What I've been missing ?

This may sound like I'm decades late to the party, and I guess I am, but I just

shot my first roll of slide film. Nothing special, just Kodak EliteChrome. I

don't even have a light box or slide projector. I had to hold them up to a

flourecent light in the kitchen. The first thing I said was, " Wow! Look how

great the colors look ! " It makes me wonder about all those washed out shots I

did with print film. Was it me..or the dude behind the counter ? Now, I need to

find more colorfull things to shoot ! It's a pity that I have to order the stuff

online to find it. ( I know. Welcome to the 21st century. )

I'm with you...I've tried to go all-digital but I still love using slide film.

Hmm... I know that feeling too. But, on the other side, my slides were laying around for a

couple of months before I finally succeeded in getting them framed (which I did myself)

and it took some more weeks to finally watch them with the slide projector - which was a

major effort (getting the whole stuff out of the basement, preparing etc...)

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Now, it's a question of minutes (which surely is not always such a good thing), and I have

my results on the screen, on my photoblog (<a href="http://photoblog.la-famille-

schwarzer.de">here</a>) which I update almost daily and the like.

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Furthermore, my 2-year-old child adores to watch the slideshows wiht photos of her on

the computer.

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I used many years a F3 and was soo happy with it. But now, although it's still in the

cupboard, I wouldn't want to go back shooting slides with it. But, what I liked with the

"old-fashioned-way" is: the shot you did was your result. No tweaking and changing in

Photoshop...

Slides are fantastic - Fuji Astia is my favorite as it renders skin tones nicely. But I do load neg film when I'm shooting high contrast scenes.

My favorite is Fuji Provia 100. I've had the strong urge to go digital over the past year or so, but what nags me is the thought of the additional software, time in front of the computer, additional cost of a photo printer and of course all the expen$ive consumables that go with it. I've been able to acquire two used professional Nikon bodies (F5 and F100) for less than what one new comparable digital body would cost. The costs of film and processing are still low enough for me to really enjoy photography as a hobby, and with my film scanner I can share my photos digitally with friends and family.

 

Slides really are fantastic - and the images last quite a long time too.

Have some fun and pick-up a good used Kodak Ektagraphic projector+screen and celebrate the fin-de-film in style. Several of us splurge on 6x6 slides occasionally--those are jaw-dropping projected, especially those shot on much-missed Agfa Scala b&w slide film.All very old school but a visual treat and miles beyond LCD projection.

YES.

 

The color from slide film has always been better than print film. When print film is processed

by anything other than a custom lab, they do all kinds of dynamic range tricks to make sure

you get a usable photo even if your exposure is bad. Not the case with slide film.

 

The guy behind the counter was just fine, he was doing what they were doing to ALL our print

film for years... just what most customers want.

I shot slide film for years, I hated the way prints came out all wrong colorwise and densitywise. I could control my exposure precisely with slide film, *I* could decide which zone to place the foreground in, for example, not the machine making the prints. It was the closest thing to printing black and white in the darkroom for me. Now with digital, I am again able to control the color and exposure as with slide film, and I like that. I find the colors I get out of my D70s(sold) and D80 are much brighter and more vibrant than the colors I got out of slide film (I should say scanned slide film). And nothing can replace a good projected slide (although a 50" Plasma screen would probably be nice, impossible for me to afford right now).

 

Still have the F3HP, always will have it, too beautiful to sell.

 

Dave

There really is something about looking at a perfectly exposed chrome on a lightbox though a good loupe.

 

I just sold off a Nikon FE2 and a Leica M2 to get a D80 and a few lenses. Digital is nice, but I kept a few film bodies and will never stop shooting slide film.

Too bad it's getting more and more difficult to get slide film processed. Here in Seattle one film lab has gone under, and another is going under later this year. Pretty soon we'll have to mail our film to a lab somewhere in Colorado. I do remember mailing my Kodachrome to Palo Alto to Kodak for processing. Never had a problem and the results were always outstanding.

 

Dave

Although I just got a D80, a good slide still blows away any digital image. Back in the 1970's I shot my first roll of slide film, and was instantly addicted. The only downslide with slides, or with any film for that matter, is I end up throwing at least half of the box away. I do the same with digital, but at no cost.

With slide film you are in control, but you need to get the exposure spot on. A difference of + or - 0.3 EV will be clearly visible on your slides. Overexpose more than one stop and you get a washed out, unusable image. Underexpose by a couple of stops and your image turns out too dark. Negative film is much more forgiving, but then you have to rely on the lab to see how the machine or the operator interprets your image.

