Can't get the entire negative printed....

[bob_helland]

As a follow up to my post regarding the difference between my

viewfinder and the print...

 

I have a Nikon F3, and noticed that my prints were cropped a bit.

 

From what I understand, the viewfinder on the F3 is 100%.

 

However, when I asked the camera shop about this, they told me that

'in the printing process there is a holder for the film, and it covers

part of the negative. There's no way to print everything you see on

the negative. It will always crop a bit from the edges, especially

the top and bottom.'

 

 

1. Is this true?

 

2. Do all printing places do this same thing?

 

3. Is there anything I can do about it?

 

4. Can you recommend a good print shop in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area

where I can take my negatives and get a 'full frame' print. IE:

Everything that is on the negative ends up on the print.

 

4x6 prints, but I don't think that matters. If the negative is

covered, the negative is covered.

 

THANKS!

 

-Bob

[tri-x1]

Virtually all film processors have a built-in "fudge factor" built into their print equipment. You'll probably have to find a custom lab in order to get full frame prints.

[salvatore.mele]

Try and get someone with a scanner scanning the negative for you. The file will have all of the negative (and plenty of margins above and below it). Then you can arrange for this to be printed. This is the way I've solved this problem in the past.

[eric friedemann]

1. Is this true?

 

 

Yes, the film gates in printing machines crop a little off 35mm images.

 

 

2. Do all printing places do this same thing?

 

 

Yes, all "places" that do machine printing will crop 35mm negatives a bit when printing.

 

 

3. Is there anything I can do about it?

 

 

Write your congressman.

 

 

4. Can you recommend a good print shop in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area where I can take my negatives and get a 'full frame' print.

 

 

I'd check with BWC and ask if they can full-frame custom prints for you:

 

 

http://www.bwc.net/home.php

[wildwoodgallery]

It used to be easy to order full size prints. Now it's easy to print them yourself.

 

Rick

[eric friedemann]

Rick, I don't know what you mean by "full size prints." Lab machine gates (the machines' "negative carriers"), have never been full-frame. As to prints, 35mm negatives (24x36mm) and 4x6 inch prints both have the same 2:3 aspect ratio.

[w._ditto__iii]

Bob, one of the least expensive ways I know of is at Sam's - the discount warehouse Sam's, that does 8x12 full frame for less than $2 , a real bargain in comparison to the custom jobbies that charge $6 for a cropped 8x10, and they crop at THEIR discretion, not what you ask for...

[james_lai]

I had the same problem when I first got my F2. I don't have any advice about the film you've already shot, but in the future, the easiest solution would be to not frame so tightly.

[BrettPrucha]

Any pro lab can print the entire frame. Ask for key line borders. This will put a thin black border around your print. The black border is actually the outside edge of the frame.

[aardvarko]

A lab that does custom printing - with an enlarger and a separate processor - can use a filed-out negative carrier to print the entire image.

[BrettPrucha]

Getting a contact sheet made is another option.

[RobertChura]

In Fort Worth, try calling Camp Bowie Color Lab

3204-B Camp Bowie Blvd

Fort Worth, TX 76101

 

817-336-3456

[curritch]

I agree with Salvatore. Find someone, or some establishment, with a film scanner.

 

Several years ago I embarked on the task of scanning my slides and negatives (of interest) to get them into a digital database. I was surprised at how much the prints were cropped.

 

But a film scanner can capture the full frame, no problem. Slides are more of a problem because the mounts obscure some of the frame.

 

I would think that any modern photo processing facility would possess a film scanner.

[hique]

1. Is this true?

 

Depends on the equipment

 

2. Do all printing places do this same thing?

 

NO! There are some printers that don't mask the borders of the negative. Fuji frontier is one of those and I would expect any most recent minilab printer to do it also

 

3. Is there anything I can do about it?

 

Take the pictures to a lab with a Frontier minilab :) The only problem is that will be hard to print all your frame without a part of the border of the negative showing in the print. If you don't mind the negative border, it can be accomplished without problems.

 

Cheers

[eric friedemann]

"But a film scanner can capture the full frame, no problem."

 

 

Most film scanners, like my personal Nikon LS 8000, do not scan full frame. I suspect that this is because scanning into the border of an image throws off the scanner's exposure and color balancing.

 

 

I can trick my LS 8000 into scanning full frame with films up to 6x4.5 cm. However, I then have to semi-manually set exposure and color balance.

 

 

Similarly, regular commercial lab scanners- e.g. the scanners on Noritsu and Fuji Frontier machines- are not set up to scan full frame. Again, as an example, we can create a routine to force the scanner on my store's Noritsu 2901 machine to scan 35mm negatives up to XPAN size full frame, but it throws off the exposure and color balance. Additionally, its a pain in the ass, because, as I understand it, we have to reboot the machine when the full-frame scanning is done.

[ilkka_nissila]

The exposure and color are thrown off only if the exposure or color are determined based on the image data before cropping. However, in principle this can be done just as well after the scan is done and cropped precisely to leave out the black border with a very thin part of the image area lost at the edges depending on how the film is aligned. Automatic machines play it safe and leave lots of the image area out so that no one would accidentally see the edge of the negative in the print even though the tolerances may be sloppy.

