Are your slides gathering dust? They’re probably in a shoe box or little cardboard boxes or trays in one corner of your closet or storage cabinet. These slides, unfortunately, have a high percentage of not being viewed ever again. So what would happen to those slides of weddings, birthdays, family vacations and your first born taking his first steps? So sad that these precious images would just be put aside. But with a slide viewer, any member of the family can view and watch those slides when they want to. It’s like slides on demand.
What is a slide viewer, anyway? It is a tool that allows you to preview slides. There are various types of slide viewers in the market today, from the simple hand-held slide viewer that lets you see one slide at a time or to a more advanced table top variety that allows you to preview up to 24 to 36 slides. A company called Bruemberger made industrial-looking slide viewers in the 50’s and 60’s. You can find these on eBay at affordable prices. They plug into a wall outlet and have decent glass lenses and work well with medium format and 35mm slides.
In the Fine Art world, curators and some editors still ask for slides when artists submit their portfolios. Why? Because they are easily viewed, relatively inexpensive, and easy to make several copies. With just a loupe or slide viewer or on hand, they can peruse the artist’s portfolio right then and there. Some industry and some people can still be old school and are considered purists when it comes to art. Slides are still used prominently in the fine art world. That’s why a slide viewer is one of the essential items in photography and the arts.
In the advertising world, a slide viewer or projector helps make for a strong, high impact slide show during product presentation to clients and bosses. Even graphic artists who are used to viewing photos on their computer screens often switch to viewing slides at the desk before they are changed into digital images. Without having to use a loupe, anyone can view slides directly with either a hand-held or table top slide viewer. Reflecta AFM can convert from a slide projector to a Desktop viewer. Kodak also makes Telex Caramate, about $350. Both of them can view slides on a 9 X 9 inch screen.
Just when you think a slide viewer is a thing of the past especially in this day and age of digital photography, think again. Digital photography hasn’t changed the way we do certain things. While we can just upload our photos straight to a social networking site and voila, see our photos online whenever we want and share them with hundreds of people on the web, there’s still the appeal of classic slide viewers to view and share memorable images with our family, colleagues and friends. While we can still frame photos, paste them into albums or hang them on the wall, there’s no doubt we can still view images and slides using the ever reliable slide viewer.