Cleaning film strips for Nikon 5000 ED

[mba]

I have the polonium bursh, the canned air and even a great anti-ststic
device for records for cleaning my genatives for scanning.

They work just fine with my new 9000 ED, which uses film strip holders
that hold the film still during cleaning.

But since my new, one month old Super Coolscan 9000 ED gave up the
ghost, wouldn't spit out the film, and had to go back to Nikon (at my
own $80.00 shipping expense, no less (so much for Nikon warranties),
our 5000 ED came downstairs here, until the 9000 ED returns.

With the 5000 ED, one simply puts the film, without a holder, into the
machine. But to clean the film, nothing holds it stable and I have
blown film strips away, and had them buckle while brushing them, etc.
etc.

Do any 5000 ED owners have a special way of holding the film still for
cleaning? Short of first putting them in 8000 or 9000 ED holders to
clean and then putting them into the 5000 ED, I haven't come up with
anything satisfying.

Any advice is wecome.

Mark

 

[Don]

With the 5000 ED, one simply puts the film, without a holder, into the
machine. But to clean the film, nothing holds it stable and I have
blown film strips away, and had them buckle while brushing them, etc.
etc.

Do any 5000 ED owners have a special way of holding the film still for
cleaning? Short of first putting them in 8000 or 9000 ED holders to
clean and then putting them into the 5000 ED, I haven't come up with
anything satisfying.

I don't have the 5000, only the 50, but you can still use the film
holder in the slide adapter (we're talking regular 35mm film, right?).

So you need to take out the film strip adapter and insert the slide
adapter. After that you just use the film strip holder as usual.

If, for whatever reason, that's not possible one option may be to get
a set of those special film gloves. That way you can hold the film
firmly while cleaning it. Perhaps holding the film down on a hard,
flat surface i.e. a table, blowing the air, turning the strip around
and repeating for the other end.

Don.

 

[Jimmy]

If, for whatever reason, that's not possible one option may be to get
a set of those special film gloves. That way you can hold the film
firmly while cleaning it. Perhaps holding the film down on a hard,
flat surface i.e. a table, blowing the air, turning the strip around
and repeating for the other end.

Anyone have experience with PEC-12 for cleaning film?

 

[Roger]

I have the polonium bursh, the canned air and even a great anti-ststic
device for records for cleaning my genatives for scanning.

They work just fine with my new 9000 ED, which uses film strip holders
that hold the film still during cleaning.

But since my new, one month old Super Coolscan 9000 ED gave up the
ghost, wouldn't spit out the film, and had to go back to Nikon (at my
own $80.00 shipping expense, no less (so much for Nikon warranties),
our 5000 ED came downstairs here, until the 9000 ED returns.

With the 5000 ED, one simply puts the film, without a holder, into the
machine. But to clean the film, nothing holds it stable and I have
blown film strips away, and had them buckle while brushing them, etc.
etc.

Do any 5000 ED owners have a special way of holding the film still for
cleaning? Short of first putting them in 8000 or 9000 ED holders to
clean and then putting them into the 5000 ED, I haven't come up with
anything satisfying.

Any advice is wecome.

I'm glad you said any<)

At any rate, this is how I do it.
I hold the film strips much like I hold them when inserting film in
one on the stainless steel reels for developing. I hold the edges of
the strip between the lower part of my thumb (just above the web) and
my other 4 fingers. I put enough pressure to make the strip
"U-shaped". I do this with bare, but clean hands. I would suggest
wearing a "lintless cotton" glove although they can be slippery.

Using "canned air" or equivalent I direct the stream of air diagonally
across the strip. I usually start on the back (shiny) side and then do
the emulsion (dull) side.

Until you get used to the amount of pressure to use holding the film
strip as well as both the direction and amount of "air" you are
probably going to blow away a few film strips.

Work in a clean and dust free area as possible. I've dropped them on
carpet, but as long as they are handled carefully you can blow that
dust off. I've never had to use a brush on them. Old color slides
can be very difficult due to all the previous handling which is a
different matter.

Good Luck,

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

 

[Kennedy McEwen]

But to clean the film, nothing holds it stable and I have
blown film strips away, and had them buckle while brushing them, etc.
etc.

A lighter touch is all that is called for - you aren't scouring pans!

 

[degrub]

don't use canned air for one. There are cleaning solutions available
that will assist in removing dirt from the film, if you need that. But
the brush should be all you need. The canned air can , not always, put
"stuff" on the film (water, oils) . Plus it just sends the dust up in
the air to settle down somewhere....

 

[mba]

Thanks for the helpful replies.

Mark

 

[Roger]

don't use canned air for one. There are cleaning solutions available

YMMV, but I use it regularly when I only have to remove dust. I
avoid the use of any thing touching the surface of negatives including
soft brushes unless it becomes absolutely necessary.
After having gone through over 30,000 slides and negatives I've
probably used cases of the stuff.

