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Nice find on a lightbox for your negatives -

Yeah. This is what I have been using. Very affordable and compact and mine has brightness adjustments as well.
 
Was looking for something like this for the bottom of my Eversmart scanner.
 
Too small for us using 11x14...
 
I'm tempted. I wonder how even the light is? I've been using my home made one with florescent tubes for over 30 years. It has 5000° K tubes. It's heavy and very ghetto.
 
I've been using my iPad2 - with the flashlight app (it just illuminates the screen permanently with a soft white matte light) its great. Of course it's a little small - can't fit a whole 8x10 sheet of negatives on there, but it works great.
 
sir_mamiya said:
Yeah. This is what I have been using. Very affordable and compact and mine has brightness adjustments as well.
Click to expand...

So this one shown by op... (post #1) has the brightness control, or is yours just similar but not the same?
 
Presumably this is based on an EL (electroluminescent) panel?

In which case, it should be possible to DIY one (almost) as big as you want, even if the manufacturers of this particular type doesn't make one big enough.
 
I followed the link and then immediately got distracted by the ultra-wide monitor advertised on that page

Dead Link Removed


Whoa mama!

There's some good stuff on that website.
 
That is a good deal. I've built several LED boxes, but I don't think I could light that area for that price. Plus, I find it takes about 3 3/4" of depth to allow for good diffusion, white plexi included. Thanks for sharing this, I couldn't believe something off the shelf could be thinner, lighter and cheaper (probably better) than home built stuff.

Could somebody take one of these apart so we can see inside?
 
Yeah, I had one of those stamped-steel boxes, like 3' x 2' in the film days when clients had to pore over slides and we'd start stacking the favorites to the side. Just too big for me, I doubt I'll shoot larger than 4x5. Got a 10x12 one, fits archival sleeves, good for retouching, aligning masks, and I use it with a little glass dish when toning negatives. Wish this one had been around then, I like stuff that's a little elegant like that. Hope it helps someone out, they're pricey even on ebay.
 
The slide librarian at a university where I work at offered me an 8' long light table. During it's day, the slide librarian would pull slides out of the close to 80,000 slides in the collection, lay them out on the long light table to arrange them, then put them into carousels for the lecture. Then when the lecture was over, she would put them back into the little drawers. Digital projection and Power Point killed it.
 
The price of decent light boxes (when they were actually used all over the place) put me off, and I discovered that if I took a 2ft square fluorescent ceiling fitting and put a slab of milky Perspex on top, it was almost free. Then of course, they became almost worthless, and I could have picked up a superb commercial one for next to nothing.
 
Finished making one last week. Gotta put some reflective material on the bottom, but it works well the way it is. It's bulky and heavier than the one in the link, but it's 16" x 24"!






Sent with Tapatalk. Please, forgive autocorrect and my fat fingers.
 
I might upgrade

sir_mamiya said:
It's even from corner to corner. No loss of light anywhere.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the report. I've been using my light box to do quick proof sheets with my digital camera so even lighting is important. I also like the thinness of those viewers.
 
fdonadio said:
Finished making one last week. Gotta put some reflective material on the bottom, but it works well the way it is. It's bulky and heavier than the one in the link, but it's 16" x 24"!



Click to expand...

That's the type of thing! I scored a dozen 4ft fittings at the same time, each with 4 tubes in. Those are now lighting my workshop, with a few spare for other applications. Tubes are still cheap and plentiful, and quite cheap to run, but eventually the price of LED strips to replace them like for like will come down to sensible levels.
 

are you using 2ft tubes with ballasts made for 4ft tubes? If so, the tubes will burn out prematurely.
 
fdonadio said:
Finished making one last week. Gotta put some reflective material on the bottom, but it works well the way it is. It's bulky and heavier than the one in the link, but it's 16" x 24"!...
Click to expand...

Replace the bulbs with BL bulbs and you'd have a UV light source for alt processes! Just don't mix up the bulbs.
 
wildbill said:
are you using 2ft tubes with ballasts made for 4ft tubes? If so, the tubes will burn out prematurely.
Click to expand...

No, the ballasts are all matched, as they were when I acquired them. I've done some swapping out of dud for good amongst the two sizes, but no cross-overs and mismatches.
Lots of places are now chucking out their fluorescent fittings; this is a tremendous time to pick up some very good lighting for free - and has an upgrade path, too.

The workshop... while the walls were still manky. Now it's all white in there, it's a joy to work in.
 
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