From: Carl Weese (cweese@earthlink.net)
Date: 10/19/01-09:34:13 AM Z
Sandy,
The 950 will do better for this than the camera I've pressed into service.
Any good lightbox will do as light source. A camera with true manual
exposure (not just auto-override), longer than normal zoom lens, and close
focus is what's wanted and I think that model has all the right features.
Just as with 'real' proofs, the idea would be to find a manual exposure
that's correct and shoot everything the same (figuring you can go back to
fix severely overexposed negs later if you want). What that exposure is, you
just determine by taking the file to the computer, inverting it, and going
back and forth until you find the exposure that gives an inverted image of
the right density. Expect to adjust in 'curves' because a negative will be a
flat subject to a device intended to capture real-world luminance ranges. A
scanner-style "pre-scan" would be nice but probably isn't available.
Last point is that a great advantage here is to use large on-screen files
instead of little printed proof sheets. Highlight a dozen or more files in a
folder, hit "open" and they'll all pop up in PhotoShop. Hit "close" and you
drop through them in sequence like a slideshow. You could make paper
printouts with laser or inkjet, but the screen images are better, more
convenient, and free.
---Carl
--
web site with picture galleries
and workshop information at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~cweese/
----------
>From: Sandy King <sanking@clemson.edu>
>To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
>Subject: Digital Proofing of large format negatives
>Date: Fri, Oct 19, 2001, 10:42 AM
>
> OK, I finally bought a digital camera (a used Nikon COOLPIX 950) and
> once I get beyond the fun of making bad pictures that can be
> immediately deleted it is my intention to use it to photograph my
> large format negatives to create the equivalent of the kind of
> contact sheets we make with 35mm and roll film negatives. I have
> discussed how to go about this with Sam Wang, and I read the article
> Carl Weese did on this for subject for PT. Any others ideas about
> technique for this would be appreciated. By that I mean, how to
> determine exposure, focus, store exposure data, make contact sheets,
> etc. Thanks for any help.
>
> Sany King
>
>
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