The only other option, which I've looked at is to purchase a high
pressure cylinder of Nitrogen, add a regulator, and use that to clean
the film, but my wife says I already have too much *stuff* in here.

that will assist in removing dirt from the film, if you need that. But
the brush should be all you need. The canned air can , not always, put

You learn how to use the canned air just like holding the film strip.
It doesn't take long to realize not to hold the lever down all the way
or for long.

"stuff" on the film (water, oils) . Plus it just sends the dust up in
the air to settle down somewhere....

The fans in my computers move far more dust than I ever get off film
strips.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

 

[Bart van der Wolf]

SNIP

The only other option, which I've looked at is to purchase
a high pressure cylinder of Nitrogen, add a regulator, and
use that to clean the film, but my wife says I already have
too much *stuff* in here.

I use a compressor intended for airbrushing. It produces oil and water
free (filtered) air, and can be output pressure adjusted while the
amount of flow can be regulated as one releases it. I've even rarely
needed to use ICE since ...

It is also useful for cleaning the insides of the computer, oh and for
airbrushing.

Bart

 

[Roger]

SNIP

I use a compressor intended for airbrushing. It produces oil and water
free (filtered) air, and can be output pressure adjusted while the
amount of flow can be regulated as one releases it. I've even rarely
needed to use ICE since ...

It is also useful for cleaning the insides of the computer, oh and for
airbrushing.

One blast under my desk and the whole room would be IFR. <)
Or if you don't fly, I said the visibility would be drastically
reduced. The computers are real power houses and require lots of air
for cooling. Unfortunately that makes them great dust collectors as
high velocity air not only moves more dust, it deposits more dust.

About every two months I shut the computers down, take them outside
and give the insides a good going over with a vacuum and air.

One shot of air in here and I'd have to clean everything else. <)

What I need is a house twice this size with the same number of rooms.
Of course I could use a lot twice as large as well.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

 

[Bart van der Wolf]

SNIP

One blast under my desk and the whole room would be
IFR. <)

LOL, copy that!

Or if you don't fly, I said the visibility would be drastically
reduced. The computers are real power houses and
require lots of air for cooling. Unfortunately that makes
them great dust collectors as high velocity air not only
moves more dust, it deposits more dust.

I simultaneously have an air ionizer and a vacuum cleaner running when
I clean the computer housing, film cleaning doesn't generate the same
amounts of airborne particles.

Bart

 

[Roger]

SNIP

LOL, copy that!


I simultaneously have an air ionizer and a vacuum cleaner running when
I clean the computer housing, film cleaning doesn't generate the same
amounts of airborne particles.

Being an Amateur Radio Operator (Ham) I stay as far away from those
ionizers as far as possible. They create a terrible racket in the HF
range and can do so from several houses away. OTOH so do some Plasma
TV displays. I'm going to HDTV but will have to settle for the more
physically fragile LCD. OTOH this computer has a TV Tuner built in
along with S-video from the satellite receiver. The video card is
getting swapped out on the next one for HDTV capability and I'll be
getting rid of the big 19" CRT out in the shop and going to a 20 or 21
inch LCD. I do a fair amount of editing from out there while waiting
on other projects. Multiple monitors can make for an impressive
display.

I built a SATA RAID module with forced air cooling out there tonight
and *IF* I'm lucky I only have to remove the side panel, insert the
module, plug in the power and I'll have another 400 Gig.

Next step will be a high speed dual core Athlon that will allow me to
scan, edit, and surf without bogging the thing down, although that may
be a bit of wishful thinking as I've always been able to bog any
system down including the main frame at college with an SQL query. Of
course I joined 6 or 7 tables to do the query<) I got real
suspicious when I was waiting for the query to return the results and
people around the lab started commenting abut their monitors freezing
up. I made a hasty trip down the hall to computer services and
politely asked if they could kill the queue. The response..."So
that's you, huh?"

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

 

[Kennedy McEwen]

Being an Amateur Radio Operator (Ham) I stay as far away from those
ionizers as far as possible. They create a terrible racket in the HF
range and can do so from several houses away. OTOH so do some Plasma
TV displays. I'm going to HDTV but will have to settle for the more
physically fragile LCD.

