how exactly does slide film processing work?

How exactly does slide film processing work? Hello to all, I want to

say first of all that I am a green rookie in the photo field as my

question will reveal. I have gotten many complements on the images

that I have taken so far in my short venture in ths wonderful and

magical past time. Nature photography is my new passion. The spot

I love the most is the Great Smoky Mountains. Cades Cove is a

wildlife wonderland to me. My equipment started with a Canon 300

Rebel Ti with a 35/80 mm 4-5.6 and a Canon 75/300 mm 4-5.6. I

quickly fell in love with them and the bug bit me and I went out on

a limb and bought a Sigma 170/500 mm 5-6.3. I know that most of you

will say that was probably a bad decision. I did however get some

decent free hand shots of some wild turkey in full strut at about

200 yards away. Streams and waterfalls are also at the top of my

list, along with deer and black bear, and the beautiful mountain

landscapes. I have been turning some my better prints into 8X10's

and framing them and decorating my home with them. My wife wants me

to do more of them. In the last month I purchased a new Canon

Elan7n with a 28/105 mm 4-5.6. I believe this camera will do me for

years to come. I also purchased a 5 piece Tiffen filter set and a

Tiffen tripod whuch is far more superior then the cheap Wla-mart one

that i had. Now to my question: I am doing a photo album of

nothing but wildlife and nature pictures. The rest of this will

really show my greenness. When you process a roll of slide film,

what do you Get? is it just a slide that is very small? or is it a

negative type slide like what goes in a slide projector? I know

this is probably quite funny to most of you veterans but I really

don't know. I know that most of you are going to say why bother

with slides at this point, just use good print film. I like most

all beginners long for the quality and vivid color of the images I

see in books. I also know taht comes with experience and trail and

error. Now to finish my question: How do you get prints from

slides? To answer some of your questions, I do not do pictures from

my computer. Any help, advice, or constructive criticism would be

greatly appreciated.

 

Thank You,

Bill Faulk

Slide film starts out as a negative image. In the course of processing, that negative image is bleached out, and what remains is then developed, producing a positive image. Typically, the film is cut into individual frames and placed in a 2" square slide. Traditionally, these are for use in a slide projector, though more often, they're just scanned these days.

 

A pack (or sleave) of slides is what you will get, when you bring in slide film for processing. The image is roughly 24x36mm, though cropped a little by the slide frame. You can get prints from these, though it's a bit more involved and expensive than gettiing prints from negaitve film.

 

It is also possible to get your slide film back from some processors in film strips, similar to negative film, if you request it. For scanning, this format tends to lay flatter, for better focus.

Slide film produces positive images ready for viewing and/or projecting. In larger formats, they are referred to as transparencies or reversal film. Print films and positive films are not competing, in my view, as each is designed for a specific purpose. There are also positive films (slides) in B&W as well.

<p>Bill, welcome! Could you please use the Enter key once in a while? :-)</p>

 

<p>When you have a roll of negative film processed, you get back two things: the negatives themselves, and prints. The negatives are the actual film that was in the camera; it's been developed to make the image appear and become stable, and then cut into strips to make it convenient to handle than if you got back a long strip containing all of the negatives. I think you already know all that, but I just wanted to make sure.</p>

 

<p>When you have a roll of slide film processed, what you get back is similar to negatives, in that you get back the actual film once it's been developed. So the images on your slides will be exactly the same size as the images on your negatives. Slides are typically cut into individual frames and then mounted in plastic or cardboard mounts. The mounts are square, so that if you put them into a slide projector, you can freely mix landscape (with the long edges top and bottom) and portrait (long edges on the sides) orientations.</p>

 

<p>You have other options for viewing your slides, other than a slide projector. You can, of course, hold them between your eye and a light source and just look at them; the colours will be brilliant, but the image will seem rather small. You can get viewers of various sorts that will magnify the image; some include a light source. You can put them on a <a href="http://photonotes.org/cgi-bin/search.pl?input=light+table&which=d" target="_blank">light table</a>, which is basically a box with a specially-designed light source that provides even illumination of just the right colour balance. You can scan them with a film scanner. You can even scan them with a flatbed scanner if it has a slide scanning attachment, but if you're serious about scanning them, a film scanner will do a much better job.</p>

 

<p>How to get prints? Any photo lab should be able to arrange for this. Some can do it in-house; some will have to send the slides away. There are two traditional methods. Some labs will use type R (reversal) paper, which lets you make a print directly from a slide (this is different from the paper used to make prints from negatives, since that paper is also a negative - two negatives make a positive). Others will make an internegative first - basically, they will take a photo of your slide onto negative film, then develop and print that negative normally. With modern computer-based computer lab equipment, often the first step in printing is to feed the film into a scanner which can handle either negatives or slides, so it's just as easy to make a print from a slide as from a neg.</p>

 

<p>Hope that helps!</p>

Bill;

 

Mendel has described the B&W reversal process. The process for color films is quite different. First development produces a negative silver image. The film is then washed and exposed to light and the remaining silver positive is developed in a color developer which gives a positive silver image and a positive color dye image. The film is then bleached of all silver, fixed, washed, and stabilized in a stabilizer bath.

 

Prints from negatives yield the best results, as it is difficult to over or under expose a negative due to the great latitude of the film (ability to catch light over a wide range). The images are also color corrected by means of an orange colored mask.

 

Slides are intended for direct viewing and therefore have higher contrast which results in less latitude and the need for one to carefully expose a slide film to get a good picture. Prints from slides tend to be contrasty if made conventionally, but digital prints from slides can be quite good if you pick the right lab and get good scans.

 

Negatives are returned to you in sleeves or envelopes along with prints, and slides are returned to you in 2x2 inch mounts. Prints from slides requires a special order, as this is not normally done.

 

I use both for nature shots, but find I get better results from negative films, due to their more natural look.

 

But, photography is a matter of taste and opinion just like art. Use what works for you.

 

Enjoy.

 

Ron Mowrey

Long ago, the main color films that were available were slide films. So at one time, everyone shot slides, and showed them on slide projectors. With the advent of good color negative films, that aspect has pretty well gone away.

 

A lot of the publishing world apparently wants color slides to work off of. So a lot of pros will use slide film partly for that reason.

Steve - I doubt many labs use Type R reversal paper, since Kodak has stopped making it, and Fuji is punting it too. Commercial printing from slides now starts with scanning the slide, and from there you go through some digital workflow back to paper, most often RA-4 paper. But, that's OK, the results are generally better that way!

 

When do I shoot slide films? When I want color images "for file", rather than prints for an album. Very space efficient. But very fussy about exposure. Also good when you want more documentary evidence of "what color" something is.