Notes on Medium Format and Custom Format scanning using Nikon Coolscan LS-8000 and LS-9000 scanners
This is a compilation of notes I had found online and composed myself. As always, I had tried to cite the original references, but if I forgot somebody - sorry.
Nikon designed 4 film holders capable of scanning Medium Format Film:
FH-869M Holder for Medium-Format Slides
FH-869S Holder for Medium-Format Film Strips
FH-869G Glass-Covered Holder for Medium-Format Film
FH-869GR Rotating Holder for Medium-Format Film
Nikon Manuals cover the holder use in details. Just in case, at the very bottom of this page, there is Nikon's note on Medium Format Scanning.
Here I compiled few notes from other sources, that I find useful.
1. Stephan Scharf had designed his own universal glass-less
film holder, and I had heard only great things about it.
You can see his holders here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgJ8m7HfBE4
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaPBNs_fuSY
His e-mail is
stephan-scharf@gmx.de
2. Maximizing your Nikon FH-869S by Dante Stella.
(Proper use of FH-869S (glass-less MF holder))
https://themachineplanet.wordpress.com/2018/02/24/maximizing-your-nikon-fh-869s/
3. Fluid mounting. There is a company, Scan Science, that sells film
holders for LS-8000/9000 for wet mounting:
https://scanscience.com/Pages/MyScanner/A-FilmScanners/1-FilmScannerSelect.html
4. Custom masks for FH-869G.
I had cut the masks sets like the one pictured below from 0.01" thick styrene sheets on a high precision cutter.
Original set of masks for FH-869G consisted of 5 masks (the left row, also see my other listings). But the original set also came with "seals" - sticky strips 2mm wide (see the note at the bottom of this document).
The idea was that the frames in the strips may be separated by uneven (or camera dependent) distances, and one could not predict where the second frame separator should be. Therefore, the original masks only had first frame borders, the "seals" were supposed to be attached directly to the film strips beyond the first frame, thus allowing for "movable" spacers. I do not have the "seals", but I cut another 5 masks based on the assumed 2mm separation between frames.
5. Custom masks for FH-869GR.
FH-869GR is a Rolls-Royce of Nikon's film holders (costs like one as well :( ).
Many people had asked me for custom masks for FH-869GR and I had cut the masks sets like the one pictured below from 0.01" thick styrene sheets on a high precision cutter.
Let me know if you need something like this.
Hope this helps, all the best!
