[photo-3d] Re: Dust

["John Goodman" <jgood@xxxxxxxx>]

The recent posts about dust have been helpful.

As a teenager in the 60s, Staticmasters were useful; it's nice 
they are still available. The idea of an invisible stream of helium 
nuclei being spewed forth isn't appealing, but seems harmless 
enough. We're all bombarded by astronomical numbers of 
neutrinos every second, not to mention the parts of the 
electromagnetic spectrum devoted to various signals, so 
radiation isn't necessarily harmful.

Wide Staticmaster modules are available. It's interesting that 
nobody mentioned using non-nuclear brushes designed to 
dissipate static charge via conductive fibers and grounding. The 
Mini-Vac hand vacuum I saw on the Web has a HEPA filter, so 
re-introduction of dust should be minimal. It runs off a 9 volt 
battery. Some vacs are made for picking up ICs or other fragile 
parts, so they may also have optical or film applications. 
Physically touching the film does have risks, though.

The Zerostat is still available, for $58 and ~$8 shipping (Bellex 
International Corporation, 302-761-9896 (fax)). Practice may 
help when using this device to neutralize charges, as it seems 
able to both supply and remove ions, by squeezing the trigger, 
or releasing a squeezed trigger.

Sophisticated electrostatic charge neutralizers for photographic 
applications are available, but cost several hundred dollars. I 
think a well-designed system of this sort with upper and lower 
brushes combined with a HEPA vacuum would be the ideal, 
but these are designed for flat film, not film in mounts with 
surfaces that are handled (look out for skin oils) or edges and 
corners standing proud of the film surface, where particles can 
lodge. So it seems as if the battle against dust is one that never 
ends, and even glass mounts are not immune.

John Goodman

 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/