale 16 bit at 5080 spi and stitch the files together.

If I have a color negative and want to make a B&W print from it I look at the tonal values and determine if there is any advantage in terms of control of tonal values to scanning in RGB. If not, I scan in Grayscale at 16 bit.

I always scan in MF with fluid mount. The scans are sharper because of increased macro and micro contrast and as JD mentioned, they are also much cleaner. And with my scanner the appearance of grain is minimized with fluid mounting.

After scanning I finish initial processing of the files by sharpening. For this I often use a product called PhotoKit Sharpener which does sharpening in several stages, input, creative and output, with lots of personal control possible at every stage. At this stage I do the input and creative sharpening, then do final tonal corrections and any necessary clean-up of the image, flatten to save disk space, and save as a final corrected file. To print I just open the file, re-size to final print size, do output sharpening if needed, and print.

That is probably longer than you wanted, but that is what I do.

Sandy King

Hmmm... $600 for the holder. Do able, if necessary.

Sandy - how and with what technology do you scan MF film that you only need to magnify 6 to 8 times? And, are you scanning B&W negatives (silver based emulsions), color negatives (C41 films), or color positives (E-6 slide films)?

 

[chriscrawfordphoto]

I have used both of the glass carriers for the 8000/9000. I prefer the rotating one, because it comes with drop in plastic masks for the different film formats, while the non-rotating one requires you to stick tape on the glass to mask off frame edges (with negs, you get bad flare if you don't). The rotating one costs $100 more, but really is worth it. Sharpness is greatly improved over the non-glass 120 carrier, the difference is so great that I am angry that it wasn't included (Minolta included the glass carrier for their medium format scanners).

 

[nsouto]

I use the standard MF holder for my 9000 but the clips have been removed, the adjustable stop fixed in one position and it's been modified in the following way:

Using two sheets of AN glass from Dead Link Removed:

1- First sheet with the AN surface down, is the base and goes into the normal place where the film goes in this holder.
2- Film goes on top of this sheet, emulsion side down.
3- A second sheet, AN surface again down, sits on top of the film.
4- Two strips of sticky tape go at each end of the two sheets and stick the lot to the frame of the holder.

If the film emulsion side is smooth enough to cause N-rings, (Astia sometimes does that) I just reverse the bottom sheet of AN glass so that the rough side is up.

This setup takes only a few seconds to change the film and it keeps it as flat as anything. Together with Ice, it works wonders with any colour negative or slide film. B&W is a bit of a problem as Ice doesn't work other than for chromogenic. But I can live with careful preparation and cleaning of the negatives.

I'm thinking of improvements for b&w along the lines of using mineral oil to see if I can get rid of scratches and imperfections in the surface of the film that Ice usually takes care of. The Lumina stuff is too expensive for me to import, so I'm looking at alternatives.

The advantage of this setup is that two sheets of AN glass from that site are much, much cheaper than any of the glass-mount holders available for the 8000/9000.

 

[monkeytumble]

Thank you for the informative responses. With your help Im now beginning to see what the relevant choices will be on path before me. If you will indulge me two more questions:

1. Are the results you are realizing with your scanning sufficient for your artistic expression? Or, when you really get a good image, do you send it out for a "good" drum scan?

2. And, to those that wet mount and use a better quality CCD, dedicated film scanner, do you scan everything this way or do you do proof scans dry on your film scanner or dry on a flat bed scanner?

Thanks,

Jay Decker
Kennewick, WA

 

[sanking]

Jay,

In terms of sharpness I don't believe there would be much to gain with a MF negative, color or B&W, with a drum scan over the LS 9000. If you shoot color transparency film a drum scan would bring out more shadow detail. But modern color negative film is as fine grained and as sharp as color transparency film, and has a lot more dynamic range, so why would anyone want to shoot transparency film if the final product is a print on paper? The drum scan would probably be better but unless you need to print very large the gain would not make much practical difference on the print.

My work flow is to place MF negatives in Print File clear plastic negative sheets and create a proof file of each sheet by scanning the entire page with an Epson flatbed scanner, a 4990, at 300 spi. I save the file in a folder called Contact Gallery, in a sub-folder corresponding to the shooting assignment. I view the images individually in Photoshop to decide which ones will get a high rez scan. The proof scan is extremely helpful as I tend to shoot a lot to get as many variations as possible on a given scene, and the contact galleries allow me to quickly select the best shot (s) that deserve a high rez scan. I will also examine the negative with a 10X loupe to make sure that it is really sharp, something the proof file can not tell me.

Sandy King

Thank you for the informative responses. With your help I’m now beginning to see what the relevant choices will be on path before me. If you will indulge me two more questions:

1. Are the results you are realizing with your scanning sufficient for your artistic expression? Or, when you really get a good image, do you send it out for a "good" drum scan?

2. And, to those that wet mount and use a better quality CCD, dedicated film scanner, do you scan everything this way or do you do “proof scans” dry on your film scanner or dry on a flat bed scanner?

Thanks,

Jay Decker
Kennewick, WA

 

[nsouto]

With both colour negative and slides, I never felt the need for more detail, dynamic range or anything the 9000 can't deliver. Scanned at 4000/16bit, a 6X7 image is bordering on the GB in size and there is really not much that can't be done from such a file.
I do extensive post-procesing though, so it's not a typical case. Most folks just apply sharpening and/or crop the output of the scan.

I'll be looking at wet mount of b&w in the near future.

 

[toyotadesigner]

The Nikon FH-869 G anti Newton glass holder is perfect for excellet MF scans. If you want to avoid wet scanning, you might consider to invest some 100 US$ into a Kinestat KS-100 brush for MF format. You can get it directly from Kinetronics:

http://kinetronics.com/store/kinestat_prod.html

It really eliminates all dust particles from the film. They also sell simple brushes, but I don't know if it makes sense to clean the glass holder with an ungrounded brush - I use small pieces of cotton to keep the glass clean.