The GetDPI Photography Forum
Great to see you here. Join our insightful photographic forum today and start tapping into a huge wealth of photographic knowledge. Completing our simple registration process will allow you to gain access to exclusive content, add your own topics and posts, share your work and connect with other members through your own private inbox! And don’t forget to say hi!
Best large format film stitching method
- Thread starter se7en
- Start date
dougpeterson
Workshop Member
The DT XY is the best, as selected by Library of Congress to scan the medium format and large format film of the FSA collection.
That probably doesn’t make sense budget and space wise unless, like Library of Congress, you can amortize it over hundreds of thousands of pieces of film.
So at a more normal budget a DT Film Scanning Kit with 8x10 next-gen anti Newton ring glass carrier is what most of our clients are using for stitching 8x10. The carrier keeps the geometry stable while the Stage provides precise 1.5 axis stitching. That kit can be used with a tripod (given a head or arm that allows proper straight down positioning) or a third party copy stand, but works especially well with the DT Atom where the designs interlock for increased stability and precision.
That probably doesn’t make sense budget and space wise unless, like Library of Congress, you can amortize it over hundreds of thousands of pieces of film.
So at a more normal budget a DT Film Scanning Kit with 8x10 next-gen anti Newton ring glass carrier is what most of our clients are using for stitching 8x10. The carrier keeps the geometry stable while the Stage provides precise 1.5 axis stitching. That kit can be used with a tripod (given a head or arm that allows proper straight down positioning) or a third party copy stand, but works especially well with the DT Atom where the designs interlock for increased stability and precision.
Duff photographer
Active member
Might be helpful, might not......I'm curious for those using any kind of stitching methods to "scan" 10x8 film - where the IQ4 is fantastic for 5x4...
To get the best out of 8x10, then I'll 'scan' at the same resolution as for 4x5, as to not do so would be to ignore the main advantage of 8x10.
The main thing is to get everything flat and perfectly perpendicular (in all three dimensions; very important for any manual stitching) as a flat and perpendicular thing using a lens that has the flattest of flat MTFs (which you've already done of course).
For any sheet film, I do the stitching in stages. For example, if I've taken 12 images of the sheet, e.g. 4 rows each containing 3 shots, I stitch a row of 3, and save the file. Stitch another row of 3, save the file, and so on. This will give me 4 images to then stitch to get the final image.
Two things this does. First, it places less strain on the memory of the magic machine (PC or Mac), and other in-machine witchery, so takes less time to do. Secondly, because one is stitching just a few images at any one time, it's easier for the software to identify the anchor points in each image to stitch them together. If one wants to stitch all 12 at the same time, then it places a strain on the PC/Mac and takes longer, while there is a greater chance of an image (or two) not being fully 'recognised' by the software, and it ending up in the corner of your screen with rest of the final 'image' appearing as skewed and warped as a skewed and warped thing.
In images which are 'minimalist', where the software has a hard time identifying anchor points, I will choose the manual method - create a large enough canvas to accomodate all the images. Then copy and paste each one onto the canvas and join them up one by one (using layer transparency helps a lot). Obviously, the images have to be very flat (no pincushions or other bendy stuff) to accurately stitch them together using this method, so original camera and other hardware set-up is essential. However, using the 'bit by bit' method I gave in the fourth paragraph will largely mitigate against this, but it's an emergency back-up if needed.
Cheers,
Duff.
dougpeterson
Workshop Member
Re getting things flat, the DT LaserAlign is designed for doing this at the precision required for very high resolution scanning.
dougpeterson
Workshop Member
If you’re doing a lot of stitching in a row (eg digitizing 50 sheets of 8x10, with a four shot stitch for each sheet) you should also check out DT BatchStitch, which is free and open source.