Need help with pesky ghost!

[Alan Gales]

Those dark slides are made of phenolic resin, and I'll be you'll find one of them has a crack in it. This can happen if it is struck by something hard (like a hammer) or wedged under a chair leg. Obviously, it wouldn't be a hammer or a chair leg, but something that applies the same sort of force.

Phenolic is pretty strong, but when it breaks it's a brittle fracture, leaving a jagged edge similar to the sharp line in your ghosts.

The crack may be nearly invisble--try flexing the slide slightly when you inspect it.

I would have suspected a pinhole if the photograph had included clouds or other features of the same shape. The same hard line in both photos undermines the pinhole theory, it seems to me.

Rick "who has seen plenty of unintended pinhole photos" Denney

I have bought quite a few 4x5 camera outfits, sometimes for a lens that I wanted or to part out and flip on Ebay. They always come with film holders and several times I have gotten a hold of dark slides in the condition that Rich has mentioned. They can be like an old cracked distributer cap and very hard to see or just really brittle with a hole in them.

[Alan Gales]

Sorry Rick. I'm not wearing my glasses on and spelled your name wrong

[Alan Gales]

Rick "who wishes he was rich " Denny

[austin granger]

It was a film box!

[rdenney]

It was a film box!

The obvious answer that eluded us all.

Rick "easier to replace than a broken dark slide" Denney

[rdenney]

Rick "who wishes he was rich " Denny

That would be DennEy

Rich "laughing" Denny

[GhoSStrider]

Rick,

Just for curiosity, do you participate in Pentax fora as "eastsaltwater?" Your unique signature line seems familiar to me.

Thanks,

Chris

[rdenney]

Rick,

Just for curiosity, do you participate in Pentax fora as "eastsaltwater?" Your unique signature line seems familiar to me.

No, I always participate in forums under my own name. The only pentax forum I've ever done was PDML and I don't even read the digests any more.

But I certainly did not invent the use of internyms. The first person I copied the practice from was Sheldon Brown (RIP), the internet bicycle guru. He and I were regulars on the hardcore bicycle science list and on rec.bicycles.tech back in the day. I also took after Maddy Page (also, sadly, RIP) on the alt.folklore.urban and rec.sport.triathlon newsgroups. She was the one who coined the term internym.

In the It's-a-small-world Department: Sheldon Brown was good friends with S. K. Grimes, and when Grimes died, it was Sheldon who told me.

Rick "involved in Internet fora since 1996" Denney

[GhoSStrider]

Internym. Clever and descriptive. I like it!

By the bye, I learned about Sheldon Brown shortly before he passed. The internet is certainly a little less interesting without him.