Bryan Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 (edited) Happy new year everyone ! Tis the time for some housekeeping. I've just updated my download copyright message in Lightroom, not sure if it has worked, it seemed far too simple for that labyrinthine program. Time will tell. I've also created a new set of month folders for 2024, 01 Jan, 02 Feb etc where all of my raw files will reside. I will also need to create various new jpg folders e.g. Durham 2024 and the associated Photoshop actions. Flatten image, image type jpg, store there. I don't entirely trust Windows nor Lightroom to look after my filing system, so I have a belt and braces approach, with stuff stored on two hard drives. I should really do some spring cleaning and purge some old images that will never be used, being careful not to upset Lightroom, one touchy customer. Edited January 1 by Bryan 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inchiquin Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 My New Year resolution is to Illumitran all my 6x6 slides, which is what I bought the thing for nearly 9 years ago. I started a day early yesterday! I've got 450 of them so assuming I regularly lose the will to live after laboriously taking each one out of its plastic wallet, cleaning it, carefully positioning it in the holder, switching off the room light and taking the photo, I should get it done by the end of 2024. Alan 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 (edited) 27 minutes ago, Inchiquin said: My New Year resolution is to Illumitran all my 6x6 slides, which is what I bought the thing for nearly 9 years ago. I started a day early yesterday! I've got 450 of them so assuming I regularly lose the will to live after laboriously taking each one out of its plastic wallet, cleaning it, carefully positioning it in the holder, switching off the room light and taking the photo, I should get it done by the end of 2024. Alan I did it with the lights on, sync speed about 1/60 as I recall- are you not using the flash? Might be worth knocking up some sort of register arrangement to ease the lineup. Easier with mounted 2x2s though. Edited January 1 by spacecadet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inchiquin Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 (edited) 2 hours ago, spacecadet said: I did it with the lights on, sync speed about 1/60 as I recall- are you not using the flash? Might be worth knocking up some sort of register arrangement to ease the lineup. Easier with mounted 2x2s though. I'm not triggering the flash directly from the 5D2 because I understood that there's a risk of damaging the camera. So what I did was set the shutter speed to 1 sec and use the switch on the Illumitran to fire the flash. I didn't want to risk ambient light getting in during that second. I did get out an old 35mm camera to fire the flash but it seemed to be unreliable. However, I found it difficult to get reliable exposure because my slides are of varying density, which meant that I was constantly taking multiple shots of each one, changing the aperture each time (manually because I'm using an old Canon FD 50mm macro, thus with the risk of disturbing the lens focus), or in extreme cases adding more or fewer ND filters under the diffuser screen. So I switched to just using the tungsten focus light on the unit instead. That seems to work well, though I still haven't got the exposure quite right - still working on that. I did think of making something to hold the slide firm. I cut out a piece of plastic with a hole the size of a slide but I'm finding that when inserting into the scanner the slide can slip under it. So I'm planning to glue a second piece of plastic with a slightly smaller hole underneath the first. I don't want to go to an enormous amount of trouble for just 450 scans. Alan Edited January 1 by Inchiquin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gervais Montacute Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 4 hours ago, Bryan said: Happy new year everyone ! I don't entirely trust Windows nor Lightroom to look after my filing system, so I have a belt and braces approach, with stuff stored on two hard drives. Happy New Yer! Just for fun, download the 30 day free trial of DXO Photolab 7 elite and see what you think. Lightroom is great: nothing the wrong with it at all. I use it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 (edited) 3 hours ago, Inchiquin said: I'm not triggering the flash directly from the 5D2 I read about that and built a Zener diode circuit to reduce the voltage, but that didn't work too well. I went back to the time exposure too but found it a pain in the neck, but then I had 6500 to do. I now use a cheap Chinese remote flash trigger, I think it was under £10 all in. I needed it for the studio flash as well so it was justified- firing studio flash from PC sockets seems to be problematic due to the high resistance of the trigger circuit in digital cameras. I got this piece of info from Multiblitz themselves and they recommend a wireless trigger. So my Minilites have had a new lease of life. It works fine on hand flash too, just the thing for my lockdown garden flowers project. Edited January 1 by spacecadet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 (edited) 3 hours ago, Inchiquin said: second piece of plastic with a slightly smaller hole underneath the first. Something like an enlarger neg holder. I made these up too, in card and/or plasticard, the latter preferable because (1) it's easier to cut without fluff; and (2) I had some. Mine are oversize with holes punched to fit on the posts on the 'Tran for ease of lineup. Then you only have to get the film straight, the holder takes care of itself. Realistically 450 originals are going to take most of a day to scan, so an hour or two making up a rig is just part of the job. Happy to offer more tips if needed. Edited January 1 by spacecadet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inchiquin Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 7 hours ago, spacecadet said: Mine are oversize with holes punched to fit on the posts on the 'Tran for ease of lineup. Then you only have to get the film straight, the holder takes care of itself. Realistically 450 originals are going to take most of a day to scan Ah right, so you don't use the slide-in holder at all, you just slot the mount over the posts on top of the frame? And I get bored very easily with repetitive tasks (which is why it can take me weeks to caption a submission of 50 images), and I also have a million and one other things going on in my life, so a day's work for you will probably be spread over months for me. Alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Betty LaRue Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 14 hours ago, Inchiquin said: My New Year resolution is to Illumitran all my 6x6 slides, which is what I bought the thing for nearly 9 years ago. I started a day early yesterday! I've got 450 of them so assuming I regularly lose the will to live after laboriously taking each one out of its plastic wallet, cleaning it, carefully positioning it in the holder, switching off the room light and taking the photo, I should get it done by the end of 2024. Alan I understand nearly losing the will to live. When Alamy changed over their system & messed up all of my keywords years ago, I had 5,000 images to fix. My husband hid the sharp knives & ropes from me. I kept at it & was done I think in about 4 months. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 10 hours ago, Inchiquin said: Ah right, so you don't use the slide-in holder at all, you just slot the mount over the posts on top of the frame? And I get bored very easily with repetitive tasks (which is why it can take me weeks to caption a submission of 50 images), and I also have a million and one other things going on in my life, so a day's work for you will probably be spread over months for me. Alan Can't recall now but I think mine came without any holders at all, just the frame with the posts. I've just looked at my rig and I see that I just line up then Blu-Tack my home-made hinge-type carrier on top of the frame. Then the original goes in. The camera sees a bit of the over-size carrier so cropping still needs doing individually but I daresay you could be a bit more accurate to save work later. The 2x2 and 35mm filmstrip carriers have to be slotted to clear the posts so as to get the original in the right place. I don't actually use the posts for registration at all. It's a while since I did this so I've forgotten the details. I made a policy decision not to edit my slides first- I thought it would take longer than just scanning them all. Once I got a production line going it was quite quick. Only about 130 out of 5000-odd are on archival here but there have been quite a few others it's been nice to see again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inchiquin Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 3 hours ago, spacecadet said: Can't recall now but I think mine came without any holders at all, just the frame with the posts. I've just looked at my rig and I see that I just line up then Blu-Tack my home-made hinge-type carrier on top of the frame. Then the original goes in. The camera sees a bit of the over-size carrier so cropping still needs doing individually but I daresay you could be a bit more accurate to save work later. Thanks Mark, I'm sure that everything you've said will be useful when I get down to the next batch. Alan 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now