Re: filmscanners: Pre scan viewer?

[Arthur Entlich <artistic@ampsc.com>]

I suppose it depends on the resolution of the webcam and if you have 
software to make easy inversions.

It would probably be a lot easier to just locate an old consumer grade 
video camera, or even some older camcorders had the feature.  It's 
funny, but I'm not sure the newer ones have it (the neg/pos switch) as 
"standard equipment" anymore.

The camera/camcorder either needs to have a very close macro lens or 
have the ability to have close up adapters added. At the time when I 
bought the video camera many moons ago, I also bought an adapter which 
was designed for reviewing or videotaping negs and slides.  It is a 
close up adapter/len and a tube with a frosted glass at one end.  You 
place a light source there.  There are both nag and slide carriers, and 
there is a slot fro them in the tube.  There is a second slot which 
holds the filters.  There was one for slides, which wasn't really 
necessary, and another for negative films, which wasn't very effective 
as films changed, and therefore the masks did as well, so I started to 
use filter packs I made up from Cibachrome enlarger filter packs.  SInce 
most older video cameras had manual white balance settings, one could 
also adjust that aspect (although it mainly moved the color balance from 
red through blue)

The other option is to see if you can find one of the nicer systems 
which was made by Tamron.  You might find these used rather cheaply as 
well.  It was a video transfer system for film, using a macro lens, 
backlighted platform, and an electronic color filtering system of some 
sort and used a CCD chip video sensor.  They actually weren't bad, 
although the resolution wasn't anything to write home about.  But the 
main advantage is that this is direct "real time" type of viewing, no 
scanning no processing.

Anyway, that's what I know about this stuff, as it if your webcam will 
function, depends upon the type of output you can get from it.

Art

Ian Jackson wrote:

> Art,
> 
> So do you think it might be possible to rig up a low cost equivalent
> using a web camera?
> 
> Ian
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Arthur Entlich" <artistic@ampsc.com>
> To: <filmscanners@halftone.co.uk>
> Sent: Monday, November 12, 2001 12:32 PM
> Subject: Re: filmscanners: Pre scan viewer?
> 
> 
> 
>>There are some quite fast professional scanners, and also screen
>>resolution doesn't require very high resolution scans, but if it is
>>
> very
> 
>>fast, or immediate, most likely it is simply using a video camera.
>>
>>When showing negative film, the video camera does an inversion.
>>
>>The orange mask can be removed by a filter which is of the opposite
>>color to the mask.  I sometimes use my older video camera for this.
>>
> It
> 
>>has the inversion circuitry built in, and I just have to place a cyan
>>filter in front that come close to being the color complement to the
>>orange mask.
>>
>>Art
>>
>>Ian Jackson wrote:
>>
>>  > When I visit my local processor he has an imaging camera which
>>
> displays
> 
>>  > a colour or B& W negative as a positive image on a monitor.   This
>>  > appears to be a much more convenient and quicker way of previewing
>>
> negs
> 
>>  > than using a scanner preview.
>>  >
>>  > How does this equipment manage to make a colour positive and at
>>
> the same
> 
>>  > time remove the orange mask?
>>  >
>>  > Ian
>>  >
>>  > .
>>  >
>>  >
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
> 
> .
> 
>