National Graflex

David · Expire: 2013-01-25

I was loaned a photographer's negative collection to digitize. It spans at least 50 years from 1916 to 1966 (I haven't opened all the boxes yet.) Here's a crop from photo titled R.W.W. on Wagon f9.5, 1/50, 11:05 A.M. August 25, 1942. This is the actual photog whose negatives I have, though I don't know who took this picture. Many of the boxes are 6X6 negatives and are labeled National Graflex. It's exciting to see the photographer and his camera and to also see all these fantastic photos he took.

RSalles · Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2014 5:11 am Post subject:

Dave,

Really nice quality negative, really impressive, and congrats for the scanning you've done!
What you're planning to use to "clean" these? You're asked to do it manually beforee scanning with a specific product or post-processed?

Renato

David · Expire: 2013-01-25

For the 35mm negatives, like this, as well as about 1/3 or so ofthe 6X6 negatives, they're all inside glass slide carriers with taped borders, so all manner of dust, small fungus, and so forth have gotten trapped between the negatives and glass. So these I won't clean up too much -- color balancing and sharpness is all. I won't be editing scratches out of around 7,500 medium- and large-format negatives.

But for the glass plates and loose negatives, I'll give them a quick shot of compressed air before digitizing them, which ought to help remove most of the dust.

Nesster · Expire: 2014-02-20

That's way cool! I see he has the lens hood as well. You are doing a great thing, salvaging these old photos

RSalles · Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2014 12:52 pm Post subject:

Dave,

I saw samples of hardware based "dust cleanning" with V700 Epson scanner which seems to be really impressive, it uses infra-red light to detect scratches and dust. Depending of your budget it could be an option to rent a V700 just to accelerate the cleaning process of large negatives.

Cheers,

Renato

David · Expire: 2013-01-25

Jussi,

Yeah, I think he made his living as a pro-tog, his work is really good. I have boxes of old glass plates, I forgot to measure them but I think they're 6X12 or 6X15. Anyway, in many of them he has front swings and rotation used to create very thin bands of focus or even single focus points with the subjects placed exactly in the focal point -- sometimes they're even self portraits. Very good workmanship. Also, it's interesting to see the photos of his wife and daughter as they grow up from the 10-teens through the 1940s (so far.)

Renato,

I'm doing it all for free and giving my time to the school. So, my budget's pretty limited. Smile