[Leica] OT: Inexpensive light table? And storing slides?

[henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff)]

At 8:41 PM -0700 8/19/06, Ted Grant wrote:
>Scott McLoughlin asked:
>Subject: [Leica] OT: Inexpensive light table? And storing slides?
>
>
>>  I have a nice Mamiya loupe I like, but I don't have a light
>>table. Holding the slides up to a table lamp is a real pain and
>>the illumination isn't even in any case.
>>
>>So, light tables seem to go for peanuts to big bucks.
>>I'm trying to be a little less wanton in my gear purchases
>>these days.
>>
>>Any particularly good bargains or values out there in a
>>light table?
>
>Hi Scott,
>If you want to do a little manual labour here's 
>"quick-cheap-practical and it works just fine light table.
>
>1: A trip to an electrical shop where they sell used fluorescent and 
>other types of lamps usually from a house or building renovation.
>
>You require a 4' ft. two bulb fluorescent fixture with "daylight 
>balanced" tubes.  These can be expensive, so forget it. Get 2 "cool 
>white" tubes they'll do just fine. This unit should be wired so all 
>you have to do is plug it in.


Get the 'warm white deluxe'. They're more expensive than the 'cool 
white' and _much_ cheqper than the good daylight balanced, but put 
out a lot better spectrum than the cool whites. A lot of colours can 
go real funny on the cool whites, and it gets worse when you have two 
types of film on the table; the differrences in colour look a lot 
different on the cool whites than in the projector.


>And hopefully with some kind of switch, if not wire it up yourself.
>
>2: Now a couple of choices. Go to the local lumber yard buy a pine 
>board 12" wide, 1/2" thick and long enough to cut two pieces 50'' 
>long and two pieces about 2 inches wider than the fluorescent 2 lamp 
>metal housing.  Nail the four pieces together, now you have a box to 
>set the lamp housing into. Either fasten the lamp housing onto the 
>box. Or get a piece of ply wood cut to make a bottom to your box.
>
>Then all you have to do is set the lamp holder into it with only one 
>more piece required. The frosted or opaque plastic. Don't buy 
>"GLASS!"  Why?
>
>Well sure as heck at some time you'll drop the loupe, smash the 
>glass! Then the shards of glass, your slides and loupe land on the 
>fluorescent tubes shattering them all over the place along with your 
>slides...Trust me an ugly scene!
>
>And yer left standing there screaming all kinds of un-repeatable 
>words in nice company! ;-) Just go to the local plastic shop with 
>the measurement to cover your light box, they cut it to size, you 
>take it home and set it on the box....use duct tape on the ends to 
>hold it in place, plug in electric cord and you have a quick and 
>easy 4' long light table! :-)
>
>It sounds like a lot of work, it isn't. Just a bit of running around.
>
>I've built several of them varying sizes for friends.The light table 
>we've used forever has 2, 4 lamp holder units and a bunch of lamps, 
>it must be about 4'X8' and we can layout a mess of slides all at one 
>time. Edit and cry over it when we've screwed-up a shoot!
>
>Today it get's about the same amount of use as my R8 motor driven 
>cameras.... not much to nil! Just a good place to pile junk! ;-) 
>However sorry it's not for sale at the moment! ;-)
>
>>Also, any preferred "sleeves" for storing slides in a binder?
>>I'd like to store them along with my sleeved negs just to
>>keep my life simple.<<<
>
>Local photo shop where we buy boxes of a hundred pages at a time....
>
>"Print File" archival preservers. 20 slides to a page. You can get 
>them from Orlando Florida 407-886-3100 if your local store doesn't 
>carry them.
>
>ted
>
>
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