Homemade negative/slide projector

[wartree]

Is there any way i can build a 35 mm negative/slide projector or viewer out of ordinary household items.

 

[domaz]

a light bulb and a box works for the projector body. I'm not sure how you would do the lens though. Maybe you could rig something up with a magnifying glass or two.

 

[MattKing]

I don't know where you are, but around where I live 35mm slide projectors are plentiful at thrift stores and on Craigslist.

I saw a nice Rollei projector today in a local thrift store for $4.00

 

[wartree]

it is not so easy to find something, here, it is a small town.

 

[wartree]

would a magnyfiing lense work, if i work out the right focal distance ?

 

[wartree]

i think there might be a old 8mm film projector in my parents house, can this be easily used to project 35mm film, or no?

 

[fotch]

The lens is to small. A magnifier glass would work, however, even small towns most everywhere have mail service, is yours different?

 

[MattKing]

The lens on an 8mm movie projector probably wouldn't have enough flat field coverage to project a 35mm slide. The condensers and other elements in the light path almost certainly wouldn't be able to evenly illuminate the slide, either.

Each frame in a 8mm movie is a lot smaller than a 35mm slide.

 

[wartree]

So the current deal is that i am pretty sure i have one of those gameboy pocket magnifying things Dead Link Removed

laying around somewhere.

the next thing on my plan is to set up a light bulb and film holder, so that i can project it to a regular flatbed scanner while the lights are off. I hope this gives me decent results in 600x400 resolution.

 

[MartinP]

If that's the purpose for the projector questions, then "all you really need" is something to illuminate the transparency or negative while it is in contact with the scanner-glass. Assuming that you have no access to a flatbed with a film-scanner built in (a reasonable assumption?) then you could fix a couple of mirrors at exactly 90 degrees and place them over the top of a narrow piece of glass or perspex holding the film down - in other words the film is illuminated partially by the light reflecting from the mirrors as well as partially by the direct scanning lamp. Unfortunately I have never tried that myself, but have seen it described. It sounds rather optimistic - but nevertheless seems more likely to work than projecting a dim image onto a highly illuminated scanner glass !

If you have a d*****l slr then you could also try illuminating the transparency or neg from behind and then photographing it with some sort of macro device or lens. This method IS commonly used, though would be better researched in the Hybridphotos forum attached to Apug.

 

[wartree]

yeah but that method will leave me with a super small scan, no, like only the size of the film, if put some sort of magnification before the scanner the resolution increases dramarically.

 

[ic-racer]

You have a camera, right? Open the shutter and the aperture, put the transparency in the film gate and use a light source from behind to project it on the wall.

Rollei even made a device like this for the TLR (using the viewing lens as a projector lens).

http://cgi.ebay.com/Rolleiflex-TLR-Slide-Projector-Mint-Extremely-Rare-/380195387553

 

[mrred]

Considering the first enlargers were LF cameras with a light source where the view glas was, I don't think it would take too much to make a projector. Grab a lamp, cardboard box, and some lens from an old camera. Just fiddle with the lens position until you get it right. KISS!

 

[wartree]

yeah i manage to do it with the gameboy magnifier, it was a bit pain in the ass to focus, though. What would be a good material for difuse light, the paper i've tried cuts way to much light to be effective, maybe i will try with those bulbs that have a white opaque finish.
I've yet to try if this would work agaisnt a normal flatbaed scanner, i dont know if the scanner bottom light will mess with the incoming light.
I have a holga 135, i have to try to project through it.