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Archival Storage Pages
Medium Format Slide Projector Pages
How can you store your medium format negatives and slides?
The obvious problem with this system is finding anything when you want
it.
A first step is to label the processed rolls by date, film type, format,
and general subject matter. The date helps you split different trips to
the same destination, for example. Film type is critical on deciding
whether you need an enlarger or slide projector, among other obvious needs.
If you shoot multiple formats such as 35mm and 6x6cm, you will want a
quick way to tell them apart. General subject matter is obviously subjective.
See film page for film related types, formats,
and related resources.
The next steps require you to think about what your photographic goals
are. What do you want to do with your photographs?
If you are operating a business, you may have other needs besides simple
storage. You may need to quickly find a portrait photograph from a high
school graduation shoot to make profitable copies for grandparents. You
may have to find that model release to sell a stock photograph to a
medical supply house for a catalog.
You can find many databases which make it possible to link a scanned
thumbnail image to various data. Unfortunately, we don't have a more
effective way to link the content of an image to a computer scannable
text format - so far.
Many amateur photographers think they should carefully record f-stops and
lens type, film speed, and so on for their photographs. So far as I know,
absolutely none of the pros in photography actually do such time-wasting
busy-work. It's all made up bulls*it. A few pros like Roger Hicks and
Frances Shultze (see their great Film Book) come out and admit it.
I find very few times when I need to record such data myself, except for
lens testing and macro-photography flash settings tests.
See Homebrew Loupe Options for more information
on some medium format and 35mm loupes you can build inexpensively.
You can also buy an oversize notebook to hold slide pages, with enough
slack to permit putting a thin light-table with fluorescent light under
each page for a quick look.
I like a simple alternative to this high priced photo-gadget approach. I
simply have my photography project file pages of slides in marked file
folder boxes with matching top and bottom sections. I open the box, put
the top on the other end of the light table. Now I just grab the slide
pages, slip them across the light table for a look, then flip over and
down into the box top. When done, I just reset the pages back into the
box bottom. Simple. Cheap. Fast. Really cheap. Easy.
At the higher end, you can have very fancy light table setups aimed at
art directors and others who have the need for maximum convenience,
regardless of the hefty price. Angled like drafting tables, they can
examine hundreds of slide pages in total comfort - at a high price!
The most critical point about the filing cabinet approach not pointed out
above is that these systems are often potentially fireproof. Given what
you probably have invested in your slides and negatives, this is a
non-trivial benefit. You probably can't insure your slides and negative
images for their value as stock photographs and so on.
See photography insurance pages for more
policy related information.
Personally, as a certified disaster recovery planner, I have seen too
many photographs of burnt out and destroyed facilities where even a
"fire-proof" safe would have melted down or burned the slides and
negatives in it. The only really sure protection is an off-site copy of
your most precious slides (family etc.). See section on duplicating below.
Culling triage is the process of separating the great shot(s) from the
bad shots, with the average shots inbetween.
If you are getting more than one or two great slides per roll, you
probably aren't shooting enough film!
I'm serious. A major difference between the professional and amateur is
that the professional usually shoots more film. They know that the
averages will be with them if they shoot a lot of film. A sports
photography pro might shoot 20, 30, or even more rolls of film during a
game, just to be sure of getting that key photograph. Other pros will
carefully bracket their shots, often at third-stop or half-stop intervals
over a wide range. Film is cheap - relative to the opportunity cost to
shoot it!
The great photographs are the ones you want to have duplicated for your
slide shows, or laser scanned and printed, or carefully printed and mounted.
It is helpful and important to your development as a photographer to have
your own photographs in your environment - it is great feedback!
I have a lot of on-going photography projects. Some projects related to
abstract patterns, color, reflections in buildings, found still-lifes,
landscape shots, travel photographs, technical photography
(astrophotography, underwater critter portraits, microphotography) and so
on.
For example, I shoot some moon shots using long lenses (up to 2400mm) and
guided telescopes. I have shots of the moon in each corner, in the
center, and so on. Now suppose I want to put a nice full moon into a city
at night landscape where there wasn't any moon that night? Easy, right? I
just use a slide duplicator and make the proper exposure to get the
desired sandwich shot.
The same approach works to put dramatic skies and clouds into your dull
white overcast travel slides. Want a flock of birds in the right place?
