srosenow_98

UPDATE: After a bit of thought I opted for a 1:1 Slide Duplicator on eBay that was well within my price range and it didn't require any extra expensive components. There was one major drawback, however: My camera is a Nikon D5500, an APS-C sensor camera incapable of capturing full-frame images and thus, on a technical merit incompatible with my slide duplicator (it requires at least a full frame digital SLR to capture the whole slide). Alas, I had an epiphany. As I am also a veteran astronomer and astrophotographer, the way we shorten the focal length of a telescope and increase its field of view, is by way of using a focal reducer/field flattener. Knowing this, I set out to increase the FOV of the slide duplicator by inverting the principle used in telescopes, in which the focal reducer/field flattener is placed at the eyepiece end. (For reference, a focal reducer and field flattener looks like a set of magnifying lenses). In my case, I took a 3-X Barlow lens (a pairing of concave lenses which, interestingly enough, triples the magnification at the eyepiece), and placed it ahead of the optical lens arrangement within the 1:1 Slide Duplicator. It took a fair bit of finesse to reach sharp focus (including the use of double-sided mounting tape and a few spare slide mount blanks on the end of the slide duplicator) but tests are quite impressive! For anyone with an APS-C sensor camera, here is how I did it. (Pictures attached!)

I've looked into various methods of digitizing these slides and I've come to the conclusion that a lens bayonet-mounted slide duplicator/copier with a 1:1 macro lens is the way I think I am going to accomplish this. This is because my research has indicated that the best and highest quality film/slide scanners are both A.) not budget friendly and B.) at the moment cost prohibitive. The mid-tier film-slide scanners, while offering a range of both 10 megapixel or 3200 dpi resolution, are slightly more affordable but some come with drawbacks such as turning off (and thus losing progress) after certain periods of inactivity or suffering loss of higher image quality settings after a certain number of slides/images have been scanned and imported. However, I am still concerned that due to the slight curve of the larger-format slides (larger than the 24x36mm standard), that even with the slide copier-to-camera method may still produce images that are slightly out of focus in some areas of the image. Despite efforts, I cannot seem to find the correct-size glass mounts for those Pakon-mounted larger slide transparencies. I've previously digitized about half of these slides by way of throwing them up onto a wall via conventional slide projector (and photographing the projected image with a standard zoom lens on a Nikon DSLR), but it does not achieve the desired quality, which then requires the digitized images be upscaled and enhanced via Topaz Photo AI. Surely there were glass mounts for those larger transparencies, no?

Mostly to flatten it for projection. As it stands now, the affected slide I photographed has a slight warp on the left side, causing one side to be in focus while the other side goes progressively out of focus. If I could find a glass slide mount with the same size slide transparency, that'd be great. Then all I would need is to graft the existing mount face to it.

On the subject of glass slide mounts and fixing warped slides, I have a couple that are larger than 24x36mm that are warped a bit. I've attached a photo showing one of the affected ones (on the left) compared to one of the Ronnholm slides on the right. All of the glass slide mounts I have seen have mostly been for 24x36mm and off-the-wall kinds but not the size of the Stoffel slide that I'd like to fix. Are there mounts for these?

LMAO. I don't think I ever indicated taking a blow torch to them. I wouldn't be that insane. 😆 When I mention taking heat to them, I'm more in line with the thought of carefully-controlled blasts of heat from a less-intense source of heat... Say, a hair dryer or something, and at a safe enough distance. A torch? Oh heavens no. That's insanity. LOL

