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Month: January 2015

5×7 film scanning hacks

edgeshadows

Mystery shadows with Epson V700, parallel lines on right vertical edge of frame
(enlarged and contrast boosted for clarity)

I went though some embarrassing fits of misdirection trying to track down the cause of these odd parallel shadow lines of less density around the negative’s rebate edge. First I thought that it was an artifact of slosher tray development- due mostly to the tendency of film to curl along its length, thus leaving a edge of the film that would stick out of the developer and receive less development due to the meniscus effect. But the artifact was still there when I began to develop film in a Jobo drum, which spins the film in individual tubes through the solution constantly during processing. At that point I was convinced it was caused by using excessive movement of the front standard of my camera when composing a photograph, which then would cause an off-axis shadow from the back aperture to be cast along the corresponding edge of the film. So I beveled the edge of the back aperture to make this impossible. When that didn’t work I stained all the margins of my film holders flat black to make sure they weren’t causing some odd light scatter. When that didn’t work I finally looked at my scan procedure itself.