Options
old negatives
grandmaR
Registered Users Posts: 1,947 Major grins
I have a whole box of old negatives from the 1920s mostly. Probably at least 200 of them. They are bigger than 35 mm - probably about 2-3" by 4-5". I think I have prints of some of them like this one - the girl on the left is my mother.
Where can I get them printed (cheap)?
Where can I get them printed (cheap)?
0
Comments
Bigger than 35 mm though
Most places that I've googled seem to assume it will be 35 mm that I want scanned. I really don't want prints - I want digital copies
1) If you have a local college, university or (better) junior college with a photography curriculum they may also have a "wet" lab with a 4" x 5" enlarger with a glass-plate, negative holder (sometimes called a glass-plate negative carrier). If so, they may use your negatives as a class project or perhaps a student will volunteer to print your negatives. Alternately, they may allow you to enroll in the class and to print the negatives yourself, outside of class hours, of course. In any case you would be responsible for materials costs. There is some risk in this method, of course, for both loss and for damage.
2) You might find someone local with a "contact printer" willing to help you out. You could gang the negatives on the contact printer using an 8" x 10" marked area, and print to 8" x 10". This is relatively quick and fairly easy, so they might not charge too much for the processing. There is the same risk as above for this method.
3) Find someone who owns, or purchase for yourself, a large-format flatbed scanner, capable of scanning negatives. The safest method is to purchase the scanner and scan the negatives yourself. Once the negatives are scanned you can use any printer that meets your quality and cost criteria. The nice thing about this method is that, done properly, you don't have to touch the negatives again in order to make more prints or even to view the images, assuming that you have a suitable computer for viewing the images.
A couple examples of large format negatives I scanned (quickly) for a funeral and a memory video:
Some suitable scanners:
EPSON Perfection 4990, no longer available new but you can often find them for $300-$400. Very good scan quality and handles sizes to 8" x 10".
EPSON Perfection V700, fairly expensive but available new. Can handle up to an 8" x 10" single or you can gang a bunch of smaller negatives (with similar exposures) to scan at once. Very high quality scans.
If you just want basic, low resolution and low quality scans for proofing, you may even try the DIY approach with any old flatbed scanner:
http://www.popphoto.com/gear/2011/07/how-to-scan-negatives-using-standard-scanner-0
... or this from a Flickr user (see the first 9 images on this link):
http://tinyurl.com/bmso3xh
Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
I actually have an enlarger and used to do my own printing, but I've given away all the chemistry and I don't think I even have the paper. I've written Bob's cousin Hewett who has a photography studio to see what he would charge me, and I did find one place that will do them for about $1.00 each. So I will see what Hewett says and if he doesn't want to do it, I'll send them off.
Thank you for taking time to help!!!
You send them the box of negatives, they scan them, and put the images on a website. You choose the ones you want printed and downloaded.
Unfortunately, when I did it, you had to buy half of the negatives you send in, now its 80%. But they do a nice job.