Actually, I knew how old they were. However, the questions had not received a reply so I didn’t see anything wrong with adding my $0.02.
As to your comment, it isn’t without merit. A truly shaky copy stand could be influenced by camera shake induced by manually tripping the shutter without using a delay or even from shutter action. Given the clients of NLP, my thought was that users would be aware of those basics when setting up their camera scanning systems. I may be wrong but that was my thought.
I think you will agree that with a reasonably stable copy stand and reasonable care exerted to how the shutter is activated, shutter speed is the main variable. Presuming a constant light source, best ISO, and best aperture, the only thing one should vary to get a good exposure is shutter speed. At least that’s how I view the situation.
Thank you very much for taking the time to respond. I do appreciate your thoughts.
Simply pointing it out in case you hadn’t noticed, you may get a reply even so. I absolutely agree that the only factor that should be altered is the shutter speed, the optimum range of suitable apertures is very small indeed.
My impression is that since not everyone can convert an old enlarger, or make their own stand, many are forced to buy new at the lower end of the market, solid stands are relatively speaking prohibitively expensive, particularly when there are film holders and light panels to buy. The ‘basic’ offerings from the usual manufacturers are not really worth the money in my opinion, unless perhaps you are using flash. Devices that fit to the lens like the original Nikon ES-2, the JJC copy or the Valoi easy35 neatly get around this problem, but only really for 35mm at the moment, though there do seem to be a few 120 prototypes around.