Slides: mount or sleeve??

hi guys, a simple question.

 

I would like to know how many of you mount your slides and how many

of you don't mount them and keep them in sleeves?

 

I have never scan any slides and I don't own a scanner. Will be going

for a trip and I will take some slides, undecided if I should mount

them or leave them in sleeves when I sent them to develope in the

lab.

 

I intend to scan a few of the good cuts, not the whole roll. Will it

be a hassle to unmount the slides when scanning them? I understand

that mounting and unmounting slides will introduce more dust, dirt

and scratches. Moreover mounted slides take up space.

 

Please advise and I would love to hear what do you do to your slides

when you develope them and how you guys store your slides.

 

Thank you and merry chrismas!

Why do you think you have to unmount slides when scanning them? Most labs accept slides only mounted for printing and scanning.

<p>

I bet almost all slide shooters store them mounted. Storing slidge film unmounted is like buying a car and then storing it in a garage without wheels mounted.

Do you ever project them? Scanning them unmounted is generally much easier, and removing and replacing the mount is a pain in the ass.

Since 2 years ago I ask my lab to return them to me unmounted and uncut, that way I can scan them in a single pass on my Nikon 5000ED with SA-30 roll film adapter. After I am done, I cut them and store them in sleeves. Mounts are only necessary if you project.

I only scan slides, I don't project them so I ask for sleeve mounted as it is cheaper, faster to setup for scanning and they take up less space.

BTW, you don't have to unmount the slides for scanning. In fact, my lab will charge extra if you take them a single unmounted frame of film (slide or negative) as it is a pain to handle.

You don't have to unmount the slides for scanning, BUT some labs will unmount anyway -- my lab uses an Imacon and they always remove the slide. No big deal.

 

If I did not scan at home, I'd leave them mounted.

Some scanners will give better results with unmounted slides in strips of 4 or 6; the Minolta 5400 is one example. Since I got that scanner, I specify 'DO NOT CUT' for my slide film. One side benefit to this is that you can fit more storage pages in a binder since you don't have the thickness of the mounts. Also, there are many storage pages that will let you put a full roll of 36 on the one page.

Peng:

 

I have a Dimage IV scanner. While you can scan mounted slides, I find that in the slide holder, there is more variation in the focus than if you scan a strip of slides in the negative holder. The negative holder holds the strip flatter than the slide mount does, so you get a better scan because there is no compromise in the focus. I now specify the slide film be returned unmounted, I then scan the slides first, the ones I want to digitize, at least, then hand mount the slides that I want to project. It's not that difficult or expensive to do the mounting yourself. In fact, the last batch of slides I specified un mounted, the processor threw in 36 slide mounts for me!

 

It's hard to handle slides not in the mounts once they are cut.

 

Glenn

<I>Storing slidge film unmounted is like buying a car and then storing it in a garage without wheels mounted.</i><P>Slide film is easiest to handle and scan if it's cut into strips and sleeved just like color neg or B/W film. If you want to insure slide scans are randomly soft and out of focus, be my guest and leave it mounted. Single, unmounted frames of 35mm film are a pain in the ass to handle, and labs should upcharge accordingly. Shot 120 or 4x5 slide film and mounted it lately?

It depends on the equipment. If you use glass, there is some loss of quality due to reflections and additional dust. If you don't use glass, there is a high risk of uneven sharpness accross the frame. Strips require larger glass mounts to handle (and a larger scanner) and in my scanner they cannot be mounted in glass. They also curl worse than when mounted.

Regarding the original question, if you don't own a scanner and you don't intend to project the images, why use slide film in the first place? It would seem that your ultimate goal is to make prints of some of the better shots. It would make more sense to shoot good print film and have it printed at a high quality lab.

I've been doing the *exact* same thing as Fazal for the last year, with the *exact* same setup! :)

 

Fazal Majid , dec 24, 2004; 04:22 a.m. wrote"

 

Since 2 years ago I ask my lab to return them to me unmounted and uncut, that way I can scan them in a single pass on my Nikon 5000ED with SA-30 roll film adapter. After I am done, I cut them and store them in sleeves. Mounts are only necessary if you project.

I've been getting my slide films processed uncut in full rolls because they scan better (on my scanner), but dealing with the full length of film is tricky... might go with cut strips in pages next time. Either way, I don't plan on having any of my slide films mounted (I agree that it's easy to do this yourself later if you want to project some of the slides)