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@andre

Do you use a film scanner to digitize your negatives, before creating positive images and prints, or do you scan the finished prints?

@lolcat I scan prints very rarely. Most of the time, I scan from negatives

@andre

Thanks!

I'd like to resume shooting B&W film again, after a layoff of nearly 40 years.

If you're willing to share your setup, or provide pointers to a useful description elsewhere, that would be a huge help.

It seems some (most?) people are now using a digital camera, a film holder, and a light table, but it's hard to know what's "best."

No pressure! Just figured it was worth a shot asking.

@lolcat Frankly speaking, I'm not an expert in digitizing negatives. I develop films and print from them myself. But I send negatives to a laboratory for digitization. If you have a digital camera and a macro lens, the cheapest option is to buy a scanning kit. There are a lot of options on the market now, from cheap to quite expensive. If you don't have a DSLR, you can buy a flatbed scanner. But I don't like the quality of scanning 35 mm film on such scanners

@andre

Thanks!

Yeah, I'm kind of stuck with either spending a fortune (which I don't have), or accepting lousy quality (which I don't want).

My best option might be to develop my film and make contact sheets at home (which is cheap), then make prints in a community DR when I visit friends in the city. If a lab will digitize specific frames instead of making me pay for the whole roll, that might work.