Lenses to photograph negatives?

I don't want to pick nits, just make sure I (and the OP) understand your advice.

Backing away means you're not at a 1:1 ratio.

Is there a point?

I don't think I said anywhere about shooting at 1:1 ratio. What I did say, however, was to make sure to get a lens that gives you a 1:1 magnification (you know, as they put it in the lens specification) so that he'll be able to shot the negative and get the whole negative frame in his camera frame and have it in focus.

Could you have your local photo processor make up some good-old-fashioned contact sheets? Surely this would be cheaper than buying a quality scanner. You could then pick your keepers and have those few scanned. I've never had any of this done myself so I could be totally out to sea on the cost.

You don't need to shoot it at 1:1; you need to shoot at 1:1.6, which is closer than 1:2, so you'll need a lens which can reach 1:1 - anything (currently on the market) doing less won't work.

Actually, I think OP would be better off using a flatbed scanner since the initial intent seems to be to do a quick review of what he's got to see what warrants further attention. A flatbed scanner with film (backlighting) capabilities should do well for that. Then for anything that seemed worth pursuing, a dedicated film scanner or a macro lens and slide/neg. mount would be appropriate. Been there, done that in 35 mm, splitting panorama shots from one of the Russian pano cameras of the '60s into 35 mm 24x36 mm slides. Also duping accumulated Tall Ships '76 slides from a group of us for sharing around. It's a pain. You don't want to do it just for quick sorting purposes, and if you're not experienced reading negatives you don't want to try making the original cull on a light table.

Has anyone here archived negatives using a light table and a macro lens? I'm really curious to know what kind of quality can really be expected using that approach. I know drum scanning would work very well, but I've never heard of anyone copying negs using a camera.

If the macro lens approach gives about the same quality as a consumer flatbed scanner, and if you want great image quality and the ability to make decent sized enlargements, you should be getting the negs drum scanned. However, at $0.50 to $1.00 a scan you could buy a drum scanner and save some money. As an alternative, there are film scanners in the $600 to $3000 range.

Ok just as a test, I took a negative, held it against the monitor (looking at a white part of this page) and captured the picture with my 50mm macro lens on my digital rebel. I handheld the camera, it was a 13 second exposure, I moved the lens back till it was in focus and took the picture. Then I went into photoshop, inverted the image and adjusted the contrast and brightness. The image here is very close to the actual picture after it was developed, and I think it'd be good for a test. Now this is shooting using my monitor as a light source, I think a cheap flatbed scanner would work perfectly fine. Remember, he's only trying to preview the pictures and have the good ones developed.

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Everyone is re-inventing the wheel. Use a scanner, go goodness sake. You can do numerous negs at the same time. If you can't afford it, wait until you can.

You are absolutely correct. The only problem with doing it yourself is that it will take forever. Using my Canon 8400F it takes me about 10 minutes to load the negatives, ensure they are dust free and scan each set of 10-12 35mm negs, preview them to make sure the scan wasn't botched and save them to the right folder. For 120 format negatives it takes a similar amount of time, yet the carrier only is good for 4 frames. The actual scan doesn't take any time, it's the setup, previewing and saving that is a pain.

Based on this, if half of his images were 35mm and half were 120, it would take a relentless 278 hours using an 8400F to scan the 10,000 images just to get a "preview" of what the images look like.

Get a film scanner, the quality will be much better and a lot less trouble to use. Scanners are slow however. They are not too expensive now.

If you really want to try tacking pics then get a good macro lens (I have the EF 100mm f2.8 Macro USM). You will need to illuminate the negative from behind with a diffused light source and protect the lens from direct rays with the hood. If you have an enlarger you could try that but the exposure will be very long. You will need to keep the image plane and subject film plane totally parrallel idealy and shoot at about f5.6 - f8.

Dave
There are a few of things to consider before copying these negs.
1. We are talking about negatives that are approx 75 years old,
2. These may have great historical value ? and indeed comercial value
3. How were they stored ? .... in sleeves or rolls
4. are the negs still OK ? .....is there any breakdown or fungus / mould

the first thing I would do. get yourself a 8x loupe magnifier and study some random negs.
otherwise all the copying could be wasted, sometimes negs like prints just fade away.if negs are not stored corectly well away from any damp, its not uncommon to find mould this also breaks down the neg.
If unsure about why not find someone local who does Black & White printing and seek some help, the local photo club might help.
If the negs are ok, handle only by the edges to avoid marking the emulsion,

Now one easy way to check what you have ...and I emphasize check not for final printing,
you can buy some neg/slide filing system clear plastic sleeves each one holds a 36 ex film cut into 7 strips of 6.
now the clever bit to save you some time , get a light box (good ones are daylight balanced for colour work, not important with B & W) as someone sugested above.
lay out one sheet at a time making sure its flat and shoot. tripod & norm lens .
when enlarged on screen this should be good enough to view all negs on 1 film at a time.

the process for getting a final top quallity print is a very different matter, both time consuming & costly, and require a large investment to get top results.

Most important ...not all negs are good to print from .
give a strip of negs to a B &W worker and get some sample 10" x 8" printed first ,this should show how good the negs reallly are.

Martin (Huckaback Photo)

One other point
The finest lenses for copying negs, slides and indeed any flat artwork etc.

Is the enlarger lens, available in dif focal lengths to suit 35mm / 120mm / 6 x 7 etc.
in effect they are flat field lenses and give edge to edge sharpness for printing and copying of flat subjects. used them for years with my Olympus kit, problem is mounting one on a EOS camera, but I bet someone on here has done it ?

Martin (Huckaback Photo)