Physically fragile? Yes they deform, but it is elastic deformation, so
they go back to the original shape. On the other hand, after watching a
match on a plasma for a couple of hours you will be able to read the
team names on the screen a week later. I suppose it is one use for
commercials - they stop the logos and DOGs getting burned into the
screen. ;-)

 

[Roger]

Physically fragile? Yes they deform, but it is elastic deformation, so

I'm refering to cleaning the darn things.
I'm using an LCD monitor and it looks great. I've been careful with
the surface, but with the monitor turned off and the sun shining in
the window you can tell just about where ever the screen has been
wiped.

they go back to the original shape. On the other hand, after watching a
match on a plasma for a couple of hours you will be able to read the
team names on the screen a week later. I suppose it is one use for
commercials - they stop the logos and DOGs getting burned into the
screen. ;-)

Man, but I had the new logos and popup adds on TV. One of the worst is
the G4 network.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

 

[Don]

On the other hand, after watching a
match on a plasma for a couple of hours you will be able to read the
team names on the screen a week later. I suppose it is one use for
commercials - they stop the logos and DOGs getting burned into the
screen. ;-)

One thing which is quite revealing about both plasma and LCD monitors
is the "pendulum tests". No, this doesn't mean one swings the monitor
;o) but it's an image of a swinging pendulum. As the pendulum reaches
its leftmost and rightmost positions it leaves a smear - or a ghost
image - revealing the latency problems all those monitors have.

Still, given other inaccuracies of conventional CRTs I for one would,
grudgingly, go for a good LCD monitor as the lesser evil.

Of course, in the context of image editing some will say LCDs can't
really be calibrated, but one might just as well say that's because
they don't need to be calibrated like the ever-changing CRTs! ;o)

Don.

 

[Kennedy McEwen]

One thing which is quite revealing about both plasma and LCD monitors
is the "pendulum tests". No, this doesn't mean one swings the monitor
;o) but it's an image of a swinging pendulum. As the pendulum reaches
its leftmost and rightmost positions it leaves a smear - or a ghost
image - revealing the latency problems all those monitors have.

I don't think that is latency. When the pendulum is at the extreme
position of the swing its velocity is at a minimum, zero in fact. That
is the point at which the image is present on the same position of the
screen for the longest period of time. Latency or lag would show up at
the middle of the pendulum swing, where the velocity of the pendulum is
at its maximum.

The problem you are seeing at the extreme of the swing is the short term
effect of the same issue I mentioned previously. ;-)

 

[Roger]

I don't think that is latency. When the pendulum is at the extreme
position of the swing its velocity is at a minimum, zero in fact. That
is the point at which the image is present on the same position of the
screen for the longest period of time. Latency or lag would show up at
the middle of the pendulum swing, where the velocity of the pendulum is
at its maximum.

Agreed. Latency would show as a smearing or trailing of the image
when the object is moving the fastest. What he is describing would
have been called "persistence" with the old CRTs. Depending on what
we wanted we could get some very long persistence phosphors in the
CRTs on the scopes we used. I think at one time we used P-7 for
measuring minority carrier lifetime in single crystal silicon before
going to storage scopes. Man, but those sure made life easier.

As I understand the persistence of and LCD is very short.with the good
ones being 5 or 6 Milliseconds (ms). Now days they call it response
times. Unfortunately not every one uses the same method to measure it.


Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com>

 

[Don]

I don't think that is latency. When the pendulum is at the extreme
position of the swing its velocity is at a minimum, zero in fact. That
is the point at which the image is present on the same position of the
screen for the longest period of time. Latency or lag would show up at
the middle of the pendulum swing, where the velocity of the pendulum is
at its maximum.

What I was referring to is what happens after the pendulum leaves the
extreme point and starts to swing back. As it does that it leaves a
different colored "trail" at either end i.e., while the left side of
the swing might reveal a blue ghost image, for example, the right side
would reveal a red ghost image.

I think the reason this is not as apparent in the middle is because
the pendulum itself obscures the smear, if you know what I mean. On
the other hand, at each extreme, the high contrast of the background
(white as opposed to the black pendulum) reveals this "latent" image
more easily because the smear can't "hide" behind the sweeping motion
of the pendulum. In other words, the width of the (visible) smear at
either end extends only as far as the width of the pendulum. Once the
pendulum is one width away from each extreme, the smear merges with
the pendulum image and is no longer (as) visible.

That's why this test only works when the pendulum and the background
are high contrast extremes.

Anyway, whatever it is, it shows the weak point of an LCD/plasma
monitor. But, as I said, CRTs have their own (on balance much bigger)
problems e.g. looking at the chroma component alone on a TV is quite
revealing! So, all in all, I personally would still go for an LCD.

Don.

 

[Kennedy McEwen]

As I understand the persistence of and LCD is very short.with the good
ones being 5 or 6 Milliseconds (ms). Now days they call it response
times. Unfortunately not every one uses the same method to measure it.

In addition to using different methods to measure it, some also have
circuits to pre-compensate for it, overdriving the LCD at transitions,
so that the response time is artificially shortened. These are all
reasons why you simply can't buy a display from the data sheet. My
Panasonic LCD TV has a response time in the data sheet of 16mS, which is
horrifically long. However, in side by side comparisons with any others
in numerous stores, it showed an apparently faster response than sets
that had much quicker data sheet times, and consequently displays fast
moving action much better. Still not as good as a CRT, but one of the
better LCDs and takes up a lot less space hanging on the wall.