Regarding mounting...

[P3D Dr. George A. Themelis <DrT-3d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Patrick B. asks about commercial mounting.  It is my impression that this 
was done to a large degree manually.  I get this impression by looking at 
a picture of Realist's mounting department (Realist News, Jan. 1951) which
shows a row of ladies (cheaper labor?) doing the mounting.

Marving Jones writes:

>I'm sure it was done mechanically. Certainly there was nobody sitting there
>carefully calculating the best mounting to maintain an accurate window. 

Accurate alignment is, IMO, a better choice of words than accurate window.
(Large volume) commerical mounting can only be based on maintaining a constant
infinity separation.  By centering the chips in the mounts the same infinity
separation is aways achieved.  The window is then fixed at 7 ft.  The 
operators, like the dealers in black jack, cannot use judgement.  The process 
is extremely simple and should be easily adapted to a routine mechanical 
operation.

Of course, "personal mounting" like the that offered by Ron Labbe (hi Ron!) 
is different...

Peter Davis writes (regarding commercial mounting):

>they seem bright and sharp and effectively dimensional to me.  What is it 
>that can be improved by do-it-yourself mounting?

It's not clear what you mean by "effectively dimensional".  3-dimensional?
Certainly!  But all three qualities: bright (good exposure?), sharp and 3-d,
have nothing to do with mounting.

There are two aspects in mounting:  choice of mounting material and alignment.
Once you are happy with the cardboard mounts used in commerical mounting and
once the alignment is accurate, then such service is perfectly acceptable.

Do-it-yourself mounting allows you a choice of mounting material, gives
you better control over alignment and also allows you to place the stereo 
window at will. 

I only see one "danger" in using commercial mounting.  If the photographer
cannot distinguish photography problems from mounting problems when evaluating
the results, then it is possible that good slides can be considered not-so-
good because of incorrect mounting.

As I have said before, for me, mounting is fun... I dare say that I enjoy
mounting my pictures more than taking them in the first place.  Nothing beats
the thrill of seeing a well-captured 3-d scene first during mounting and 
putting some effort into making it look even better...

George Themelis


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