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Making slides from black and white prints – March 26, 2003

What you will need:

1. SLR with normal to short telephoto lens.  I use either a 50mm or 85mm.  If your prints are smaller than 8x10 you may need extension tubes or other macro gear.
2. A stable tripod.
3. A cable release to avoid camera shake, especially if your tripod isn’t heavy.
4. A painter’s easel is very convenient.  A wall and push pins or other way to support the prints is ok too.  If you have a good copy stand then you probably don’t need this poop sheet.
5. Two tungsten-halogen, 3200 degree (or so) lights.  I use Minicool, 250w instruments that are about 3400 degrees.
6. Polarizing filters for the lights and for your lens.

Film Choices:

1. Ektachrome 64T (EPY) film (see later note on exposure)
2. Fujichrome 64T film

Mechanical Setup:

3. Set up easel, put foamcore board in easel, level the support and the print.
4. Measure height to support plus ½ the height of the prints to be copied.
5. Set up lights at 45% to center of print, 3 ½ feet out, 3 ½ feet over, center lines at height measured above.
6. Put sample print on easel.
7. Set up tripod and establish approximate camera/easel distance with camera sight line perpendicular to print surface.
8. Level tripod camera support.
9. Set height of center line of lens to center of sample print (height measured above).
10. Image in viewfinder should show little or no keystoning – if there is some, fiddle around until there isn’t.

 Polarizer Setup:

1. Put polarizers on lights, make sure both are oriented the same way.
2. Put polarizer on camera.
3. Turn on lights, turn off room lights, close blinds.
4. Fiddle with polarizer on camera to minimize reflections, maximize black in sample print.
5. Use a Sharpie pen to mark top of polarizer ring.

 Exposure Setup:

1. Replace sample print with gray card or white card.
2. If you are using Ektachrome (not Fujichrome) put 0.2 magenta cc filter over polarizer.
3. Meter gray card starting at f4.5 while shielding eyepiece of viewfinder from any stray light – set shutter speed to center needle – should wind up at ¼ second with little or no change in fstop.

OR

4. Meter white card starting at f4.5 while shielding eyepiece of viewfinder from any stray light – set shutter speed to center needle.  Increase exposure 2 1/3 stops with shutter speed – should wind up at ¼ second or so with little or no change in fstop.

Print Setup:

1. Find or make black mask for prints allowing about ¼ inch white border.
2. Center mask on print, clip edges together with spring clip, put sandwich on easel.
3. Move tripod in/out to get correct image size.  Level it again if you move very far.
4. Slide sandwich left/right to center in viewfinder.
5. Lower/elevate tripod post to center in viewfinder.
6. Check shutter speed, fstop, cc filter (if you are using one), orientation of lens polarizer.
7. Make exposure – bracket if you are nervous about it.  My experience is that rated speed and ½ stop overexposed will both yield excellent slides.
8. Repeat 1-7 for each additional print.

Key Learnings:

1. Don’t do this without polarizers.  Polarizers for the lights are expensive but you don’t get a good black without them.
2. Keep the shutter speed constant.  Adjacent shutter speeds may vary (in different ways) from the nominal.
3. Write everything down including the serial number of the camera body (if you have more than one such) so you can make sure that everything is the same the next time.
4. Use Fujichrome unless you are willing to fuss with color correction filters (don’t assume that the 0.2 magenta mentioned above will fit your lights/polarizers/phase of moon.  I found several mentions of Ektachrome T films having a greenish cast.  I only notice this in slides of black & white prints.  Apparently my eyes will forgive a tiny color shift in a color image.
5. Try one roll before you make a big batch of slides, especially if you are using Ektachrome.