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Evaluating Photos
PortaTrace can be contacted at
Gagne, Inc. 1080 Chenango St. Binghamton, NY (no zip given) 607-723-9550
If you want to buy one of their tables, check out your local camera stores, or call B&H.
-- Glen Johnson, June 25, 1997
Well, making a lightbox on your own can be a rewarding experience.
Bulbman (Reno, Nevada, 1-800-648-1163) sells 15" to 24" Colortone 50 and Phillips Ultralume colorcorrected
fluorescent bulbs (5000K, Color Rendition Index 90 -- normal household lightbulbs are
usually 3500-4300K, CRI 60); they're around $14 each. Home Depot sells complete light fixtures for
around $5 (made by Light of America), or you can assemble some yourself using end fixtures and
ballasts for half the cost. Your local plastic/acrylic shop can sell you lightbox white, 1/4" acrylic cut-tosize.
The base box, at least 8" deep to give even illumination to acrylic surface, can be made of
assembled wood pieces, or even plastic storage boxes -- painted flat white.
It cost me around $85 to make a 24x20, 4 lamps, 60w lightbox. Bright, color-corrected, and comfortably
fit four pages of slides.
I got the idea originally from a posting in a rec.photo newsgroup (don't have the poster's name and email
address handy), btw.
-- Lolo LaSid, June 27, 1997
In Tokyo I've been unable to find the brands mentioned (JUST, Acculight, Macbeth, etc.). Instead, the
leading brands are Fuji and Hakuba, with a few models made by Cabin and one by Hama (Germanmade,
I think). I ended up buying a new model by Hakuba called the 7000 Pro (about 17,500 yen) which
looks just about as good as the Fuji pro models in terms of the eveness of the light, but are nearly half
the price. It fits one page of 12 6x7 shots or four 4x5's, and is about 2cm thick.
The most expensive are the Hama (39,000 yen, but big) and two Fuji pro models, which differ from the
normal Fuji models in that the light is very evenly distributed from edge to edge; one model is thinner
and smaller than the other, but both are about 30,000 yen. Cabin makes a relatively thin model for about
25,000 yen, but I think the Fuji pro is better and not much more money. All the other models I looked at
(under 10,000 yen) are aluminum box models about 7cm thick and have uneven light distribution; the
light fades away and the edges, and you can see an outline of the bulbs inside.
I also have the schneider 6x6 3X loupe to view the slides shot w/ my Zeiss and Schneider lenses.
Viewing with eyeglasses is no problem (the entire image is sharp without having to "look around" the
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