robert_johnson16

I had the same problem with my Nikon Coolscan III. I followed these instructions with good

results: <a

href="http://www.vad1.com/photo/dirty-scanner/ls2000-cleaning/"

target="_blank">http://www.vad1.com/photo/dirty-scanner/ls2000-cleaning/</a>. I

went one step further and removed the mirror from its holder so I could clean it

effectively. I used pure ethanol from a new bottle to clean the mirror. Alcohol can absorb

water from the air, so you might want to use a fresh bottle to avoid spots. You should

clean the mirror carefully to avoid scratching it. Lay a sheet of clean lens tissue on the

mirror. Place a few drops of ethanol on the tissue and pull or drag it gently across the

mirror. Do not apply pressure to the tissue, but let the capillary effect provide gentle force

to remove dust from the mirror. Repeat until the mirror is clean. Do not re-use the lens

tissue. To prevent dust from collecting on the mirror, I store the scanner in a clean plastic

bag when I'm not using it.<div></div>

Mike,

Thanks for the link to Rorslett's page. Regarding the 24mm f/2.8 AI he says: modification

may be possible, but restrictions to the use of the lens could apply in some cases. He

does not elaborate on the restrictions. Any ideas? I'll drop him a line.

-Robert

I'm considering transplanting the cpu from a damaged Nikon 24mm f/2.8 AF lens to a

Nikon 24mm f/2.8 AI lens. My goal is to be able to use matrix metering on my F5 body. I

noticed that Rolland Elliott does not list the 24mm f/2.8 lens as one that can be upgraded.

If you have tried to upgrade a 24mm f/2.8 AI lens with a cpu, I'd like to hear about it. If

anyone is interested, I'll post the results of my experiment.

-Robert

At my work (an optical engineering laboratory) we clean optics with anhydrous ethanol and

lens paper. Ethanol is preferred since it's not as toxic as methanol or acetone. We use

anhydrous ethanol to aviod leaving droplets of water on the glass. We always wear gloves

to protect our hands and the optics.

First, we remove dust from the glass surface with dry compressed air (or sometimes CO2).

We place the lens paper on the surface to be cleaned, then wet the lens paper with a few

drops of ethanol. We then slowly drag the paper across the glass without applying

pressure. We repeat this procedure a few times with a new sheet of lens paper each time.

A particular sheet of lens paper touches the glass only once; it is then discarded in a

hazardous materials container, of course. This is called the drag method.

The drag method works great for glass surfaces that are easily accessible, i.e., those which

are not mounted. This does not include camera lenses which are typically mounted in

metal or plastic rings. For those, we fold a sheet of lens paper several times and use the

edge of the folded paper (moistened with ethanol) to wipe the lens. It helps to grip the

folded paper with a hemostat. Only the stiffness of the paper applies any pressure to the

glass.

The key is to remove anything that might scratch the glass (with dry compressed air for

example) without touching the glass. Lens tissue is used for one wipe only, then it is

discarded. This prevents any particles that the tissue may have picked up from scratching

the glass.

-- Robert Johnson

I use a scsi to firewire converter (Ratoc FR1SX, bought it from Amazon) with my Nikon

film scanner (Coolpix III LS-30). It works perfectly with Vuescan (http://

www.hamrick.com). The converter was easy to setup--I just plugged it into my

scanner, then plugged the converter into a firewire port on my Mac (Powerbook

G4 17-inch). There were no drivers to install; it just worked on OS X 10.3.

Robert