RE: filmscanners: LED Illumination for Film Scanners

["Austin Franklin" <darkroom@ix.netcom.com>]

> > An LED light source for enlargers was not done 15-20 years ago
> because it
> > was not possible. Blue LED's did not exist as anything other than
> > laboratory
> > curiosities until within the last 5 years.
>
> Sure you could have done that 15-20 years ago.  Use
> filters...red, green and
> blue filters certainly were around 15-20 years ago.

>From what I can tell from my old LED catalogs, I am mistaken here.  I though
that there were clear LEDs "back then", which there were...but the emitting
color is either red or green, and obviously, that won't work.

Even if this was such a good idea, it would have been done 5 years ago, and,
as far as I can tell, it wasn't.  It isn't a difficult engineering project
to develop, it's just that, I believe, it really doesn't work all that well.
Digital imaging has really only come of age in the past two to three years,
and there certainly was a window of opportunity (and I believe still would
be) for an LED enlarging light source, if it really worked well.