Batch film scanning / iPhone app?

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Sgt Garcia
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Hi there,

I'm a photo editor employed to work on the archive of an American rock photographer from the 60s and 70s.
My first task is to deal with over 20,000 35mm negatives.
The plan is to scan them all, purely for reference purposes i.e. so we can just see them all. Thus the quality isn't important.

My inclination is just to use an iPhone film-scanning app to do this.
It seems like it'd be fast (time-efficiency is a priority) and and also very easy.

I just wanted to get a few 2nd opinions?
Have any of you used such apps before?
Would you recommend an alternative means of scanning all the negatives?

Thanks so much!

SG
 
What's your budget?

If it's $0 and you have an iPhone, I'd say go for it!

An Epson V550 will do great contact sheet prints from 35mm, 12 at a time. I think the bigger scanners (V750/800) do more, and things like a Pakon will do a roll at a time but lol prices. The thing about scanners is that once you get it set up it's very quick. But if the photographer had many different types of film (slide, B&W, colour) it might be trickier.

Are the negs cut from film length into strips of 6? Are there any mounted slides?

20,000 negs...
 
Thanks so much for this.

There is actually budget. I'm just trying to figure out which option would be fastest.
I'd definitely consider using a scanner.

Are Pakons available to buy anywhere?

My understanding is that they're all 35mm b&w negatives. The questions you ask are good ones actually. I need to find out. The archive is still in the US so I don't actually know some of these specifics yet.

I didn't realise the Epson V550 was capable of doing that many in one go (failing finding a Pakon). Would the Epson suit the 35mm b&w format?

Thanks again!!
 
Are Pakons available to buy anywhere?

I didn't realise the Epson V550 was capable of doing that many in one go (failing finding a Pakon). Would the Epson suit the 35mm b&w format?

Pakons are available on eBay. But really only viable if you have the full 24/36 on one strip which is probably unlikely. There's things like the Noritsu or Hasselblad scanners the labs use which again will depend on your budget. If I had a sky high budget, I'd be getting in touch with AG Photographic or Filmdev to see what they use. Bulk scanning is their day job.

The Epson is fine for contact sheet level prints. I.e. you want to print 24/36 on one sheet of A4 to review it. Images end up physically (roughly) 1"x2" in size which is what your OP is stating as a requirement. If the budget would stretch to a V750/800 it's probably worth seeing what they do in one go. My Google-fu failed.
 
if the film IS in reels, then find a pakon. Don't worry about the price, as you'll sell it for whatever you paid for, making it effectively free...

if its cut strips, then i'd be looking at finding something like a Fuji Frontier Sp-500 - again, you'll probably be able to sell it for whatever you paid for it

Only real worry with either hardware above is if you wear the bugger out doing 20,000 scans (that's 556 rolls of 36exp!)

I certainly wouldn't want to be doing anything that needed manually adjusting frame croping etc as per flatbed scanning - with that many rolls of film, you need the process as automated as possible,

60s/70s rock photographer archive.... hmmm, hopefully it'll be mainly B&W, because colour correcting c41 will be a bit of an issue as well, in that kind of bulk. Throw Kodachrome into the mix and you've got yourself a hell of a job on your hands.

That said, it'd likely be interesting seeing the end results
 
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Depending on what the job spec says, but IMHO a significant issue in bulk scanning is some kind of metadata (assuming there is some related to the originals). For example, at the very least film type, but if available anything on date taken, info from film packets, etc. Sequencing is a real issue. Mounted slides tend to get out of order as selections will have been made for showing, so I'd recommend frame number AND number colour if they're mixed up. I once spent 3 months sorting out the sequence for around 8 Ektachrome and Kodachrome mounted slides of a trip to New Zealand, and ended up scanning everything twice.

If this is for "archival" purposes you should get advice from a serious library/archive on standards and approaches... OK re-read the OP and see you're basically looking for "digital contact sheets". My advice on associating batches with any available metadata still stands. Plus, link something, eg filenames, to identifiers on the packets or negative sheets, so you can eventually make selections, find the original frame and do a proper scan.

An advantage of the V750 etc approach above is that you will actually be able to see the film type and frame number indicators on the strip edges. That'll help! But record it anyway.
 
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