RE: filmscanners: Cleaning slides (PEC tips)

["Laurie Solomon" <laurie@advancenet.net>]

Art,

Interestingly, I have been finding that the length of the film leaders on
both ends of the film have gotten shorter and shorter as time has gone on.
There use to be enough leader to allow for three extra frames plus room to
put clips on the ends of the film; now in some cases there is hardly room to
have an extra frame and room for clips.  My understanding is that the
industry is attempting to save money in a competitive market by shortening
the amount of leader they provide under the justification that the current
batch of automatic everything cameras and processing do not require as much
leader as in the past where things were less sophisticated and more manual.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
[mailto:owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk]On Behalf Of Arthur Entlich
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2001 8:32 AM
To: filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
Subject: Re: filmscanners: Cleaning slides (PEC tips)




Rob Geraghty wrote:

> Jim wrote:
>
>> PEC 12 ONLY cleans grease- based stains. It does not clean water-
>> based stains. It will remove a fingerprint but not hard water
>> stains, for example. This point has not been made yet, so I
>> decided to add to this growing thread.<g>.
>
>
> FWIW I tried to remove a fingerprint from a film strip yesterday only to
> find that it's embedded in the emulsion.  The operator at the lab must
have
> put their fingerprint on the film while the emulsion was wet. :(  In their
> defense, it was right on the end of the film where an image *shouldn't*
> have been, but the camera had squeezed another image onto the end of the
> strip.  Hopefully I'll be able to remove the fingerprint with some careful
> use of the cloning tool.
>
> Rob
>

Every lab operates slightly differently in terms of how much film they
require to do their process, but unless one has a camera with a very
short canister lip to camera frame distance, there usually should be
enough to avoid ruining that 37th or even 38th image.  Most of the time
those extra frames come from the front of the roll, as some cameras, can
be loaded to not require the full "lead" the film manufacturer's provide.

My Nikon 801s (when it is working) gives me 37 images nearly every time.
  Some rare times I get 38, but that one is almost always bisected by
the lab.   My Nikon FE, however, always gave me 38 full frames and
occasionally 39, same lab.

Regarding finger prints that are on the emulsion side.  Remove the film
from the slide holder if its a slide, and the soak the film in warm
water with a drop or two of photoflo or equivalent, for up to half an
hour.  The photoflo not only prevents spotting, but being a detergent,
also beaks down some of the grease in the fingerprint.

Allow to completely dry before handling.  To dry individual 35mm film
frames, open a plastic coated paper clip to create the elongated "S"
shape, and put one hook through a socket hole, clipping the other with a
clothes pin or other device.

Art