UPDATE: Upon reading more on glass slide mounts, I elected to pick up a set of relatively-inexpensive-to-purchase GEPE 24x36mm glass slide mounts on eBay. There were a total of 36 in the lot I purchased, and a few were somewhat reverse-engineered so I can experiment with them in the existing slide mount. As the original slide mount was not suitable for the idea I had (which was basically to use the glass alone and sandwich the slide transparency within the original mount), I elected to use a fourth Gepe slide mount as it was designed. While it did not totally flatten the slide transparency, it did flatten it to a degree which made it much more suitable for the purpose of projecting the transparency onto a projection surface using both the Sawyer's Crestline 500C and Kodak Medalist AF slide projectors I have. In the next few days, I may apply heat in a careful manner to the GEPE glass slide mount so as to "iron" the slide transparency a bit more and flatten it out further. With respect to the original mount with the "...(C)1980 KEITH RONNHOLM" label, I have elected to graft the labeled, white "half" of the slide to the GEPE glass slide mount's counterpart with a couple dabs of epoxy once the slide transparency has been sufficiently flattened out. This is due to the rather unfortunate discovery of some small cracks on the dark gray back half of the original mount.

Points all well taken!

I'm not sure what your intent behind your responses are, but IMO they're kind of coming off snarky. And they really haven't been helpful. For one, I'm a photographer. In fact, published globally both online, print, and broadcast. I've signed multiple usage rights agreements with multiple publishers and media agencies. To that end, I know copyright law (the entirety of Title 17, United States Code, in fact) quite well. In fact so well that as a day job for five years, I worked in a photo print lab in which I was bound by company policy, to hold copyright acknowledgment agreement forms on file for a period of five years. Respecting copyright is one of my most basic tenets of being a photographer itself. With that in mind, I have no plans on selling these slides much less any plans of selling any reproductions of them, so long as I don't have prior permission from the photographers who took them, beforehand. But, in that, it's kind of pointless to insinuate I plan on selling them, seeing as how I bought the set in question from a private seller on eBay located halfway across the country, who presumably either purchased them via an estate sale, antique shop (or some other means), or maybe even perhaps bought them from Keith Ronnholm himself (seeing as how it came with his original paperwork from 1980, including a two-page shot record typed on typewriter complete with his 1980 PO box address and telephone number, as part of the eBay listing). In addition, as Mount St. Helens' 1980 eruption was the most violent and most destructive volcanic event in the entire history of the United States in terms of land destroyed, economic impact, and the sheer power of the eruption itself (and by far the deadliest), I do have a plan to work with the photographers that took the originals to publish a never-before-attempted look into the first ten minutes of the eruption. The reason? Over twenty five photographers documented the beginning of Mount St. Helens' 1980 explosion, and combined produced over two hundred individual photographs. Five of them produced sequences which were instrumental in recreating the entire event in the scientific reconstruction of the eruption and how it unfolded. Of the more than 40 major publications and over 1,000 in all on that event, none have published the entirety of that event, and as some of those photographers were in their 30s and 40s when the event happened (and are close to the end of their lifespans), it makes sense to try and get these photos preserved and published, so that future generations can see the impact of that event, and so that it may foster an interest in geology or volcanology (after all, my interest in the event was spawned by the Gary Rosenquist sequence, Keith Ronnholm's sequence, and KOMO Photographer Dave Crockett's video, the latter of whom I've met in person). And just so we're also clear here, United States Copyright law also has a Fair Use Doctrine, which provides limited usage of copyrighted materials without having to seek the permission from the copyright holder in question. This is most often limited to the spectrum of research, providing public commentary, news dissemination and the like. -Steve

