CompuServe Thread

Try Lumichrom in Ontario, Canada. 519-836-1825

David: I use Ektachrome 200 at f11 and 1/2 second in a dark room, bracketing each shot. I use a 90 mm 1:1 macro lens and a Nanao t560i 17" monitor. The main trick is to make sure that the monitor and camera are absolutely square with each other. Last time I borrowed my dad's heavy duty Bogen tripod. I have to get me one of those. Barring that, I use a screen capture program and find someone with a good Matrix or Lasergraphics camera. Evan

David: "Best" for what? You can shoot slides with some slow film and a tripod – average quality, but cheap if you already have the equipment. You can send out AutoCAD SLD or DWG files to a service bureau – should be good quality, but expensive per-slide cost. If you're going to do a lot of them, buying your own film recorder might be worth it – convenient and good quality, but large up-front cost. – Mark M.

David: I see that you've already had some responses to your question. The answer really depends on what kind of quality you're trying to achieve and how many slides you're going to need. You can shoot them directly off the screen in a completely dark room, but you're limited by your screen resolution and your own photographic ability. And unless you use a sufficiently long lens, you're going to get some screen curvature at the edges of the screen. There are plenty of service bureaus out there that do 35mm slides from computer files. But you'll need to check with them and see what file formats they can handle. An HPGL or DXF file will yield a resolution independent slide, meaning that the resolution of the slide will be based on the capabilities of their film recorder, not on the resolution of your computer screen. If you do a SLD or use a screen capture program, you'll end up with a slide that may be imaged at 2000 lines, but will just be a high-res slide of your 640×480 VGA screen. That's not necessarily bad, however. That's what we print in CADalyst all the time and its fine for computer screen shots. If you're going to make a lot of slides all the time, look into buying your own film recorder. CADalyst reviewed three units in the September issue. Two were quite reasonably priced as film recorders go ($4000-$4500). With your own unit and some programs like HiJaak, you should be able to take anything you have on your screen and output it as a 35mm slide. And they're all very easy to use. David