Cabin Light Panel

[erker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Greg Erker)]

Hi guys,

  I bought one of these babies today.
It is a 4x5" light panel that is very
thin (~1/2"). Operates off of 4 AAA's
(for 2.5 hours) or a 6V adapter (optional).

  I may do the rare earth magnet trick
to make it attach to my MF viewer instead
of the dual halogen bulb light box.

  Another good use is to put behind
the 4x6" photo pages I use to store my
MF stereo slides, to preview then when
picking some out.

  The panel is a real 5000K light box
and actually uses a thin fluorescent
tube (10,000 hour life).

  With my viewer on the Cabin panel
I measured the same brightness as
when I use my halogen light box
(about EV 12.5 ISO 100). But because
the Cabin Light Panel is perfectly
diffused I could remove my (lossy) thick
plexiglas diffuser and replace it with
a very slight diffuser like the frosted
drafting mylar. That should brighten
it up a 1/2 stop or so.

  I still need some diffuser for the
times when I use the viewer in steal
the light mode.

  The panel was marked $109.99 but it
was on sale for $99.99 CDN plus our taxes
(14% total). This appears to be the same
as the $75 US New York price that was
mentioned on rec.photo. I assume this is
due to them getting them in stock before
the big crash of the Canadian dollar.

  They have one more in stock if someone
wants me to get it for them.

  I'll put up a photo of it on my web page
early next week.

Greg (my birthday present for myself)