How would I make lantern slides?

athanasius80 · Oct 10, 2006

Does anyone have any idea how I would go about making new magic lantern/stereopticon slides? I know I could make collodion positives, but I'm wondering what other possibilities there might be. Thanks!

David A. Goldfarb · Oct 10, 2006

You could shoot them on slide film with a 3x4" camera or larger (or reversal processed B&W), crop to size, and mount them between glass.

Photo Engineer · Oct 10, 2006

Or, you could coat your own glass plates and reversal process them. I have one, made by the person I referred you to. I think that I showed it to David when he visited the workshop.

PE

Terence · Oct 10, 2006

athanasius80 said:
Does anyone have any idea how I would go about making new magic lantern/stereopticon slides? I know I could make collodion positives, but I'm wondering what other possibilities there might be. Thanks!

I have a Magic Lantern back and about five film holders that I might be willing to part with. It's made to fit a 5x7 camera.

David A. Goldfarb · Oct 11, 2006

I don't know if I saw that lantern slide, Ron, but maybe.

I have a Beseler Slide King, which can take lantern slides, so I searched at one time for lantern slide mounts, and I couldn't find any. My thought was that I'd mask them down for 6x6 and 6x7 slides. Of course there are mounts for those formats, but their outside dimensions don't necessarily work in the Slide King's slide carriers, so I may end up just modifying one of the slide carriers to take a mount that Gepe makes or maybe having mounts cut from mat board with the inside dimensions of 6x7 and 6x6 slides and the outside dimensions of a lantern slide. I cut a few such mounts by hand, and the projected slides look fantastic.

Michel Hardy-Vallée · Oct 11, 2006

You may also simply paint pictures onto the glass. Granted, it's not photographic, but the earlier lantern slides were hand-painted. I know there is a thing called the Lantern Slide Society of America. They published an interesting monograph on the history of them recently.

Jim Jones · Oct 12, 2006

If the original image is a conventional negative, try copying it on a contrasty film such as the late and much missed Kodak Tech Pan, processed in a fairly contrasty developer such as print developer.

nworth · Oct 12, 2006

The old lantern slides were 3X4 inches. They were made either from a lantern slide plate (once commonly available) bound with a sheet of plain glass to protect the emulsion or from print film bound between two sheets of glass with an anti-newton ring spacer. Generally, they were made either by contact or projection printing (possibly to a smaller size than the negatve) onto the special lantern slide material. You could probably make them today by using a clear based film. I think I'd try Arista APHS processed for moderate contrast. Another possibility is to make a high definition inkjet transparency of the appropriate size.

Jim Noel · Oct 12, 2006

Freestyle also carries an inexpensive copy film which is a direct positive film. It is very slow, but with enough light, and a very steady camera, prints can be converted directly to positive transparencies with this film.

Ole · Oct 12, 2006

Every once in a while, a few packs of lantern plates will turn up on ebay. Need a pack?

Justin Cormack · Oct 12, 2006

Most of the ones I have seen recently were film sandwiched between glass. I even saw an Ilford pack of glass for the purpose. (Along with opened glass plates - useless). I presumed that the early ones were contact printed plates, but I might be wrong.

erikg · Oct 12, 2006

I've had good results making large b&w trans using lith film developed in standard print developer. I think I used kodalith but other brands would work too, like the stuff that freestyle sells. I exposed it just like a print under the enlarger (red safelight only) and then tray developed. It makes a really nice, full scale image.

How would I make lantern slides?

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