Slide Copier

If you want to copy of an old photographic colour slide or negative, say, to post online or to make a copy of someone else’s slide, what do you do? You take a photo scanner if you have one (I have a Canon flatbed scanner with a film and slide copier in the lid), scan in the image (I use 3200 or 4800 dots per inch), and, of you are a perfectionist, tidy up to dust marks and scratches with Photoshop or similar. It makes for a better quality image than you ever used to get projecting the slide on to a glass bead screen.

But what did you do in the pre-computer nineteen-sixties and seventies? Think: Tandy TRS-80 introduced 1977, Sinclair ZX80 and ZX81 in 1980 and 1980, the 8-colour BBC Microcomputer in late with 1981 and the Sinclair SX Spectrum in 1982. None of these would have been capable of running photo-scanning devices even if they had been available. For example, to Hewlett-Packard Scanjet was introduced in 1987. It operated in black and white at 300 dots per inch, could handle only reflected documents and not film or slides, and cost a fortune.

So what did you do? Another trip to the loft has found my slide copier. 

 

 

I have the cheapo SLR Mk II version, basically which is a metal frame that just screws to the front of a camera lens. It appears to have cost me £5.34 in around 1974. Here it attached to the front my Zenith E single-lens reflex camera. I have also used extension tubes between the camera body and the lens.

It was terrible. I could never get it to produce a decent image no matter what kind of lighting I used.

For example, here, in a copy from a friend’s slide, I am nearing the top of Ben Nevis in April, 1974, straight up from the Glen Nevis car park. It has not been Photoshopped. I did not even manage to get the light consistent on this one. You didn’t get to see it until the film was processed, and the cost meant you couldn’t have as many goes keep trying until it was right. 

Looks like another item for metal recycling. Thank goodness for modern photo scanners.

For the sake of completeness, here are the instructions that were in the box (or download as pdf)  

The Mirror

I recently mentioned this 1966 photograph in a post about objects in the background of old photographs, and how evocative they can be. On the wall is a round mirror.

That mirror forms part of my earliest memories. It must be at least eighty years old, possibly a lot more. I never thought to ask about its origins. It was in the main room where we lived until I was six, then in the house after that as pictured. I looked in it to see what the school dentist had done to my teeth, for marks on my face after being attacked by Modern School bullies, at teenage spots and scratches, and at the awful short back and sides inflicted by the barber. Why couldn’t I have a Beatles cut? It followed my parents through each house move until, in emptying my dad’s bungalow fifteen years ago, it came to rest in out loft.

One side-effect of steroids I was recently prescribed (thankfully a reducing dose, now ended) was to generate intense bursts of physical energy lasting several hours. It does not make you popular at four in the morning. You also become very focussed, decisive and ruthless - even nasty at times. I don’t really recommend it, but it does mean your get lots of things done: such as sorting out the clutter in the loft.  

Here is the mirror now, and very nice it is too. I remember being fascinated by the magnifying mirrors-within-a-mirror effect created by the decorative pattern.

The mirror hangs by a sturdy metal chain affixed to a solid wooden backing which makes it rather heavy. I would be concerned it might damage or fall off the wall. We have no use for it now. We took it to a local charity which has a shop in Denby Dale. They were delighted. I hope they get a really good price for it.