[filmscanners] RE: Full frame scans

["LAURIE SOLOMON" <LAURIE@ADVANCENET.NET>]

>What about just filing out the film holders a bit?
Not on the Minolta; most of them (especially the medium format holders) are
made of plastic and contain glass for starters.

Secondly, the medium format holders if without glass would not be able to
hold a full frame 35mm frame in the proper position to do an optical maximum
resolution scan of that frame since it would be smaller than the opening and
would fall through.  The same might very well be true for 645 frames in
larger format film holders without glass.

If one were to file the 35mm film holders for negative strips you would wind
up filling through the frame dividers in the holders so that the whole strip
would sag since those film holders do not use glass.  If you filled the 35mm
slide holders, you would still have to cut your negs into individual frames
and either use glass or slide mounts to hold the film and keep it from
falling through the holder. If you used slide mounts, you would not get full
frame scans unless you used full frame glass 35mm slide mounts.

>I've never understood why full frame holders weren't standard issue for
>enlargers and film scanners.

I can think of a number of reasons.  1. Not everyone seeks full frame scans
or enlargements.  Full frame images with the black border or the frame
numbers showing on the outer edge is sort of an artsy thing that became
fashionable within the art circles a decade or so ago and may have even gone
out of fashion by now.  Most people, I would suggest crop their images when
they print them and most analog prints (especially color ones) were made by
automated processors which were designed to print borderless prints which
were cropped to meet standard photographic paper sizes.  Then digital
scanning and printing came along and attempted to emulate traditional one
hour lab photographic standards in terms of paper sizes and the cropping of
35mm proportions down to 8x10 proportions and aspect ratios.

2. Most early film scanners were used by those in the publishing industry
who scanned primarily transparencies and not negatives.  Hence most of the
35mm slides where in mounts that cropped the image and had to be removed to
allow the film to be mounted on the drum of the drum scanner: thus they were
individual frames and not strips.  However, later with the emergence of the
CDD filmscanner the 35mm slides were left in the mount for placement in film
holders for the CDD film scanners primarily due to the fact that people were
reluctant to go through the effort to remove the frames from the mounts in
order to scan them and then had to remount the slides for storage. When
these scanners were beginning to be used to scan 35mm negatives, which came
from the processor in strips of 4  or 6, people did not want to cut the
strips into individual frames for purposes of scanning or printing.  It is
not easy to make a full frame holder for a full strip of uncut negatives (4
to 6 in a strip) and retain the sorts of rigidity and flatness that is
required to keep the film from buckling and bowing. As for medium format
film, They usually have windows that are slightly larger than the frame but
typically use masks that are slightly smaller than full frame to prevent
stray light from hitting the image area during the scan so theoretically one
could probably do a full frame 645 to 6x9 in the holders if you do not use
the mask; but then there is nothing to prevent the film from buckling or
bowing or stray light from hitting the image area.  This is further
complicated by the fact that most film holders for medium format used by
film scanners, unlike enlarger film holders, do not utilize the clam shell
design and probably could not effectively do so without the scanner becoming
bigger and bulkier.

3.  Designers tend to design for the masses in a mass market economy and not
for the elite few; and even if they are designing for professionals and
industrial users, they are designing for the masses within that market and
not the unique few.

4. Lastly, tradition plays a big part.  Film sizes and formats as well as
paper sizes and formats tend to change frequently over time as to what
aspect ratios they use; but despite that the sizes and formats that are
considered standard tend to live longer lives and persist long after the
size and format of the day has changed.  Photographic paper as tended to be
of certain sizes and photographic prints tended to keep to those sizes.
Often camera manufacturer's have built cameras that utilize negative sizes
with aspect ratios and formats which do not fit the standard traditional
paper sizes.
-----Original Message-----
From: filmscanners_owner@halftone.co.uk
[mailto:filmscanners_owner@halftone.co.uk]On Behalf Of Todd Flashner
Sent: Sunday, December 23, 2001 1:50 PM
To: laurie@advancenet.net
Subject: [filmscanners] Re: Full frame scans


on 12/23/01 1:59 PM, LAURIE SOLOMON wrote:

> It is possible for 35mm and maybe some of the smaller medium format
sizes -
> 645 and 6x6 - on the Minolta Scan Multi and Multi II (I do not know about
> the Multi Pro, although I suspect it is possible there too).  However, I
do
> not think you would like the process with respect to 35mm and 645 formats.
>
> First you would need to cut the film down to individual or sets of two
> frames.  Second you would have to put those frames in the glass medium
> format holder (in the case of 645 in a larger medium format glass holder)
> such that they were in the center section that the scanner will scan at
the
> maximum optical resolution without interpolation.  Third you would have to
> preview and scan each frame individually.
>
> As for the black borders you would have to do that yourself in Photoshop.

Your right, I would not enjoy cutting my film down to individual frames and
using glass! What about just filing out the film holders a bit?

I've never understood why full frame holders weren't standard issue for
enlargers and film scanners. I don't get why the
designers/engineers/manufacturers believe we should want our images cropped,
and then to loose more image to flare refracting off the holders edges. Who
the hell designs these things, and what I really want to know is how that
fool managed to get a job with every manufacturer out there....

Thanks Laurie

Todd

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