Whew

After almost a month of turtle-like speed, the Bay to Breakers photos are done. I seem to be slowing down as it shouldn't have taken more than three weeks to edit the shots. There's still the photos from the Cherry Blossom Parade, Asian Heritage Festival, Carnaval, and the surfing shots from the last Hawaii vacation to go through. Oh joy.

B2B hit rate: 36%, or 280/787

I've continued my scanning efforts, but have hit a stumbling block. My ancient Epson 2450 scanner has an intermittently dead sensel that gives a nice line across the scans. I can still scan using one negative slot instead of two, but this does slow things down a bit. For the 126mm film, I've tried using the 35mm slot, but this results in heads being lopped off. Two pieces of glass work, except for the occasional Newtonian ring. I haven't tried scanning any of the 110mm film, although I am really curious to see how well that tiny negative holds up compared to 35mm film. Who has access to a machine shop so I can carve a nice holder?

The fun part of scanning old negatives is the discovery of old photos that you've never seen before. Who would have guessed that I'd find a set of images from a beach outing with the extended family back in 1969? I've also discovered colored photos from my parents' wedding that they didn't remember seeing ever.

I still have to watch "Up." The dvd has been in my possesion for over a week now, but Netflix doesn't care.

More scanning fun

Made a trip to K&S to grab some supplies. Their prices are quite a bit higher than B&H, but at least I don't have to wait. The negatives are piling up, and if I don't get them organized as I scan them, they'll just end up in a big mess.

I bought some film cleaner, a Giottos Rocket clone, 100 35mm sleeves, 25 120mm sleeves, a microfiber cloth and some lens cleaning fluid, all for $80 (ouch). The same list of items would have cost me about $68 after shipping at B&H, but they won't ship the film cleaner. I'd have to wait for the items to arrive though, so it's a small price to pay for instant gratification.

In the meanwhile, I've found even more negatives to scan. Some of the photos I've never seen before, and some are a pleasant surprise to find in negative form. Sadly, most of the color negs have gone wonky, and resist my efforts to correct the colors (mostly too green/yellow). They make good b&w pix though.

The range of negatives is causing a problem. It's easy to scan 35mm. The 126mm film fits in the 35mm holder, but about 3mm gets cut off the top. I tried looking for extra 35mm holders online (I can use a Dremel to trim the top), but no luck; my scanner (an Epson 2450) is so old that no one carries parts anymore, not even ebay. I could buy another scanner, but that'll be a last resort. Some of the negs from the early 60's are larger than 35mm, but smaller than 120mm. No holder for those either. I'll probably just have to trap them under a piece of glass. Probably the same solution for the 110mm negatives.

And I actually found a photo of my first camera, a Diana F. It was a gift from my godmother when I was around 6 years old. Now if I can find some photos taken with the camera, that would be sweet.

Stuck together

While searching for old photos (thank facebook for making me hunt), I ran across more than a few negatives that had stuck together. I (rather stupidly) tried pulling two apart, only to see the negatives delaminate and end up with two useless negatives.

Off to the web to find a solution. Turns out that a soak in cold water should do the trick, with a touch of Photoflo (where is my nearest photo supply store?), followed by drying in a clean place.

Let's see if that actually works.

The search for those Kodak moments turned up some small prints b&w from circa 1940. Roughly a square inch, the prints scan nicely and hold up to enlargement. Much better than the results I got out of a bunch of color prints from the 70's that had very little sharpness to them. There's something to be said about old technology.

Update 1: It's been over eight hours of soaking, and the negs are still stuck together.

Update 2: Success! 24hrs later and I can peel the negatives apart, and they don't look the worse for wear. Unfortunately, they now have water spots. Off to Calumet or Keeble & Schuchat this weekend to look for some archival sleeves and other fun stuff.