Hi all, I’m looking for a new holder that will really lay my huge 6x9 120 negatives flat. I’ve had issues with NS full border and Valoi.
I’m looking at both the Lobster holder and the Tone holder. Does anyone have any experience with either?
The only way to keep negatives flat is to put them between to sheets of optical/museum/gallery glass. The one pointing to the lens should be thin.
Wet mount to prevent Newton rings.
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I’m thinking I might have to go this route.
Digitizer may well be right, but whether it’s the ONLY way, maybe yes, maybe not. You may recall the Hasselblad Flextight solution used a combination of a thin metal sheet and a magnetic overlaid black blanket between which one put the film, and then it bent a bit in their scanner to really hold the negative stretched. That worked well. There’s a fellow in China who makes knock-offs of these holders at considerably lower cost than the real Hasselblad ones, accessible on eBay if he’s still doing it. You may wish to experiment with one of those. When I was looking into it he made a number of medium format sizes. As well, Plustek made medium format holders for their high-end MF film scanner. I don’t know whether those remain available or can be bought separately but perhaps another option. All that said, if the negatives have significant humping in the middle, then the solution given by Digitizer is indeed the only option.
That would be a fairly ideal solution, but then, we approach sequential line scanning or have to focus stack if we take one-shot snaps…
Wet mounting is certainly not a desirable solution, but for large negatives and photos that are worth to be printed really large, it’s probably the optimal mix for a good quality per effort ratio.
Tidbit: In early days of optical communications, some connector manufacturers relied on optical fluids (basically super-clean oil) to reduce loss in connected fibres. If the liquid had about the same refractory index as the fibres involved, loss and undesirable reflections were greatly reduced. Communication grade laser diode modules were about 10’000 USD at that time.
Oh - you raise the point about the kind of fluid; actually, for film scanning, film cleaner works really well if one proceeds to make the exposure quickly enough, because it evaporates, which is what we want. It holds the film flat for a very short time and then evaporates leaving nothing to be cleaned-up.
…except for dust that might even stick better than before.
Better to start with (wet) cleaning.
And film strips in archival sleeves.
…but we get off-topic here…
Oh yes - cleaning comes before everything - using film cleaner especially! 
In my quick initial research I see that mineral spirits works well for wet scanning? I plan to take a test drive with that sometime this week.
Like you said, when I see a negative worth printing I will wet scan.
In the UK the easiest fluid to obtain is probably Gamblin Gamsol which is obtainable from artists’ suppliers. I often see US drum scanner operators refer to ‘mineral oil’ from the hardware store but I often wonder what this is, what is its other uses. I’m not sure we have a direct equivalent. We have ‘white spirit’ for cleaning brushes when decorating but I don’t think I’d want to use that.
Ya, I’d be careful. In North America we have a product named PEC-12 made by Photographic Solutions Inc. (https://photosol.com/products/pec-12/). I’ve used this and it’s been good - no issues. According to their website it’s available pretty much around the world. In the UK:
Morco Limited College Farmhouse, Cromwell, Newark Nottinghamshire, NG23 6JE
Website: morco.uk.com
And through Amazon: amazon.co.uk
Thanks Mark, I’ve heard of PEC-12 in relation to film cleaning but of course the two applications are more or less the same. Way back we used film cleaner made by SRS (Scanner Drum Service, a UK company) to wet scan under mylar sheets on the bed of the Fuji Lanovia C-550, We used that film cleaner like it was going out of fashion, sloshing it about with abandon. Then it did go out of fashion of course, wish I’d kept some.