Curly wurly 127 film

[Asha]

I dont shoot much of this format but when I do I always have the same issue when it comes to scanning ....getting the stuff to lie flat!
It curls dreadfully and hence the scanned images come out very soft.....I don't have a dedicated 127 film holder for my scanner.
I've tried to scan a roll today that I've had "pressed" between some books for well over a week and it still refuses to lay flat.
Any suggestions?

 

[Tricky69]

try rolling it inside out for a bit ?

 

[offline]

I use an Epson 3170, which has a curved lid. I've found I can lay curly film in negative holders across the top and stack about 100 sheets of A4 on top, so the lid of the scanner bends the film the way it doesn't want to bend. After a couple of hours of scanning, the gentle heat from the transparency backlight irons out *some* of the bend.

 

[Asha]

A couple of ideas for me to try .......Thank you
I've had an idea come to me about cutting the negative strips into individual negs and placing them in to 35mm glass slide holders that I have knocking about to scan them....Wether that will work I don't know and to be honest I prefer to leave my negs in strips!

 

[s162216]

One trick that I remember someone telling me was to put the negs on a lightbox with a heavy book or similar on them for a little while then switch it off and leave for several hours. Apparently the heat from the lightbox makes them a bit more 'pliable' so that they flatten out once cooling down.

 

[Asha]

Following a recent episode of scanning some old glass plate negatives, I had an idea of how to scan my curly wurly 127 film:...........Placing the film on the scanner bed and covering with a 2mm piece of clear glass ( borrowed from a picture frame ).....worked quite well this afternoon when I rescanned some 127 film that I shot earlier this year that still refuses to lie flat!

 

[Noah_]

@Asha Your most recent idea sounds ideal! I've had curly negs in the past & whilst making contact sheets in the darkroom, I placed glass over them to keep them flat in place. Worked well as long as the glass was pretty clean! Best wishes.

 

[Simonx]

Weighing it down with a glass plate was the first way I can got decent scans from 127.

I was a bit bothered that the film wouldn't be at the right focal distance for the scanner so my next move was to make a holder by sandwiching two bits of mounting board (~1.5mm thick) with a 40 x 40mm square cut in each around two strips of card to guide the film. This sandwich fits exactly in the 6 x 9 cm aperture in the MF adapter for my Epson V500 and means you can slide the film along from one frame to the next. It does come with the risk that you could damage the film while sliding it - but that risk is likely only as big as damaging the film when it springs back into it's preferred, tightly-rolled knot!

So far I've only used the Efke R100 and it's really curly. My next roll will be Rollei 80S but I'm not really expecting it to be much different. Don't know what it is about 127 that makes it so curly - maybe the small spools???