I'd like to add that I never alluded to having a set of spare mounts, nor alluded in any way of having taken my own photographs of the event - much less any slides of my own. I was only one week over six months old when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, and thus, too young to even hold a camera. However, I've been a researcher of Mount St. Helens (and an avid Mount St. Helens enthusiast and photographer myself, having named my own photography business after the volcano) for 35 plus years. These slides I recently acquired came in three separate purchases on eBay. The second two purchases were slide lots produced by Finley-Holiday Films Corporation, which distribute slide sets and a Mount St. Helens documentary in 1980 titled "Keeper of the Fire" (produced, filmed, and written by Seattle filmmaker Otto Sieber). The first set I purchased was produced and sold by the photographer that took them, and came with a two-page shot record typed on a typewriter authored by said photographer (it even has his 1980 mailing address and telephone number on the contact header up top). And in the case of the warped slide in question, it's a shot by the aforementioned photographer, none other than eruption eyewitness Keith Ronnholm (who shot an impressive sequence of photos of the first eight minutes of the eruption) and the top of the slide mount is labeled: "MT ST HELENS ERUPTION MAY 18, 1980 (C)1980 KEITH RONNHOLM" The labeling is done via permanent-ink dot-matrix printing slightly engraved into the slide mount, which itself is fundamentally undamaged. Attached is the slide set in question. Fourteen of the twenty slides are by Keith Ronnholm, three are from geologists Keith and Dorothy Stoffel (who were in a Cessna aircraft directly over the summit when the eruption began), three are from USGS geologist Austin Post (and as a result, are Public Domain) and one by NOAA (again, public domain). The damaged slide is Slide No. 9. You can see the warping of the transparency, which is causing parts of the image to focus while the rest of the image is out of focus. You can see why I'm wanting to preserve the original mount as much as possible, so as not to interrupt the collector value of this slide amongst its siblings.

Won't be discarding any of these slides. All 140+ are historically significant and document the 1980 eruption cycle of Mount St. Helens.

I've been eyeing some of those desktop scanners like the Digitnow kind (although I've looked at a few in the $400 range, but I cannot afford that right now). They'd be scanned at about 20megapixel range and then enhanced in TopazAI.

Hi, all (first post here, and hope to be a valued member!). A while back, I came into possession of some rare, one-of-a-kind slides of the Mount St. Helens eruption on May 18, 1980. These slides were duplicates of some well-known photographs by three prominent eruption eyewitnesses (two of them a husband-and-wife pair of geologists in a Cessna C182 plane, directly over it when the eruption began). One of the slides, taken less than two minutes into the start of the main eruption from a clearcut 8 miles northeast of the peak, had ink from a Sharpie somehow get transferred to the emulsion side of the slide transparency. A few nights ago, I'd used an alcohol prep pad soaked in 100% alcohol and managed to completely remove the Sharpie ink, but in the process, the slide transparency itself slightly warped when it dried. Unfortunately, as a result, only portions of the image come to focus in my Kodak Medalist AF slide projector, while the remaining portions of the image are slightly out of focus. An effort to try and fix the slide warp issue by applying heat didn't work as I'd hoped. It didn't make it worse (thankfully), but it didnt flatten the slide. On another pair of slides, both of which were taken directly over the summit as the eruption began by the aforementioned husband-and-wife pair of geologists, the slide transparencies have developed a slight curve within their mounts on one side, to cause about one third of the image (on the left side of the image, when projected) to come out of focus. I've refrained from using heat on these two, out of a fear it'll make things worse. Besides glass slide mounts (which I've thought of buying), is there a way to fix these slides without changing them out of their existing mounts? I ask because the first slide mentioned, is part of a 14-slide set which came from the photographer that took them, and on the top of each slide mount is the label "MT ST HELENS ERUPTION - MAY 18, 1980 - (C)1980 KEITH RONNHOLM" and the other two slides have image captions in printed labels describing each slide. Affected Slide No. 1 is labeled "5.1 earthquake. May 18, 1980. 8:32 A.M... It begins. (C)1980 Keith Stoffel" and the other affected slide is labeled "Bulge and north face collapses down mountain. (C)1980 Keith Stoffel." I'm reluctant to change them out of their mounts for the loss of the slide mounts themselves, and I'm wondering if there's a way to fix these without having to buy glass slide mounts. MY SECOND QUESTION. I've read that on glass slide mounts, the glass panes within said mounts have surfaces which prevent Newtonian rings from forming in the scanning/projection process. In reading about this feature, I've read that the way in which the panes are treated to eliminate Newtonian rings from forming, causes a slight grainy texture to appear on scanned/projected slides. How bad is this "grain," and can it be overcome with image processing? My plan (although I've done it with my DSLR) is to scan these at a high resolution to digitize them.