I have the original 120 pro carrier. I find the flip up pressure plate really annoying and it really fails to keep my film flat sometimes.
Is there anyone here who has tried both the original and the new Mk2 120 carrier?
If so does it actually succeed at keeping the film flat?
I have the āBASIC FILM CARRIER 120 MK2ā which holds the relevant part of the PRO model.
Does it keep film flat?
If you want the negatives to be absolutely flat, they need to be sandwiched between to pieces of high quality glass. @Mark_Segal does that. Find his posts in the forum. Or PM him for his document describing his camera scanning setup.
Thanks you for your reply!
Yes I agree that sandwiching between glass is the most effective. My issue is that Iāve shoot quite a lot of film and I just simply lack the free time to be able to scan it all that slowly. I already struggle to find the time to scan with the carrier.
Unfortunately it seems my film is always wanting to curl, Both length wise and width wise. Not sure if itās a development issue or manufacturing.
Even laying the film out flat on a table with heavy books on top for days at a time doesnāt seem to fix it.
The MK2 seems faster but like you say, a design which allows the ability to move the film seems unlikely to keep it flat. At least with the MK1 the film is indeed held in place and not allowed to move while the pressure plate is engaged. So thats why Iām skeptical of Negative Supplyās claims that the MK2 is an improvement in flatness.
Hi Digitizer - yes all thatās true. To save the O/P time, Iāll describe briefly here: there are two glass sandwich solutions that work, the first usually good, and the second more expensive, even better. The first is TruVue Museum Glass; the second is a special anti-Newton glass manufactured by Schott in Germany.
I do also use a glassless solution for the 35mm negatives that has proven satisfactory but not generally available unless one already has it, and that is the 35mm negative carrier that came with the Minolta Scan-Elite 5400 (original model). This is constructed in a way that holds negatives flat - i.e. when you shut the carrier it squeezes the film down in seven places along the strip and the strip is immobile. If these negatives happen to have a particularly pronounced concavity or convexity however, the glass remains the only real solution.
Thank you for your reply Mark.
How efficient is the glass method time wise?
I have about 75 rolls of 6x7 I need to scan from a recent trip.
Depending on how you value ($$) your time, you could have your negatives scanned by a lab.
Shoochyu, I hear you about time, our most precious commodity these days, and we have all had our expectations about speed and efficiency really hyped-up by the digital revolution, BUT all that said I think itās important to recognize that when we are working at the ābleeding edgeā between analog and digital, things are just going to take more time if we want to get it right. Digitizing with a camera is a big efficiency improvement over using scanners, but still and well, parts of the process are inevitably a bit time-consuming. Unless you find a workaround.
The key thing that will take the time using glass is the need to make sure it is clean - and that means wiping with proper materials all four surfaces. Another factor that takes time is positioning the media between the glass and lining it up to properly fit the frame of your cameraās sensor. This bit of it you could probably improve on the time by designing some guide rails on your light table which minimize the positioning and aligning task.
So for example if you have the glass cut to accommodate a strip of X number of negatives, and then tape the glass sheets to each other at one edge, you can then align the negative strip just along the tape, and run the sandwich against a properly aligned guard rail on the light table, and slide it along to move from one negative to the next. So a bit of investment of time getting it set-up, but then things should move along pretty fast, to the extent feasible.
Iām not affiliated with any company, but if youāre planning to scan 75 rolls yourself and regularly work at that volume, an automated system could be a real time-saver.
The Film-o-Mat Autocarrier 120 seems like a solid option, or you could go with a more hands-on approach using a Lobster Holder. I am positive there other options out there as well.
A glass sandwich works well too, but itās slowāprobably best reserved for select frames, in my humblest opinion.
Both the Autocarrier and the Lobster mechanically press the film flat: one uses motors / magnets, the other relies on a spring. Glass carriers for enlargers can also do the job, but the tradeoff is needing to realign every time you move to a new image.
For the interested:
Both carriers fix the film (edges) as mentioned above by @SSelvidge , but while the film moves from one exposure to the next, it can (and will) warp if has a curl as mentioned here.
For better flatness, the holder should grab the edges and pull them outwards. There are limits to that because pulling too hard could damage the film.
