Screen Cezanne Users Unite

[Peter De Smidt]

Today I tested a custom holder that has an optical glass (low iron glass) sheet held such that a negative taped to the bottom is at the same height as one sandwhiched between the standard Screen anti-newton glass sheet and the plastic anti-Newton holder. I used a 35mm technical pan negative scanned at 5300 spi. The short story is that the Screen AN sandwich holder was sharper by a little bit. I'll have to get out the micrometer and check the measurements, and I'll run another test with a different film, but it looks like good news, since avoiding Newton's rings with the glass holder would probably require wet-mounting.

[jetcode]

Thanks Peter

I think between those of us here we can fine tune the scanning we do. Look forward to hearing more and offering what I can.

[bglick]

Peter, is this overlay glass the same type as Screen sells with the scanner?

[Peter De Smidt]

No, the overlay glass is plain optical glass. In fact, it's the glass tray from an Agfa t2500 scanner. The type that Screen sells with the scanner, and which costs $1500 to replace btw, has a fairly heavy textured anti-Newton surface. My test was to see if that texture causes a loss of resolution. So far, it doesn't look like it.

[Peter De Smidt]

Just FYI the original Screen tray is 5mm thick plastic, probably acrylic. This is good in that any of us are unlikely to break it, but it's bad from the point of view of scratching. Mine is pretty marked. Does anyone know if acrylic can be buffed?

[Peter De Smidt]

Just tried scanning with the negative on top of glass in my custom glass tray. Boy, it's really hard to tell if there's any difference from the Screen holder. Of the three channels, the red was the lightest, the green was darker but of the same contrast, and the blue was contrastier. I really couldn't notice much difference in noise. As an interesting aside, the red channel showed Newton's rings, the green channel showed them even more so, and the blue channel didn't show any.

[jetcode]

Just tried scanning with the negative on top of glass in my custom glass tray. Boy, it's really hard to tell if there's any difference from the Screen holder. Of the three channels, the red was the lightest, the green was darker but of the same contrast, and the blue was contrastier. I really couldn't notice much difference in noise. As an interesting aside, the red channel showed Newton's rings, the green channel showed them even more so, and the blue channel didn't show any.

I have some of the same problems you face but then again I think others do too. My glass is not perfect but it is not that bad either. I find that I have to do a lot of spotting for dust and Newton rings if indeed that is what these swirly patterns are in my images. I am not convinced they are Newton rings because they don't appear to be ring like but again I have not had an expert sit down with me yet either. In any case I can edit images to produce really clean beautiful images.

[Peter De Smidt]

Yeah my standard tray is fairly marked up. I have the combination tray as well. This holds six inserts, either glassless holders or resin sandwich style holder. The resin holder work well, but they are about 5.5" square, and so they don't completely hold a standard strip of negatives. By standard strip I mean one that'll fit in the usual 8.5 x 11 " negative pages. I really hate the idea of cutting roll film up into individual frames. In fact, I won't do it. That's the main impetus behind my finding an easy to remove glass tray.

Btw., does anyone have the part number for the "transparent original retaining plate"? This is the plastic sheet that you put masks on, tape the negative to the sheet, and then lay the sheet down on the standard "glass" tray. I don't want to bother Kristen again at Screen unless I really have to.

[jetcode]

Yeah my standard tray is fairly marked up. I have the combination tray as well. This holds six inserts, either glassless holders or resin sandwich style holder. The resin holder work well, but they are about 5.5" square, and so they don't completely hold a standard strip of negatives. By standard strip I mean one that'll fit in the usual 8.5 x 11 " negative pages. I really hate the idea of cutting roll film up into individual frames. In fact, I won't do it. That's the main impetus behind my finding an easy to remove glass tray.

Btw., does anyone have the part number for the "transparent original retaining plate"? This is the plastic sheet that you put masks on, tape the negative to the sheet, and then lay the sheet down on the standard "glass" tray. I don't want to bother Kristen again at Screen unless I really have to.

I don't have a problem cutting MF strips or 35mm strips for that matter.
I'd bother Kristen - your scanner - Screen service department

[Ted Harris]

I wouldn't bother Kirsten too much unless you are prepared to pay normal industrial prices for the parts. To give you an example, replacement glass tray/scanning bed for an IQsmart 3 is $1700 and an Eversmart Pro is $1400. Bulbs from Screen are $200.