Slide Duplicator

I just bought a little slide duplicator on ebay and I need a little help. It simply attaches to the end of FD mount cameras. My problem is that it seems way to dark when I put a slide in and look through the viewfinder of the camera. The instructions are not that great. They say to use window light or try a 150Watt light bulb. So I pulled out my slide projector and when I put it up to that it is bright enough. I think that this will work, but I don't know what to use for a shutter speed...Any help and advice you could give me would be great.
Patrick

PS: What print film would you recommend using when I want to make prints? I will use EDupe for copying slides.

Use your camera meter. You can only adjust the shutter speed. Your slide projector bulb is probably 3400K so your color balance would be off. You can use a flash but then the only way to control the exposure is by moving the flash or set the power ratio on the flash.

Good Afternoon, Ekta,

I haven't used E-Dupe, and I can't recall if it's daylight or (as I suspect) tungsten balanced. Just be sure to match your light source appropriately. If the film is balanced for tungsten, a standard 150 W bulb may be a little too red; a studio bulb (3200 K) would be a good starting point. If the film is daylight balanced, just use electronic flash, preferably well diffused.

Konical

I'll try that...What if I used my light box as a light source? I think that that it not bright enough...

Back when I shot 35mm slide I always used a diffused flashgun for slide duping, and I used 100 ISO colour print film when I wanted cheap prints, it worked well with Kodachrome & Fuji 50D/100D slides. I ran a roll of film through to calibrate the exposures, and used an enlarger lens on my Pentax bellows. Once calibrated it was easy to get repeatable consistent results each tome I set it up.

Ian

I don't have a diffuser for my flash can I get away without one? Also, I don't have a sync cord with me right now so I can't take the flash off the camera...It may sound silly, but would it work it I shot into a mirror with the flash attached to the camera?

The flash in the mirror situation seems to work but what shutter speed should I use and how should I set the flash for 100 speed film??

speed with flash will have to be the synch speed or slower - you need the shutter curtains fully open when the flash fires. If you are using the flash on the hot shoe, into a mirror, I would suggest set the shutter spped at the fastest sync speed - typically 1/60 or 1/100, etc. Then vary the distance from the flash to the bounce surface. Or the nature of the bounce surface; a white wall, or even a neutral grey card would work fine. You just don't want to introduce a colour cast.

To duplicate results, tie a string knotted at the right distance, and a note on the string noting what the flash output was. The string gets affixed to the camera, and then you step back from your bounce surface until the string is taught. Drop the string, and take the duplicate exposure. Keep all kinds of notes for the first time you try this, soi you know which exposure set up yielded the best negatives.

I would suggest if it is an auto flash with it s own sensor eye, to set it for the smallest aperture to start, because in that manner you will chew though fewer batteries. If there is not enough light, then step the flash up to the next larger aperture setting.

Just been checking unfortunately my notes are back in the UK, I know I have a diagram with distances etc, it's one of the few pages I didn't scan

Try this link though as it has some practical details, I used a projector screen to bounce the flash off at full power, and used the flash gun via a synch lead.

Ian

The one piece slide duplicators have very slow lenses. They should at least have enough depth of field to correct for each slide not being exactly in the right place at the time of exposure. Although bellows units with dedicated slide duplicator accessories are more cumbersome they have certain advantages. They have become much less expensive, they allow you to use faster lenses with auto diaphragm control so you can focus wide open, they allow you to reverse lenses for better sharpness at higher magnifications and they allow you to crop. I recently got a Canon Bellows FL with the slide duplicator for about $55.

I think you can still get E-DUPE film at least in 100 foot rolls. It has a speed of 12 (ISO) so it will need a lot of exposure. When more slide duplication was being done, people used devices like the Honeywell Repronar or Bowens Illumitran. These allowed a lot of control over lighting and also color filtering. In High School (Nixon administration) I remember using a Spiratone Vario Dupliscope. It was OK if you didn't need to make very large prints from the copies. I used it to make b&w negatives from color slides.