Scanning XPan Panoramics with the Valoi 120
The Hasselblad XPan isn’t just a camera, it’s a ticket to widescreen daydreaming. The panoramic format has this magical way of taking the most ordinary street corner and stretching it into something cinematic. Suddenly it feels like you’re starring in a Wong Kar-wai film, if only you remembered to wear a cooler jacket.
But here’s the catch. Shooting XPan is pure joy, scanning XPan is pure pain. Flatbeds don’t know what to do with the wide frames, and dedicated 35mm scanners throw in the towel at “normal.” Which is why the Valoi 120 system became my saving grace.
I picked up the Valoi from Stavanger Foto (shoutout to them for keeping us analog nuts supplied) and paired it with Fuji’s 30mm macro lens on my X-T4. Suddenly the impossible became practical. The Valoi panoramic holder swallows those long negatives and lines them up neatly, ready for the digital world without any 2009-style Photoshop stitching nightmares.
For conversions I run everything through Negative Lab Pro. That little plugin has basically become my digital darkroom, turning the raw captures into rich, balanced scans without me losing an entire weekend fiddling with tone curves. It’s the missing puzzle piece that makes the whole setup sing.
The results are gorgeous. Detail is crisp, grain is defined without being overcooked, and tones glide smoothly across the wide format. Of course, dust is still dust, and unless you’re the kind of saint who stores film in a hermetically sealed vault, you’ll spend some time spot-cleaning. But compared to wrestling with a flatbed, the Valoi feels almost therapeutic.
And then comes the reward. Pulling up a freshly scanned XPan frame on a monitor, especially something on Portra 400, feels like walking into a cinema. The panoramic sweep demands popcorn, a voiceover, and maybe a moody jazz soundtrack.
So, if you’re shooting with an XPan or its Fuji TX-1 twin, you already know the scanning struggle. My advice: skip the frustration and go with the Valoi 120 panoramic holder, pair it with a macro lens, and let Negative Lab Pro handle the conversion. It’s the most elegant way I’ve found to get those cinematic frames ready for sharing, printing, or just sitting back and admiring.
Photography should be about making images, not fighting with scanners. And life’s too short to waste on losing battles with a flatbed.
