Scanning old (c.1930) Negatives

[Le_Petit_Lapin]

A friend of mine had old negatives that his grandad (who has passed away) took back in the 1930's. He's been wanting to get them developed, but anywhere he has gone to has refused him saying that they dont have the correct size of holders for his negatives (I assume the standards have changed since then).

Now, I have a flatbed backlit scanner on my PC, which can print out photos from normal negatives, using a special holder, which basically equates to a bit of plastic that shields the light from seeping through around the negatives, but shines through them clearly, giving a clear scan.

I probably wont be able to fit his negatives in my scanner striaght off, but I was thinking if I just get a bit of 300gsm (thick) black card, and cut an appropiate sized hole in the card for the negative, I should be able to get a clear scan.

Is my thinking correct?

Also, is there any reason why I wouldnt want to put old old negatives in my scanner? They wont get ruined by the bright light that will be used to scan them will they? I just dont want to ruin his originals, and am not sure is there is some difference between negatives back then and negatives nowadays.

 

[Alex53]

Hmm I dont think a short burst of light would damage a negative perceptibly. Not any more than handling it for much longer in normal light. I might be wrong though, and with a 1930s negative I'd seek some more professional advice.

About the holder, I saw some holder that fitted a lot of negatives on http://www.photo-i.co.uk and was adjustable in some way, also in this thread they discuss how to make your own...http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00C89t&tag=

 

[rickyt]

what size negatives are they ?? apart from the glass slides I thought there was only 120 & 35mm . I used to do a bit film processing and photo printing many years ago before I got into using camcorders and was given a load of glass slide negatives from a elderly chap in a local village .I made pictures from three of them [and still have them framed] by laying the glass slides over the B&W paper and giving a few seconds of light . In effect they were contact prints ,but were about 7 x 5 inches and they made perfect prints.You could possibly do the same and if they were of a decent size , you can scan the prints into your PC.