Slide copying FZ18 and Raynox DCR150

I have had good results using the FZ18 with Raynox DCR150 as a slide copier.

After a few experiments I decided on using an incandescent light source and settled on a 50w mains halogen downlighter.

I decided to incorporate a blue filter (Cokin A120) to balance the light to daylight. My thinking on this was to minimise the noise introduced by the camera having to increase the gain on the blue channel due to the lower levels of blue in the source.

I set the white balance manually although auto white balance works quite well in most cases.

I use ISO 100, manual exposure judged using the histogram to just avoid blowing the highlights. Typically the exposure is 1/30 at f5.6.

As the camera is firmly mounted on a flash bar I turn the Image Stabilisation off.

Originally I had the blue filter right behind the slide, but found that dust on the filter showed up. So I moved the filter further away so that any dust is well out of focus.

The slide is position 12in (300mm) from the tripod bush so that it is within the normal focussing range of the camera with DCR150 fitted. It fills the frame at about 6X zoom.
A few pictures of the rig:

And an example, firstly the whole image,

and a 100% crop

There has been no post-processing on either image.

Anybody want to buy a Coolscan III? (Just joking!)