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Evaluating Photos
is adequate. Keep in mind as you read this that I wear glasses and have a fairly strong prescription.
I later moved up to a Fuji 4x loupe, also a promotional giveaway, but a much better loupe. It is silver,
has a sliding skirt, and is marked "Fujifilm" not "Fuji Professional" as some are. After several years of
use, I can say that it is a very nice loupe, with much less distortion than the Nikon 8x.
4x, though, isn't enough to evaluate critical sharpness, so I bought a Schneider 8x loupe. I would say that
8x is a minimum to evaluate sharpness; 10x would be better. It resolves more and seems brighter than
the cheap Nikon 8x, although it can only cover part of a 35mm transparency. Distortion is high unless
your eye is perfectly centered, and the zone of sharpness is limited to the circle directly under your eye.
I tried a Schneider 6x loupe, but it offered neither the magnification of the 8x nor the convenience of the
4x, so I got rid of it.
The loupe I use for rough editing is the front end of a Kodak Ektagraphic 178mm f/3.5 FF projector lens.
It gives very little magnification, perhaps about 2x. Its field of view covers an entire 2x2 mount, so
centering is no problem, and is the flattest, edge-to-edge, of any loupe I've ever seen. I can float it above
a bunch of spread-out slides, standing or sitting up straight with both eyes open, flicking rejects off the
light table. I acquired this lens thinking it was a whole Carousel lens. Thankfully, before tossing it in the
trash, I considered other uses for it.
Light Tables: For many years I examined my slides on an inexpensive Tundra portable light box with a
4x5" viewing area. It takes 4 AA batteries, and eats them voraciously. The box it came in said the light
was color-corrected, but who knows what you get for $20. It is barely bright enough in the middle for
critical sharpness evaluations, one slide at a time, and can hold four slides for rough editing.
I finally got fed up with this, and bought a Just-Normlicht Smart Light 5000 (model SL5/DL2). It has a
14 x 15" viewing area -- just enough to spread out 36 slides, making little groups as needed. I had
considered getting a smaller box, thinking "hey, if it can hold a page of slides I'm OK," but I'm very,
very happy that I went with the larger box. The extra working area makes editing and organizing just fly.
The SL5/DL2 uses two 15W color-corrected fluorescent tubes. I was concerned that it wouldn't be bright
enough compared spec-for-spec with the PortaTrace 1618-4C's four 15W tubes, but the Just-Normlicht
is blazingly bright and even, with no hot spots or dimming anywhere on the viewing surface. My
primary viewing area is on a credenza by a window -- unfortunate placement, but I can't re-arrange my
office for a light table -- and the Just is bright enough to overpower the window light. Need I say that it
is brighter and whiter than the little 4AA Tundra by a factor of 10 or so? Some published specs say the
Smart Light uses bulbs with a CRI of 91+ or 92+; the literature that came with the box indicates a CRI
of 98+, so perhaps Just has updated their bulbs. The Just-Normlicht Smart Light 5000 is $229 at Camera
World of Oregon, with free shipping, but I bought mine during one of their "Buy $200, Get $50 Off"
promotions, so I paid $179 shipped -- a few dollars more than the slightly larger Porta-Trace 1618-4C.
-- John Kuraoka, May 3, 2000
I was recently browsing the local photostore looking for a good 4x loupe (I was using the old 50mm lens
http://www.photo.net/photo/evaluation (14 of 17)7/3/2005 2:19:24 AM