dianaschnuth

This past week, two people directed me toward a $40 film & slide converter on woot.com. After checking out reviews of it, both at woot and elsewhere, I opted not to pull the trigger on it.

However. It did get me thinking about scanning film again.

Our Epson Perfection 1670 scanner has been holding up well. It even scans 35mm negative strips, but it only does so one strip at a time, and it only scans that one kind of film. Its transparency-scanning ability is limited to a small area in the middle of the scanner. I’ve been craving either a film scanner that scans various sizes of 35mm and medium format film or a scanner that scans full 8×10 transparencies, thereby allowing it to scan any damn size of film I want, including 35mm, 120, 127, or any other obscure film size I might end up with later.

So, when given an excuse to look — again — into transparency-capable scanners, I gladly took up the search. After less than a day of searching, using such jumping-off points as photo.net, I decided on the Epson Perfection V700.

One of the first things I did after the scanner arrived on Friday (after setting it up) was to experiment with scanning a proof sheet — a full 8×10 page of sleeved 35mm negatives. Since I haven’t been properly storing my negatives lately, I beelined for my old VCT 282/382/465 notebook, full of negatives from Photography I, Photography II, and Commercial Photography. The sheet I chose was from my final project in VCT 282, where I photographed Aaron and his videogames in his basement apartment one August night in 1999:

It’ll be fun to scan some of my old negatives from Photography class (from which I never had prints made, except the ones I turned in for class) and other slides and negatives I have stored in boxes and books. Plus, I’ll be able to have my odd-sized film processed without prints, then scan them myself later. I’ll also be able to try some of that sprocket-hole photography I’ve never bothered to try out because I couldn’t have properly seen the final result.

I don’t usually drop $500+ so easily… but it was something I’d been thinking about for some time.

I was just poking around in my photography category on my blog, and clicked on a link to go to my lomohome on lomography.com.

404 Error? Hmm, looks like the site got a redesign. Oh, look — I can migrate my old account. All is not lost.

Or is it? All my photos are gone. Huh. Good thing I have local copies, eh? Ah, well. I can reupload.

Then I read the legalese:

5. Use of Ideas

If you send any communications or materials to the Site by electronic mail or otherwise, including any data, questions, comments, suggestions, or the like, all such communications are, and will be treated as, non-confidential and non-proprietary. Anything you transmit or post may be used by Lomography, its parent and/or its affiliates for any purpose, including, but not limited to, reproduction, disclosure, transmission, publication, broadcast, and posting. Furthermore, Lomography, its parent and its affiliates are free to use, without any compensation to you, any ideas, concepts, know-how, or techniques contained in any communication you send to the Site for any purpose whatsoever, including, but not limited to, developing, manufacturing, and marketing products using such information.

I’m reading this as saying that I lose the rights to any photos I upload — or, rather, they gain unlimited rights without me getting any kickback or even acknowledgment. They might mean this to refer to unsolicited product ideas, but it comes off as ANY upload to the site ANYWHERE.

See ya, lomohomes. Check my Flickr for my Lomo pics from now on.