 

I'm not sure if I can scan the full frame on my LS-5000 but it's so close that it makes no difference. The area left out might be 1% while it could be 20% on an automatic printing machine. And on a medium format scanner you can just put the image in as it were medium format (provided you use a glass carrier) and scan away with no color or exposure correction at the scanning stage.

[fourfa]

the powered strip feeder in my Coolscan V cuts off the long edges of the frame a little. No problem with the clamshell accessory film holder.

[curritch]

Eric. My Minolta Dual Scan III will scan well outside the images viewable through the film holder which, for all practical purposes, are the full 35mm frames. And with careful bracketing of the images to be scanned, essentally full frame scans can be produced without border stripes that might affect exposure, etc.

 

Some small part of each frame is lost, obviously, but not enough to be significant.

 

To so this on the Minolta requires that each frame be manually bracketed on the first film strip but then other strips can be scanned without having to rebracket.

[eric friedemann]

Ilkka and Curtis, I would love to know how to do FF scans on my LS 8000 and pull exposure information only from the actual image area and not the border. I haven't figured out how to do this, and Nikon isn't helpful, as Nikon does not publish actual instructions for the LS 8000. You have to learn everything through trial-and-error and third-party information on websites.

[photo5]

I would hope that Nikon would provide a glass-plate film holder for the 8000 scanners so you could just insert a 35mm strip of film and crop around the whole image. I only used to print full-frame when I was doing black and white printing in the darkroom back in school. That was in 1999, I have only been in a black and white darkroom once since, in 2003, and I decided then that I was finished with "wet work" for good. I hate getting the chemicals on my hands and clothes, and breathing them in is even worse. Thank god for digital!!

 

Dave

[eric friedemann]

"I would hope that Nikon would provide a glass-plate film holder for the 8000 scanners so you could just insert a 35mm strip of film and crop around the whole image."

 

 

1. Nikon makes- but does not "provide" with the scanner- a very nice rotating glass carrier for the LS 8000/9000, which I had to purchase extra for an extra $300+:

 

 

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=218837&is=REG&addedTroughType=search

 

 

2. Its almost- but not quite- as easy as inserting a 35mm film strip. You have to use a mask, with perforations on one end that tell scanner how large an area to view for color and exposure correction- Nikon REALLY doesn't want you doing full-frame scanning.

 

 

3. Again, the issue isn't tricking the scanner into scanning a 35mm image full frame. Its getting the scanner to expose and color-correct once you do.

[curritch]

Eric. To answer your question I had to go back and RTFM.

 

I thought initially (erroneously) that autoexposure was based on the cropped area.

 

In turns out, though, that the Minolta scanner has two windows. One is the cropping window which establishes the final scanned area and the second is the autoexposure window which establishes the portion of the frame to be used for autoexposure. It can be the same or different than the cropped area.

 

What this means is that neither window is very critical. The cropping window can clearly be larger than the visible image (which allows cropping to be done postscan) and the autoexposure window can be comfortably smaller than the visible image.

 

I tried an experiment first very carefully adjusting the cropping window and then maximizing the cropping window (which produced stripes around the image) while leaving the autoexposure window constant. The exposure of the images appeared the same.

[hique]

"as I understand it, we have to reboot the machine when the full-frame scanning is done"

 

Not with Frontier. It is actualy very simple. The operator just have to access one or two menu itens and control the magnification. It is not as fast as the default, but a dedicated operator can do it without any problems or delays.

 

Cheers.

[ilkka_nissila]

Eric, I'll look into this when I get my LS-9000 hopefully within the next month. The problem is that we need the actual code for the scanning software :-( I'm sure Ed Hamrick could help add this feature to vuescan if it doesn't have it yet.

 

The non-rotating 120 film glass holder is a bit cheaper than the rotating one, is there a particular reason one might need the rotating version? Thanks.

[dennis lee]

Bob, I think you asked this question several weeks ago didn't you? Or was

that someone else. Call every photo-lab in the phone book and ask if they do

"Black border" or "Full Frame" prints. Officially it's a full-frame print you're

looking for but few labs will actually know that term.

 

If the people at the lab don't have any idea what you're talking about thank

them kindly and call the next one on the list. Dallas/Ft. Worth should really

have at least one lab that will give you full frame prints.

 

Forget about scanners and such for now, it's far too much for your desires if I

understand you correctly. There is a machine in your neighborhood that will

print full-frame, the trouble as you're discovering is finding it.

 

I would try the labs around any art colleges or universities first and then try the

more professional labs that offer machine printing services. There is a

company in San Francisco called .... oh, I'll remember...

 

Anyway, just skip all the labs that are associated with CVS, Ritz, Walmart, etc.

Call the labs that have unique names and interesting ads. There is a market

out there for what you are looking for. It exists, it took me a year to find a lab in

NYC to do exactly what you are looking for. By the time I left the city eight

years later, I had found three more. I have yet to find one where I live now, but

by now I've switched to digital.

 

Here's another idea, call the photo departments at the local colleges, and

photo departments of local newspapers. Somebody in Dallas is doing this

work, you just need to find them out.

 

Good Luck, I feel your frustration. And by the way, do not ever stop framing

full-frame in the camera, anything less is sloppy and letting other people

dictate your composition. As you can tell, I'm fairly passionate about this.

 

If I remember the name of that lab in SF I'll let you know, the guys that own it

are pretty sharp and may know what's going on down in Texas.<div></div>