How big? How many birds? Going East or West? With a selection of sandwich
shots, you can jazz up many average shots into eye-openers.
With Photoshop and similar image manipulating programs, you may have a
lot of buried gold in your average shots. I suggest this is one reason
for keeping them rather than trashing them as many folks do.
I started to track my bad shots, in order to find why they were bad.
Unless you do this, you may not improve as quickly as you can or should.
I found out I was over-estimating the distance my underwater strobe could
cover adequately on many shots. I got a more powerful strobe, and soon
found I had much fewer such too dark shots.
I also found I wasn't advancing my 35mm film enough to get past the
light-struck portion on my Nikonos I/II cameras. But I had to look at a
pile of bad first shot slides ruined this way before I applied the
obvious cure. Now I advance a bit more and often use that first shot as an
information and grey card frame.
This same problem recording and analysis approach should be applied to
your bad slide pile. Try to figure out why you have so many bad slides or
negatives. What can you do to fix or avoid these problems?
At the same time, photography is a bit like cancer surgery. You should
expect to get a certain number of bad shots, and not expect every shot to
result in a "keeper".
Bracketed shots are a version of planned bad slides, using film as cheap
insurance to ensure getting the ideal shot. The various under-exposed and
over-exposed slides may be technically bad, or simply range around the
best exposure shot.
There is a certain amount of opinion here, so it
is best not to discard the "close" brackets. That art director might
prefer over-exposed pastel colors, while I like deeper saturated
colors. If you have the bracketed shots, you can pull them out and
make the art director happy too.
I also want to make the observation that you should consider
experimenting with the last few frames in your camera, depending on your
style of photography. I will often shoot some patterns or reflections in
building windows shots to clear out a roll of film. Most of your
experiments may be failures as great photographs, but they may be a good
test of what your lens can do or whatever.
Similarly, lens testing rolls are almost never great photographs
(although I often shoot some real world shots and macro shots that might
work out!). These shots should be carefully labeled and stored. You can
check out changes in lens performance by reference to these lens testing
slides. If a lens is dropped or abused, I would highly recommend this test.
See Camera and Lens Testing Pages
for lens testing tips.
The average shots category should be the majority of your slides or negatives.
The format problem is somewhat less of a problem than it might seem at
first. If you are using 120 film width slide or negative pages, you can
often fit various lengths and formats of film into the standard pages.
Actually, your processor will probably cut the film into lengths that fit
their mailers and standard length pages.
Be sure to alert your processor if you are using any odd non-standard
formats (especially the longer panoramics).
Be sure to alert them if you are using mixed formats. Some cameras let
you switch from one format to another film length in the middle of a roll.
Be sure to warn your processor to watch out for such transitions, and to
not cut the film in the middle of a shot!
If you change film in mid-roll, be sure to alert the processor again!
Here again, you run the risk that they will start the mounting process.
Everything is fine, until they hit the mid-roll change. Now they are out
of synch with the images on film, and may slice up some of your shots.
What if you have an older medium format camera, one which has framing
errors (such as Kiev 88, older Koni-omegas, Bronicas, and so on). Here
again, you really need to be alert to these problems.
It is also worthwhile to ask for at least one test roll to be developed
unmounted, and returned to you in sleeves. You may be shocked to find
that the mechanics have become worn, and you are in danger of getting
overlapped and ruined shots in the near future. You can also see if your
camera has irregular film spacing, as often happens in older (and some
newer) medium format cameras as they wear.
See Camera and Lens Testing Tips
pages for more related framing error testing tips.
If you are doing night shots, I highly recommend that you shoot at least
the first shot on the roll using flash. A grey card is very handy
for curing some color-shifts in reciprocity effects. You can record roll
number and date and other information on a 3x5 card on the center of the
grey card (using poster-mounting silicon rubber "tacky" stuff). Unless
you do this, the processor may not be able to properly align the
remaining shots. You risk having them cut some of your night shots in the
middle of the film due to the lack of clear frame dividers in night
shots.
See Reciprocity Pages for details on film
reciprocity.
It is important that you make sure that the sleeving material used to
store your slides are archival quality material. Non-archival
quality slide pages and storage pages may have chemicals and fumes which can
vaporize out and onto your slides over time. The effects on your slides
are potentially a disaster over enough time.
