Newbie question - I've inherited thousands of negatives and photos taken from 1920s to 1960s and nee

[awhiteford]

The negatives and photos I inherited come from the period between the 1920s
to early 1960s and are black and white. There are a mixture of sizes in
both the negatives and the photos.

One lot of negatives are 7cm by 4cm (2.75 by about 1.5 inches) with two
pictures on each of this sized negative. The other size is 6cms by 6.15cms
(2 by 2.25 inches) with one picture on the negative. There are a number of
negatives which have been taken at night and have "120 or B20" written on
the folder they're in.

The photos include a range of sizes from 4cm by 3cm (1.5 inches by less than
1.25 inches) and 3.5cms by 4.25 cms (1.5 by 1.75 inches) to the large family
portraits eg 21cms by 16cms (8.5 by 6.5 inches) or larger. These are all
black and white. They appear to be in pretty good condition, have been in
original camera shop envelopes and most aren't badly marked or creased.

Apart from scanning those I also want to scan the family photos I've taken
over the years or been sent by other family members. This includes a couple
of thousand negatives or photos from the late 1960s on in a mixture of black
and white and colour.

I've never used a scanner for this sort or amount of work before.
Recommendations on the best scanner to handle this task appreciated. By
best scanner I'm thinking of ease of use for scanning multiple small
negatives and photos and a reasonable quality output which won't require too
much fiddling. I've looked at a couple of scanners with inbuilt negative
handlers and am wondering how well these work. Would they be suitable for
the older style negatives and mixed sizes I have? I would like to scan
multiple negatives or photos at once so I don't spend the next 10 years of
my spare time scanning. Is this possible and if yes, what equipment do I
need to manage this?

I would also appreciate any tips about best handling this amount of work ie.
how best to set the scanner up for this, do I want highest level quality
scanning or am I likely to take much less time for a reasonable output if
I'm not too fussy. What sorts of differences will I get in the scanned
material with this approach? I have both Photoshop vs 7 and MGI photsuite
vs 8.05 - haven't used either of these previously which one of these is best
for working with the scanned photos/negatives?

 

[degrub]

If fidelity to the original image is your goal then a decent medium
format film scanner - the two nikons - 8000 or 9000 come to mind or a
drum scanner ( Aztek etc. ) would do. Add in a decent flatbed - most any
of the newer microtek, epson, or umax scanner would do. Try Silverfast
AI scanning software for the scanner - you may not need PS. However,
this assumes cost is not a real issue.

If you are trying to get reasonable results and limit the scale up of
the image to a factor of 3-4X, you should be able to get decent scans
with the transparency adapters on the higher end epson, umax or
microtek. Again, consider Silverfast for the scanning software.


Take a look at these links for more general information on scanning:

www.scantips.com

www.computer-darkroom.com

www.luminous-landscape.com


Frank

 

[J. Teske]

The negatives and photos I inherited come from the period between the 1920s
to early 1960s and are black and white. There are a mixture of sizes in
both the negatives and the photos.

One lot of negatives are 7cm by 4cm (2.75 by about 1.5 inches) with two
pictures on each of this sized negative. The other size is 6cms by 6.15cms
(2 by 2.25 inches) with one picture on the negative. There are a number of
negatives which have been taken at night and have "120 or B20" written on
the folder they're in.

120 was and still is a common format for medium formal cameras. I
wonder if what you see as B20 might actually be 620 which was a common
format for old box cameras including those from the 20's. I'm going on
pretty vague memory here, But it seems to me that 620 film stock was
the same 6cm width as 120 film, but used either different length film
on a roll and/or used a different spool standard. (I'm not old enough
to really have used a 620 camera.) There is still also a 220 film
which is actually a double length 120 e.g. 24 vs 12 frame in a 6 x 6
cm square format or 30 vs 15 when the same film is used in a 645
format camera. Many 6 x 6 format cameras can use either. Examples of
120 cameras are Hasselblads, Rolliflexes, some Bronicas, and several
Chinese and Japanese knock offs such as the Kiev, Minolta Autocord,
Yaschicamat and Seagull. I don't ever recall seeing a 620
professional camera, but several old Kodak folding cameras (including
the one upon which most of my baby pictures were taken during the
early 1940's were 620 cameras. It is certainly possible that a B20
might have existed, by I never saw this.

I have recently done some scanning of some old 120 and 620 format
stuff I have and I have gotten very good results from fairly
inexpensive flat bed scanners. I am currently using an Epson 3170
to do these in both color and black and white and with both modern
and old negatives. Almost anything greater than a 1200 dpi will be
satisfactory for most uses. A dedicated film scanner in these sizes
is quite pricey, over double their equivalent in a 35mm size.

Jon Teske

 

[Roy G. Biv]

120 was and still is a common format for medium formal cameras. I
wonder if what you see as B20 might actually be 620 which was a common
format for old box cameras including those from the 20's. I'm going on
Jon Teske

I believe B20 was just the Zeiss-Ikon designation for 120 film.