Scanning 35 mm Stereo

[john_baum1]

<p>My Mom used a Stereo Realist camera from the early 1950’s well into the 1980’s and captured some very nice images in the process. I’m evaluating new slide scanners since my PhotoSmart C5100A is giving me fits (see recent post) and want to consider ones that would scan the stereo mounts easily.</p>

<p>Mom, bless her, set out to preserve her mounts by sandwiching them between glass slides with black tape. Consequently what I have are overall mounts that are 100 x 40 x 3 mm, with the diapositive film mounted ~1.5 mm from either face. The stereo dispositive images are 22 x 24 mm. For those who are unfamiliar, I will include an image.</p>

<p>http://img813.imageshack.us/img813/8351/stereorealistmountedima.th.jpg<br /><br />Uploaded with ImageShack.us</p>

<p>My concerns are</p>

<p>1) getting the scanner to readily accept the mounted image<br>

2) the depth of field of the scanner. (If it is fixed focus will the image be in focus during scanning.)</p>

<p>I tried a search of the forum but had trouble weeding out helpful posts from chaff.</p>

<p>Is there any chance that the Plustek OpticFilm 7600i Ai scanner will perform this task readily?</p>

<p>Thanks,</p>

<p>baumgrenze</p>

[bruce_rubenstein]

<p>My parent's 1951 wedding was shot in stereo. In 2006 I finally got around to scanning the slides using a Nikon V. I recall that it took some fiddling to get slides in the right position to get them in sharp focus. Since I didn't want to disturb the mounts there was dirt and grime I couldn't get to and ICE gave some strange results, because the film was Kodachrome.</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>I just don't know. The glass mounts are what complicate the matter. Otherwise, I'd recommend one of the newer flatbed film scanners like the Canoscan 9950 and laying the cardboard mounts on the platen, but ....</p>

<p>In any case, it still takes a lot of hand tweaking to set the scan areas. These kinds of scanners (or perhaps more correctly the VueScan software) are remarkably adept at recognizing odd formats, but unfortunately, even when you're working with uncut strips of film, the 5P size of the Stereo Realist image ( see http://www.realistrepair.com/wide.htm ) requires adjustments. Dr. T's site linked to may have some info on scanning.</p>