well said... last paragraph one report and we're dismissing the entire range of new Nikon scanners. let's get more info, please pg Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 17:11:11 -0400 From: "Dave King" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: filmscanners:Focusing & film flatness Most darkroom workers interested in quality wouldn't use a mounted slide for projection in an enlarger. If you've ever had a large custom print made by a good lab you'll see it's been taken out of the mount and replaced. Not too hard, cut the cardboard half way through with a single edge razor along the center of any of the 4 wide sides of the mount, bend one of the near corners down a bit and it'll come apart. (Don't remove the layer completely and you can re-use the mount. Replace the film and tape along the cut. Practice on outtake slides.) Then place the film in a glassless carrier, possibly using tape along the sprocketed sides to fix in place and flatten a bit if needed. I've scanned a few mounted slides in my LS-30 and don't recall any particular problem with focus at the edges. Some mounted slides are more curved than others however, it depends on type of film, processing conditions, how old the film was before processing, how it's mounted, and how it's stored. I did see a problem using the auto film strip feeder and neg strips, but the fix was easy, use the film strip holder. We've only seen one complaint about this so far? Perhaps we should wait a bit before coming to any hard and fast conclusions. And even if the DOF is on the shallow side with Nikon's new scanners, there will surely be easy fixes for careful workers. These new scanners are pretty compelling, and I doubt this will turn out to be a major problem, if any problem at all. Dave