Scanner for contact sheet proofing

[harryo]

I shoot 6x7 film and would like to scan and print out an 8x10 contact sheet

with 9 exposures per sheet. What flatbed scanner would you suggest for this. I

have a Nikon 8000 for my high resolution scanning, but want something that can

scan 9 shots at one time at a low resolution so that I can proof them as a

contact sheet. Any suggestions on a flatbed that will do this would be

appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Harry

[nick_wilson2]

I guess any of the flat beds would do it by lying the negs down on the glass. I don't know if there are any film flatbeds that allow all 9 negs in 3x3 rows at once.

 

Someone else can answer that, but thought I would throw in an idea if all you want is rough contacts.

 

Use a small digital camera to take a picture of the negs on a light box (or window), then convert the image to a 'negative' in the computer, which ends up being a positive and one can see the pictures.

 

It does work, but don't expect stellar quality 'scans'!

[kparratt]

Nick's idea works. I've done the same for quick reference prints of slides. The shot bellow was improvised with a Zeiss Proxar, simply hand-held against the lens of a Kodak "EasyShare DX6490".

 

It's a whole lot quicker than scanning and does the job. This shot, taken in a hurry, was not in a darkend room, hence the surface reflections. The lightbox had a 5000k light source, so I just set the camera on "Daylight".

 

I'll refine the setup for the major B&W proofing exercise.

 

I have decades worth of B&W negs that I have not made contact sheets of. When searching for images, I would prefer to flip through a book of darkroom contact proofs, rather than opening up jpegs, but it's going to save me a load of time and a reservoir of water.<div></div>