[MF3D.FORUM:1022] Re: New Ekeren MF viewers

["Dr. George A. Themelis" <DrT-3d@xxxxxxx>]

Paul wrote:

>Jacob is known for putting a lot of engineering into his
>lightboxes, and the detachable lightbox was definitely the
>most impressive part of his MF viewers.  I could not get
>over the fact that he manages to fully illuminate an MF
>stereo slide with a single halogen bulb!  Lighting was
>bright and perfectly smooth side to side and bottom to
>top.  The compact attachment snaps on to the main viewer
>via a clip on the right and left sides.

This sounds the same as the lightbox that comes with
the Ekeren 5XR Realist-format viewer that I bought in
the convention and reviewed in photo-3d.  I was impressed 
by the fact that a single halogen bulb fully illuminates 
the two sides of a full 35mm stereo pair in my viewer,
but of course it is even more impressive in MF.

After taking apart the Ekeren lightbox and my Cabin
Light panel, I realized that they both work on the
same principle, i.e. light from the light source
goes to the edge of a plexiglass material and is
uniformly distributed to the surface of this material.
The only difference is that Ekeren uses a halogen
bulb while the Cabin light panel uses a skinny
fluorescent tube.

Overall, this system works great and results in a
very thin light source with extremely uniform light
output.

George Themelis