Slide Mounting at Home

[Ben Hutcherson]

I've looked into this a few times over the years, but never can seem to come to a satisfactory answer.

I've always preferred my 35mm slides mounted for a few reasons. I do occasionally give shows(although it's been a while), my cataloging/archiving system is set up around mounted slides, and I like being able to make notes directly on the mount.

I have done E6 at home in the past. primarily when I was still shooting 4x5 because of the scarcity of labs. I would usually do some MF along with my 4x5s mostly to use up my chemistry, but have never done 35mm at home.

I'm looking at doing it again because of course lab costs keep going up. Also, I have one lab that will do Velvia 100 for me(I still have bunches of it) but I've been unhappy with their quality for a long time, enough that I had quit using them for a while.

That particular lab now charges extra to mount slides-not a huge amount but enough to make me think about it. For several years they've also been mounting by hand(probably a large part of why they now charge for it) as their mounting machine is broken(or maybe they can't get compatible mounts or both). I would have no particular objection to this except that I no longer get imprinting. If business is slow, they will sometimes hand-write numbers on the mounts for me(or at a minimum will spot number the mounts and put them in Printfile pages...as they no longer stock those I have to remember to bring/send them) but I still don't get dates.

That has had me thinking many times now about just mounting myself. If I can be forgiven for mentioning this in this section, I do like to scan my film, and now that I have a roll adapter for my Coolscan 4000 the thought of getting an uncut roll that I can run through the scanner is very appealing to me and then mounting later. Further, and I don't want to run afoul of the rules by talking too much about this, sometimes I do find myself unmounting for better flatness...

Enough on that, though. Ideally I'd love to get a lab-grade mounting machine that I can just drop a roll of film in and mounted/imprinted slides come out the other end. It seems as though this is increasingly difficult, as some reading here has told me that in the last few months paper mounts have gone NLA, and long before that Gepe and others quit making the plastic mounts with heat-set rivets that machines use. I do have a preference for plastic mounts(mostly for the rectangular aperture and that paper seems to never stop shedding dust onto the slides) but really would go with any option that would do what I want.

I'm also not opposed to something more hands-on. The current best option seems to be the AP mounter, if for no other reason than the mounts seem available. I do have a couple hundred Polaroid mounts on hand, so have looked at buying one of those(the machines are certainly easy to find and inexpensive, and mounts are certainly plentiful second-hand). Those still leave me without imprinting, though. If I did go with one of those, is there an automated option that will at least do frame number and date imprinting? Do I just need to give up on wanting that one?

I'd appreciate any advice, thoughts, or insight anyone might be able to offer on this.

 

[Paul Howell]

the only side mounts I've found at Freestyle are plastic mounts, I think you can mount slide by slide by hand or use the Freestyle mounter device, I saw cardboard on Ebay. I've use both, the cardboard mounts are coming apart while the plastic mounts are still doing well. The Freestyle mounter is an upfront expense, $120 or so, and I don't know if it will work with Polaroid mounts.

 

[destroya]

well, the mounts are getting very hard to find and MF mounts are next to impossible to find anymore Whenever I find some i buy them. mounting them can take a while. I do them one at a time without any special tool, just squeeze them together. the plastic mounts are better, but they do not fit into 140 size trays as they are to wide, so just the 80. I have been shooting much more 35mm slides, buying the 400ft rolls of ektachrome. Its about the cheapest color option out there that does not require special development.

john

 

[Samu]

I have been buying 35 mm slide mounts from Reflecta, but they seem to be out of stock now. Or they have only CS II mounts, that cost the double for just opening in the bottom, instead of side, as standard mounts do. Just ordered 400 mounts from Nordfoto. AP brand is not widely available in Europe - it is mostly Reflecta or Kaiser I have found available here. With glass, it is only used or otherwise old frames - nobody I know makes them anymore.

For mounting, there are some systems available for CS type frames. I use just scissors.

 

[Ivo Stunga]

I mount by hand to control crop and horizon to a stupid degree. And it's a nice, relaxing pastime.

 

[perkeleellinen]

I have a Kaiser diacut 1 which is alright, I'm not sure if it's any better really than going by hand but it does keep my fingers away from the slides. I use Reflecta CS mounts for most things and some Wess pin registered mounts when I want to do something special with dissolves. It's very easy to amass a good stock of slide mounts on ebay. I do my cutting and mounting during autumn evenings when it's getting cold and dark.