Hi,
J Mason wrote:
Any suggestions / tutorials for mounting slides at home? Best
way to trim the frames? Sources for plastic slide mounts?
Funny you should ask, Shel. I've just been mounting slides for the
first time. Shot about 30 rolls of slide film in South Africa over
the summer. The quite wonderful lab that I used didn't mount, unless
I paid extra. I was happy with the sleeved strips, since they were
easier to bring back to the States.
Getting back from the lab unmounted is also my preference because I am
scanning more then projecting at present. It's also one less process
for them to foul up. I've only ever had two major foulups - one
involved the film being put upside down in the dunk tank and one
involved some night time shots being cut in the middle of frames.
Needed to mount the slides to be able to show to my students in class,
so off I went to my favorite camera shop. Bill, the ever-helpful
proprietor, gave me a five minute lesson and let me borrow what Bob
calls...
specialist mounting equipment, with inbuilt lights and
guillotines etc
I have fund that, unless you are using gear towards the more expensive
end of the spectrum, scissors and time are the best tools for mounting.
Intimidating at first, so I tried lightbox and scissors. Very slow.
Very tedious. And, disturbingly, not terribly accurate.
Practice makes better, at least. Cheap gear cuts badly, blades fall
out and it is generally more nervewracking than using scissors.
So I turned on the mounting machine and went to work. Took just a few
minutes to get comfortable. Cuts were more accurate and the process
went more quickly.
That sounds like the better quality machinery.
Whole thing turned out to be tremendously satisfying.
One other thing. If you are going to project slides and you think that
you have some good, keeper type images, I would recommend that you
project copies. Each of them is unique - once it's been mangled in a
projector or melted by heat getting past the missing heat shield or
fungussed itself into oblivion after the projectionist has mauled it,
it's gone. Too late then to make a copy.
