Curved negatives are getting to be really irritating. The Minolta AF-C is my go-to camera for walking around—it takes sharp images and exposes accurately—but once again, on trying to scan seemingly flat negatives, the images came out soft.
In the past, I’ve had little trouble scanning negatives within day or so of when they dry. However, starting last summer, many negatives began yielding soft images. No negatives looked any more curved than in the past, when all was fine, so I assumed my AF-C was approaching its end. I put the negatives (UFX 400) in question, along with four other sets under a large set of nearby drawing pads, and forgot about them for about six weeks. When I scanned some of the color negatives, they looked fine. So, I tried a couple of UFX frames, and they were fine too. The images below were scanned six weeks apart, and there is a noticeable difference in sharpness.
Since I don’t have the patience to wait weeks for flat negatives, I decided to try ANR glass with my V600 scanner. That search proved fruitless until I found a glass company on Etsy that sells ANR glass cut to one’s specifications—they are also cheaper than any other seller I’ve seen. I’ll write a post about the outcomes soon.