 

A properly exposed slide, seen on a lightbox or projected on a screen, will blow away anything you've ever seen in print from a local lab.

 

I use slide film exclusively for colour. If you need a digital file from your slide, you will need a dedicated film scanner to get the best results. A flatbed scanner with slide adapter may get the job done with most slides, but dark or very contrasty subjects are difficult to scan.

Mike says "a good slide still blows away any digital image." ANY digital image? That's a bit

of a statement... However, the workflow to get to print is still fraught with difficulty,

moreso in this 21st century than digital it would seem. Not to mention the dwindling

availability of processing, as Dave pointed out.

 

Jan says "A properly exposed slide, seen on a lightbox or projected on a screen, will blow

away anything you've ever seen in print from a local lab." However, it won't hang on a wall.

My friends got tired of me saying, "here look at this awesome photo", and then hand them

the loupe... ;-)

 

Most of us who are amateurs (indeed many who are pros) can not afford to get the drum-

scans (or equivalent) necessary to really make those slides work for us the way digital

does. I wanted prints, so slide film was too hard for me to use for casual vacation and

family photos... Digital on the other hand... is another story. I find myself taking "serious"

photos again, which I stopped doing years ago. It's fun again, too!

It's the man/machine behind the counter. I shot high-end print film before getting really serious about my photography, and I had a lab that took the care to make sure my blue skies came out Colorado Blue. Then the lab went downhill, and all of a sudden I thought either my camera was damaged, or I'd lost my touch - everything came out washed-out, because I frequently expose high-dynamic images. I switched labs several times, including using two reputable photography store - no luck. Then I bought a couple of rolls of Fuji Provia 100F - *not* the most saturated film on the market - and I had my faith restored. Brilliant blues, deep shadows, and near-white waterfalls all came out just as I wanted.

 

Of course, now I'm shooting digital and I can see even better just what I'm capturing!

I also shoot slide film side by side with digital.

 

I love it. It's the best thing in the world when projected on a wall. More beautiful than any other media. More beautiful than digital, than fine art prints and than beautiful magazines reproductions.

 

It's just what slide is. Beautiful when projected. It's not the print film's fault, neither yours nor the guy from the lab.

 

Shoot slide and have fun! :)

Now go shoot some 120 slide film and be prepared to have your sox knocked off.

Super sildes, larger than 35, smaller than 120, and compatible with 35mm projectors, was equally wonderful in spite of the fact that the machines utilizing that format were not very exceptional. I believe it was 127 film.

This is probably a stupid question but I have heard the term slide film for years but having only shot digital since I got into photography 6 years ago, what is slide film?

Peter, I obviously went a little too far with my earlier statement. Certainly, some subjects are better suited for digital, and I've seen some great digital photographs posted here on Photonet. I shoot mostly landscapes, and have to say I prefer my Velvia images to what I've been able to get from my DSLR so far, but I'm still learning. My slides just seem to have a snap and depth to them that I can't seem to achieve with digital. Brian - slides are a type of film which produces a positive image, rather than a "negative" image that you get with print film. They can be viewed by backlighting, either on a lightbox, viewer, or through a projector.

"I have heard the term slide film for years but having only shot digital since I got into photography 6 years ago, what is slide film?"

 

And so it begins..... The time after film has started. What once was known has become forgotten. What should have been remembered...is lost.

 

Wait a minute...Maybe that was from a Lord of the Rings intro.

 

Sorry, I couldn't resist. :)

 

Film comes in two types. Print or "negative" film, that you can still take to your 30 miunute photo place and get an envelope of prints, or slide film. With slides, you need to send it off to some place and they develope it, but it is NOT put on paper. It's just left as small as the film and mounted in a card board holder. You need a slide projector and a white screen to bore your reletives with it, instead of handing them a packet of prints, or e-mailing a picture to them !

 

So, it's really a pain, right ? Yes. But...the results can be very good and if you get one you really like, it can be sent off again, and enlarged on paper to a bigger size. Bigger than print film and perhaps bigger than digital stuff because "good" slide film can have a higher resolution than digital.

The color gamut [what the eye can see] of slide film is much greater that print film. The color gamut of print film is much greater that digital.

 

Seach "color gamut" on the internet for a real eye opener on the realm of what film can do. [pun intended]