Choosing Which Slides to Scan

We've talked about sending in our old slides or negatives for scanning or even doing it ourselves. That way, we get to use our film images in this digital age.

How do we choose which chromes or negs to use? Well, you'll have to look at them. 

An easy way to do this is with a light table and a loupe. Even when we were loading slide trays or printing our own enlargements, we still needed to know which slide or neg was sharp enough, had the right details, had good focus, and so on. Holding up a kodachrome or a tri-x neg to the light would hardly tell us anything. A light table (aka light box) with a color correct lamp (daylight, 5000K) and a good loupe what what we used then. That will work well for our current needs, too.

A camera store was where we needed to go then, and it's where we go now for these specialty accessories. 

One place I've used for years is B&H Photo.

I found a small battery powered light box. And a larger, plug in light box/table. That's the light source and flat surface. To see the film's image, we need some magnification. 8X is a good standard, with 6X to 10X also being very usable. Here's a nice one and a better one.

You spread your slides (chromes) on the table/box, turn on the light, and check them through the loupe.

We don't want to waste our time and money sending unusable film out to a scanning service, or spend time on our own scanner for an image not worth considering. So, use the light box and a loupe to find only our best shots. 

As we have seen in previous scanning posts, the time and effort we spend doing this task is well worth it.

Fun Camera & Photo Gadgets!

Camera accessories have always been an interesting part of the photographic solutions for certain problems or situations. (See the pun?)

Current digital cameras and software take care of many things we used to have to do a lot of head scratching and mechanical engineering for. Things like fill flash ratios, panorama stitching, exposure or focus for tricky subjects, etc... But, we still find ourselves wanting something to take care of a photo thought we have.

Such as... Ever see a great shot of lightning bolts? We could take chances (as has been done for years) with anticipating and using really long shutter speeds. Or, we could use a new (ish) product such as a lightning trigger! Available for a variety of cameras and brands. Check compatibility with your camera.Then, set up your foreground or background subject as the storm comes in, sit back, and shoot. Use safety precautions when shooting in foul weather.

I said "Foul" not fowl.

Low cost underwater housings  can enable us to get some nice pics at colorful vacation spots. Yes, $130 is low cost when you consider what a hard housing or true underwater system can set us back (hint: hundreds to thousands of $). Many subjects on a coral reef or in a lagoon are shallow enough to make an item like this very usable. Besides, much deeper and we need supplemental lighting to combat the color shift of deep water photography. If lightning is your underwater lighting, it's time get out of the pool!

Say, "Feesh!"

More ideas to come in a future post. Stay tuned for more stuff!