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I've got some hundred year old 116 and 120 negatives I dug out of an old family barn. I'm using a blower and the brush side of a lens pen to gently clean the dust off them. They're in quite bad shape. Without a light box I'm placing them on top of an ipad set to max brightness displaying pure white and then laying a piece of clean glass on top to flatten them. Then I'm shooting exposure brackets with a 1:1 macro on my d800 on a tripod to harvest as much dynamic range as possible.
Here's a poor negative I worked on as a test but it should serve as an example of what my setup is putting out. I really don't know what I'm doing here and any feedback is welcome. I'm sure I'm making mistakes here but is my equipment capable of getting out what detail these old negatives have in a meaningful way? I know of a small camera shop a few hours away and the owner is extremely knowledgeable generally and technically. Would I be better off talking with him about making analog prints or scanning them with his equipment?
