Scanning old glass plate negatives

I came across a box of old glass plate negatives from a stereo camera,

from the 1920's or 1930's I would estimate.

 

I would like to digitize them, and I am wondering what the best (and

not too expensive) way to do this is.

 

The glass plates look like large microscope slides, they are just

about exactly the width of a mounted 35mm slide , and a little longer

than two 35mm slides put together. There is no border, the images are

as wide as the glass plate.

 

I am looking at modifying the carrier tray for a Minolta Dual IV

scanner to hold the plate. But I'm wondering if there is a modest cost

scanner which would be able to handle these plates most easily and

with best results.

Henry, I am in the middle of doing just! I am using my (old) Agfa DuoScan. It is a flat bed scanner with a transparency shelf built in. It works perfectly. I reckon if you can get access toa flatbed scanner with transparency adapter, you will get some joy. The DuoScanner does it very easily of course.

 

I set the slides, old cinema advertising glass mounted slides, up at 6 ata time. I now have to separate them and clean them up.

 

Sample below.<div></div>

Can you explain what a transparency shelf is? Is that something that gets the light to come in from the other side of the slide?

 

thanks!

John... Those scans look great. I just this week got a Duoscan T1200 from Ebay for around $60. I just need a cable to hook it to the computer so I can get started. Total cost of the system will be under $100. <p>

I shoot medium & large format. I also have a large collection of 5x7 glass negatives I want to scan. Just a few questions, <p>

Are you doing anything special to protect the glass scanner tray from being scratched? Have you tried making any negative holders? If so, what material did you use? Thanks for any and all help.

Henry, your glass negs are smallish but I also think you would be best served by a high-end flatbed with trans adapter. The work is in setting all those negs on the bed. You can get many on a 8x10 flatbed and batch scan. If you can use SCSI, the older ones (Duoscan, Linocolor, Powerlook) are cheap but have professional quality optics. And UMax still has some flatbeds that use Firewire. I think you can make an excellent 5x7 print from a 35mm size slide/neg. I have also scanned old Magic Lantern slides and they come out great. GOOD LUCK.