In order to prevent curling, itās best to cut the film, put it in a negative sleeve and store it so that it cannot bend. Doing this can make the film as flat as you can see e.g. on the lobsterholder web page.
I could be wrong, but Filmomat might use tension as well. I believe I recall seeing that it has rollers on both ends?
I will investigate. EDIT NEXT DAY: It appears filmomat autocarrier has rollers on both ends, though I am unsure if it creates tension or not. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS-S2etA9lU&t=1s
The perfect device is surely something we can all imagine, but who will build it and would it be āaffordableā for an interested user?!
I use a Beseler de-luxe dual mode slide duplicator (heavily modified). It has a steel base plate that the aluminium neg holder sit on top of. Iāve glued 4 powerful little neodymium magnets to the neg holder. It still opens easily enough to allow film movement but is really clamped hard shut when released. End frames on strips & images on Mylar base are still problematic but for the rest itās good enough & quick.
Check out Kaiser Phototechnik: Products
Iāve always thought that the Kaiser range of products for film copying was very comprehensive but I donāt recall anyone on here actually using them, apart from their Slimlite Plano panel of course. I had a job finding their Filmcopy Vario kit from their product page but in fact the āFilm digitizationā section can be found under āCopy stands and lighting equipmentā here.
They say elsewhere that the glass and inserts can be used on any System V enlarger from 1994 so clearly they have repurposed products that they already make and itās a very full range covering formats up to 6x9 and including AN glass inserts. Very similar in principle to my Durst Sirioneg holder but that only goes up to 6x7 and of course they are no longer made and so have to be found secondhand piece by piece if you donāt already have them with the enlarger.
These clamshell holders are held tight in the enlarger by those two ācartā springs so Iām not entirely clear how Kaiser have solved that problem with their adapted Filmcopy Vario holder. Iāve gone the way of @DavidHoffmanuk and stuck some neodymium magnets on to the holder.
So I see that this thread asks about them:
Iām hoping @BDS might be able to say how they have been getting on with the Kaiser Filmcopy kit? Has it lasted well, are the format frames metal, does 120 film stay flat, do Kaiser answer emails (it seems that Negative Supply normally donāt)?
Still working for me.
Lasting well, format frames are plastic (I use ANR glass on bottom and frame on top), film is flat enough.
I havenāt had to get in contact with Kaiser so not sure how their customer service is.
My only complaint is that the format frame crops in on the image slightly. Iāve thought about filing one down or having a custom one cut or 3D printed, but havenāt gotten around to it yet.
Thanks very much for responding so quickly, very good to have first hand experience on here. I was wondering how it holds itself shut since it is based on the Kaiser System V enlarger film holder which has springs that hold it firmly closed once the carrier is slotted into the enlarger?
I use the Durst M605 Sirioneg film holder with an AN glass on the bottom and a metal mask on the top, plus the DIY neodymium magnets to hold it shut. The Durst metal masks come in pairs for 35mm, 6x6 and 6x7 and a big advantage for me is indeed that the upper mask is oversized so I use that, this allows for some rebate to show on each of the formats.
No problem, itās just held down by its own weight.
The Durst system sounds just as good to be honest, Iām buying an enlarger soon as well (probably Durst Modular 70 or Lab 1200) so will see how the holder works for scanning too, good the hear the mask shows some rebate.
Thanks, good luck with your search for your enlarger. I slight word of warning, I used my M605 for many years in the darkroom for producing large runs of colour prints. However more recently my original EST305 stabilised power supply stopped working and unfortunately I donāt know enough about electronics to know why. I bought 2 M605 colour enlargers locally quite cheaply and one power supply worked fine, but the other also stopped working very soon after I bought it. So I donāt know what goes wrong, it might just be a component on the circuit board, or it might be the primary or secondary coil, in fact just this morning I was looking to see if I could find someone locally that would be able to tell, they are quite simple electronically Iām sure, with discreet components on the old school circuit boards. Iāve seen someone selling a Durst with what appears to be a 100W LED transformer, maybe thatās a solution.
Looks like the Modular 70 uses a āSinonegā film holder but this also appears to fit the M605, I suspect that the only difference might be that it could be plastic rather than metal but I imagine the inserts would be the same. Just guessing though.
You prompted me to look for more information on transformers! This thread looks promisingā¦