Scanning Minox negatives

The film got a bit scratched as I was loading it

I love my little Minox camera. It takes tiny pictures on 9mm wide film. I make the film by slicing 35mm film into strips and then loading it into Minox cassettes. Then, once I’ve developed the film I scan the negatives. I use an Epson V750 scanner that I got a while back. It’s quite an old device, but the good news is that scanners age quite well (or at least I hope they do). To hold the negatives on the scanner I use a 3D printed PENSO mask. When I started scanning I got spectacularly bad results, with black streaks everywhere.

I’ve discovered that if I rotate the holders through ninety degrees on the scanner glass, so that they are in a “portrait” rather than a “landscape” orientation they work just fine. This must be due to the way that my scanner shines the light through the film when scanning.

I have no idea why this works, but I’m rather glad it does