Warbird Information Exchange

can I still?

An ex-330ther's daughter sent me her father's photo collection of negatives from the 330th on Guam. There are over 80 of them.., they look amazing, but would really like to get some of these 50mm slides developed.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

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S.

The neighborhood Drug Store or superstore should offer prints @ their photo counter, also any camera store can do the same. The key is to ask for 'contact prints' those will come out the same size as the negative and should be cheaper to have done. then from the 'contacts' you can rule out bad pictures/negatives and only concentratre on the good ones and then perhaps work with the lab to get them 'burned' or 'dodged' to clean them up. Also look into having the good negs put on a high quality disc for the future.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Real WWII negatives? I'd sooner walk into a turning prop than entrust them to a drug store or big box retail photo counter. Especially if they appear to be brittle or fragile. 50mm does not sound like a film size that they would know what to do with anyway.

I would find a good photo lab with experience with vintage film and the knowledge to take care of it. They can do anything you want. You're in New York, right? You might try LTI or Modernage. Actually, if it were me, I'd scan them and print them myself. A film-capable flatbed scanner that can handle medium format should be able to do a decent job of scanning that film, but you might have to build a special holder for that film size. I have scanned film of about that size from the 1940s; there's a bit of a learning curve but it's not too difficult. The film I scanned was curled up and so brittle that it was at risk of cracking when I flattened it. I hope yours is better.

August

Hi 330th;
You seem to be a bit intimidated at the challenge of getting prints from those odd size negatives. I agree with August. I think walking into a NY photo shop and asking about getting them to make you prints is going to be costly, if they even want to bother with them. It is more time consuming then a need of technical/computer skills. As stated, most amateur current scanners can do a very decent scan, as long as the scanner has the ability to scan numerous sizes of negs. Many have special neg holders/frames for doing this, but I do not recall seeing one for 50mm. Even then, the negs have probably shrunk by now to where you would be really wrestling to get them to stay in a neg holder. If you have a friend wih a decent film/photo scanner, he will be able to simply place the negative directly on the glass plate, and once he has the postioning squared off, he can experiment with several different scanning resolutions to get best results. You might want to try darkening/lightening during scanning (the older the neg-the more the tendency to darken) but can always do that by image-editing, post-scanning. When you have scanned all the negs, you can either edit them, cropping, lightenng, choosing the final image dimensions, etc as the basics, and then transfer all those images you are happy with, to a CD or DVD disk. Then all you have to do is go to any CVS (or other) drugstore, department store etc etc that has a photo print machine. You can insert your disk into a CVS photo printer, follow the simple click on directions/choices, and they will make 4 x6 prints for a little as 29 cents each. Other choices, too.

Here (below)is a sample scan from a black & white negative about 55 x 55mm, WITHOUT any editing or adjusting. I just laid it on the scanner glass. What you are seeing here is Only a 72 dpi low resolution image, When you scan at say 2400 or higher dpi resolution you can get amazing details. Note, that, if needed-you could actually count each fin on the engine cyinder!
*This is especially nice if you want to play with enlarging individual faces or people in the photo, for better identification...OR. make out numbers and markings of planes that may be in shadow etc etc.

Yes you could get professional printing, but I think you will be happy with a simple scanner and prints by just laying the neg on a decent scanner. Most that cost $200 and up, and less than 4-5 years old will do the job decently. You should know someone that will be happy to do it, just to have a set of the images ,himself, in the end.
I'd consider doing it for you, myself, if I knew a bit more, and you were interested. I see you are in NYC. I was born & raised in NYC MANY years ago..PM me if interested.

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