See archival storage tips pages for more
information on archival issues and resources.
Frankly, most cardboard slides used by processors are
not the sturdiest and best slide mounts available, but usually more like
the cheapest! You will often want or have to unmount your cardboard
slides in order to remount them in a higher quality mount.
Be careful in considering whether you want to subject your original
slides to lengthy projection sessions. All slides have colors which fade
with projection. The brighter the light, and the longer the projection,
the more the degradation. The main solution here is to avoid projecting
your valued originals. Make a copy, and project the copies on your shows.
This advice is especially easy to do if you use superslides for your
shows. Superslides are circa 4x4cm square slides that fit into most
standard 35mm slide projectors (in special 2x2 inch square superslide
mounts). A superslide has roughly double the film area of a 35mm slide,
and at least double the impact. In addition, the original square format
of 6x6cm slides can be preserved on superslides.
For more on superslides, see Superslides Pages.
Shooting duplicates may be another reason for using unmounted slides and
negatives. The standard cardboard holders used by many processors may
cover up the edges of the image, part of the design to minimize framing
and cutting errors. Be aware that many supposedly 1:1 duplicators don't
actually go to a true 1:1 ratio. The duplicated slides end up with a ring
or border not on the original slide. This problem is easiest to solve by
switching to a bellows format duplicator.
Now you have a second copy of the image, which is actually an original
image identical in contrast and processing and so on to the original shot.
One of the best part of a second shot is that it is much cheaper
than a duplicated slide at the processor, while being technically better
(in color fidelity and contrast).
A second hidden feature of shooting a second is that it is a protection
against certain processing and film cutting errors that might destroy
your original first shot.
Some medium format users have the option of using second backs on their
Bronicas, Hasselblads, Rolleis, and so on. One approach to shooting
seconds is to shoot the second shot on an identical film type and
format in a second back.
Now if you are really paranoid (ahem!), you arrange to have this second
film processed at a different time and batch than the first. You may wait
until you get the first one back before processing the second, if time
permits. If you are really, really paranoid, you have it processed by a
different processor! Murphy's Law works overtime on ruining your best
shots, so paranoia may be justified!
Gil Stamper
gstamper@us.hsanet.net writes
>I'm looking for a database program to help me catalog my slides. I'm >looking for something specifically written for slides, so that it will >ask all the questions concerning camera and exposure information, model >name, location, etc. I could, I know, get a database program and "roll >my own", but I feel sure that there is already something out there. So >I'm asking for pointers. > >All help appreciated. If this is the wrong NG, please point me to the >correct one. > >Gil >gstamper@us.hsanet.net
Strongly recommend you take a look at PhotoTracker...
http://members.aol.com/PhotoNews
I'm a satisfied user, no connection with Robert Walchli, who designed
the product around the FileMaker runtime product (so it has the power of
FileMaker without needing FileMaker installed).
--
Alan Cross
Wokingham, Berkshire, UK.
email alias: ACross@iee.org
See me at www.proaxis.demon.co.uk
rec.photo.misc
From: cmarsh76@hotmail.com
[1] Re: Looking for a database program
Date: Mon Feb 08 1999
Microsoft Access 97 has a pretty detailed "Picture Library" database template
that includes location, exposure info etc. You can make it as detailed as you
need and create your own fields.
Chris
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999
From: "John H. Beverly" olhenry@shell.iag.net
Subject: Re: [KOML] Storing Negatives
Diane Sample wrote:
> I am new to the world of Medium Format, having recently acquired a Rapid > Omega 100 with 90mm, 135mm and 180mm lenses, several 120 and 220 backs > and a great flash. So far the quality of the photos seems to be > excellent, and I am thrilled with what I've got. > > My question is this. What have you found to be the best way to store > and label these 6x7 roll negatives?!? I'm sure there are many different > systems, so I'd be interested in any suggestions. > > Thanks in advance. > > Diane
Sounds like you have aquired some nice equipment. I've never tried to
store uncut rolls of film as a roll. Usually, I cut the film and store
the cut negs in glasines which are available from American Envolope and
Paper Co. and at most camera stores at a much greater cost, also, check
with a pro lab where your film is process, they generally have glasines
available to their customers.
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