On Mon, January 3, 2011 07:41, mark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: > Anyone still use the old slide duplicators to get old chromes digitized??? > Would have to be much faster, and if I am using my dslr the quality > should be near what I am able to produce with my digital body. With the > custom white balance, a lot of the old problems with light color temp > disappear. I did some slide duplicating on film, and a lot of scanning with dedicated film scanners, and have talked to people who have used setups like you are describing (everybody seems to use a macro lens; makes sense, they're optimized for flat field and close focus). Photographing slides (or negatives) with such a rig is a lot faster than using a scanner, and of course the equipment is cheaper (if you already have a DSLR and perhaps the macro lens). I do know people who have used the fancy/expensive illuminating stages built for slide duplicating, but most just use flashes and suitable diffusion to get even light. Many professionals find the results entirely acceptable for online use and sometimes for prints. Ctein considers the idea hopeless for his level of custom printing work (he uses wet mounting in a dedicated medium-format film scanner when he needs to scan). If you were happy with flat-bed scans of 35mm, this might well meet your needs. If you had a macro lens, it'd be pretty cheap to try out, too. Maybe you know somebody local who could loan you a lens for the afternoon sometime? -- David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b@xxxxxxxx; http://dd-b.net/ Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/ Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/ Dragaera: http://dragaera.info
