RE: filmscanners: Wet-mounting slides?

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

Hans,

I see what you are saying; I just did not think of this when I wrote my
reply.  I was focused more on things like flatness of the negative, newtons
rings, and troublesome inconveniance issues whicht he original post directed
attention to when I said that I was not sure what the benefits were.

As for evaporation and non-messiness of mounting oils, what you say may be
truer of drum scanners where the oil is open to the circulating air as
opposed to the Minolta film holders which sandwich the film between two
sheets of glass where the chance of evaporation between scans and after
scans is less efficient. It would seem in those circumstances one would have
the bother of wiping down the two sheets of glass and the holder between
scans and after one finishes with the holder; one would also have to be
concerned with the effect that the oil and/or its leakage or dripping might
have on the internal workings and parts of the Minolta film scanner which
was not set up for wet mounting and may not have sufficentair circulation
within the scanner to allow for evaporation of any excess oil that might
find its way into the inner workings of the scanner.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
[mailto:owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk]On Behalf Of Hans Rijnbout
Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2001 7:04 AM
To: filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
Subject: RE: filmscanners: Wet-mounting slides?


On 26-07-2001, LAURIE SOLOMON wrote:

>I would think that what you propose would be as much of a pain in the butt
>as what you are now doing with your glassless renovation of the original
>Minolta holder and would be a lot more messy.  I personally use the glass
>holder and have had neither any trouble with such things as flatness or
>Newton's Rings nor with it taking too much time to place and align
>the film within the mask.  I am not sure what benefits are to be
>derived from a glassless version - let alone a wet mounted version.

In theory wet mounting would have the advantage that scratches in the
film and most dust particles become almost invisible, because their
refractive index is close to that of the mounting oil. The glass
plates should be so thick that the outside of the glass is
sufficiently out of focus. A good mounting oil evaporates reasonably
fast and leaves no residu.

--
Hans Rijnbout
Universiteit Utrecht, CBLE
Postbus 80.054, NL-3508 TB  UTRECHT
tel: ++31 30 253 4567 fax: ++31 30 252 2478