My Photography Life

Measure the average distance from frame start to frame start in mm. Use that in the Input menu as the "frame spacing" value (Q: why would this vary much on a Holga? Aren't you using red windows to set the frame?)

In the Crop menu, set the crop size to 6x6 and set auto-offset.

Don't bother locking the exposure on the Input menu - because auto-offset is going to do a preview on each frame anyway. You might as well get the benefit of frame-by-frame calibration.

Set this way, unless you have frame overlap, Vuescan will scan an area bigger than the expected frame, set the frame automatically, scan and move on. This will work even for old cameras with uneven spacing.

Make sure you use a "buffer" value of 5-10% to eliminate exposure slipups from the inevitable white or black border that Vuescan will pick up at "6x6."

Notes on Setting Up a Batch Scan and Batch Scanning

VueScan

VueScan is a high quality, third party scanning software program written by Ed Hamrick that now supports the most Epson^® scanners.  Information about this software and a free trial download can be found at  http://www.hamrick.com/vsm.html.

A few things to keep in mind when using VueScan in combination with the MF Film Holderä :

• With VueScan, your saved input values tell the scanning software to scan the same specific location each time. Therefore it is imperative that you:
  • Place the film holder on the glass in the same place each time (so make sure you “nest” it snuggly up in the upper right corner of the scanner bed EACH TIME)

•  
  • If you plan to use a standard set of “X offset” and “Y offset” values instead of manually drawing a starting crop box each time, you must orient the film strip itself inside the MF Film Holderä  at the exact same starting position/location each time.  In this case, I suggest aligning the first film frame at the very top end of the film holding channel area EACH TIME as shown in the image below:

• If your camera has erratic spacing between image frames (quite common), you will need to compensate for this behavior.  My Mamiya has shown that it can occasionally vary the spacing by up to 1.5mm.  To get around this, I have made the frame size cropping measurement just a little bit larger than my actual frame size.  This has worked out well for me and I just crop the excess space off when editing in Photoshop (better to have too much than not enough!).
• VueScan is very powerful, but it can be daunting to get setup correctly.  Correct scanning exposure across multiple frames when using VueScan may involve extra steps such as border %, buffer %, exposure lock, film base determination, etc.  This has to do with the particulars of VueScan and not the MF Film Holderä, so please refer to your VueScan User’s guide, the “comp.periphs.scanners” UseNet newsgroup, or Ed Hamrick for help with these issues. 

Nobody can explain batch scanning better than Ed, so if you own this software the first step is to refer to the “VueScan User's Guide” by Ed Hamrick which states:

VueScan normally previews or scans a single frame at a time. If you want to do multiple frames at a time, use the "Input|Batch scan" option.

You can significantly speed up batch scanning on some scanners by setting two options so the preview won't be done when you do a scan. To do this, set the cropping for all the frames, then clear "Crop|Auto position". In addition, if the "Input|Lock exposure" option is displayed, turn it on and set "Input|RGB exposure" to either "1" or a value greater than one that won't overexpose any of the images.

You can batch scan multiple photos, slides or film strips on a flatbed scanner if you lay them out in a rectangular grid and use the following procedure: (Also see my steps listed below which include some extra steps not listed here that you might forget)

Press the Preview button

Set "Crop|More options" to "All"

Set "Crop|Crop size" to the size of each image (don't use "Auto")

Move the crop box to the top left image (hold the shift key)

Set "Crop|X images" to the number of images across

Set "Crop|Y images" to the number of images down

Set "Crop|X spacing" to the distance between the left sides of two images

Set "Crop|Y spacing" to the distance between the tops of two images

Set "Input|Batch scan" to "All"

Press the Scan button

As an example, here are the inputs I use to scan a four frame film strip from my Mamiya 645 1000S camera.  Remember:

• These input numbers will vary based on image size (e.g. 645 vs. 6x9), number of images per strip (e.g. 6x6 will only have three images), and any variability in the distance between each image on film strip!
• As stated above, you must place the MF Film Holderä  in the same spot on the scanner each time and you must place the film strip in the same starting spot each time. 

Individual steps I use for my 645 film strips (which may be different than yours):

• Set all other parameters on all of the tabs besides the “Crop” tab including setting “Batch Scan” to “All” on the “Input” tab!

• When finished, go to the “Crop” tab
• On the “Crop” tab, set your crop units to “mm”
• Press Preview
• Draw your box around your first film frame
  • Make sure to get this right because all other cropping measurements for the other images are based on this!
  • Hold the “ctrl” key to move the whole box (if necessary)
  • You can also tweak the box position using the X and Y offset arrows!
  • For better previews and/or if you are using auto exposure settings, try not to include any blank areas of the film strip or black areas of the MF Film Holderä 
  • When you get the crop box positioned correctly, note the values in the “X offset” and “Y offset” boxes.  As long as you position the holder and film strips in the exact same position each time, you can just input (repeat) these settings
• The following values are then inputted:

"Crop|X size" 56.5

"Crop|Y size" 43

"Crop|X images" 1

"Crop|Y images" 4

"Crop|X spacing" Not applicable because you are just scanning one column of images

"Crop|Y spacing" 50

When you have finally tweaked these settings to your liking, make sure to save them for future use by going File > Save Options and save them under a new and appropriate description.  Just load these settings/this profile the next time you want to batch scan a strip of medium format film!  (Be warned - if you update to a different version of VueScan, a settings file created in a previous version of VueScan may cause errors and not work with the newer version of VueScan.)