Stereo Slide Mounting with RBT Mounts, Tips by Jon Golden

RBT Tips

Here are some tips and features of RBT mounts.  

1. Handy for quick mounting, to decide whether the shot is good/bad/etc. If good, the slide can remain mounted, if not, the slide mount can be opened up and re-used over and over for other stereo pairs.
2. RBT's make mounting easier, by moving the chips in-out, up-down relative to each other as you view... to your eyes perfection, and to the critical parameters required for projection. Gone is the need to check slides afterwards, in a viewer, to see if alignment is correct.
3. Black and white snap together halves are logical for many reasons: Each boxed set has 50 black halves and 50 white halves. Use them a number of different ways. Example: Use the white half as the viewing and projecting side. The white half allows for deflection, rather than absorption of heat from hot projector lamps ... protect those emulsions. Put the black side forward in a viewer to provide a clean, sharp viewing window. The black/white-front & back (or reverse of that for your tastes) system is great for organizing, to make sure your slides are all facing the same way. You can make all black or all white slides if you want ..... set up a system that works best for you!
4. Horizontal and rotational problems ... UNDER CONTROL! Using the simple to use, sliding track system inside the mount, your film chips are locked, by the films sprocket holes, into a calibrated position, thus vertical and rotational problems are eliminated, precise horizontal, vertical, and rotational alignment every time! You CAN adjust for rotation if you need to. If you shot a "cha-cha"  free-hand with a non-stereo SLR, by shooting-shifting-and shooting, you may wind up with vertical, horizontal, and rotational imperfections. When mounting you may have to "float" the stereo image, by removing the calibrated slide bars.
5. Protect those stereo viewers!! RBT's have smooth, beveled edges to prevent damage to plastic and bakelite viewers (and your images). Cardboard slides may generate paper dust as they age, which winds up in the slide chamber of your viewer, plastic RBT's generate no dust.
6. Using other 35 mm formats for stereo?? If you have a serious commitment to other 35 mm formats, a box or two of RBT's are handy to keep around to quickly mount and spot check. Find problems or pleasure in your images before committing to heat-seal, glass, etc. 2x2 users can mount 7,8, wide or full-frame stereo images before they go to separate 2 x 2's.

Thanks to Jon Golden of 3D Concepts for most of these tips.