Can you get slides from negatives?

[bruce johnson]

I hope this isn't a dumb question, but I honestly don't know and

have been unsuccessful in finding the answer in the archives. I'm

curious as to whether you can get good quality slides from

negatives. I know that you can get duplicate slides made that nearly

match the original in quality, but in this case you don't have to

deal with the base color of the film, nor the inversed colors.

 

I'd like to know because I'll be heading to Nepal for one month and

predict that I'll be giving lots of slide shows on my return. There

will be times when I'll be wishing for higher speed films (low-light

portraits/candids) and I'm thinking that NPZ, maybe even pushed a

stop might be useful to have. The one roll of Provia 400F I've tried

seemed quite grainy to me (although to be fair it was of people

juggling fire in complete darkness - very deep shadows and a little

underexposed to boot) and I'm thinking that print films will be

better suited to this scenario, but perhaps I'm wrong. If I do bring

along NPZ and I get a few keepers that I'd like to incorporate into

the slide shows, can I do this? Am I nuts; should stick to Provia

400F?

 

Currently I shoot Velvia and Provia 100F for most everything (80%+

landscape from tripod) except family candids where I shoot either

T400CN or NPH. I generally prefer slides because I prefer editing

them on a light table, the higher contrast, have never found a good

print lab and I enjoy projecting them. The family candids are nicer

as prints as I can pass the prints around to friends and co-workers

and my wife can cut them up for scrapbooking all without me having

to deal with scanning, Photoshop, then printing vast numbers of

*snapshots* (although the few really good ones that I'll frame I

will do this).

 

All my best keepers, whether on slide or negs do get scanned and

printed and I consider this to be the most important endpoint of my

images, but I'd really like to have a good option for projecting

photos where high-speed (800+) film is needed. Thanks for your input.

[freehueco]

I know that you can have the negs scanned at high resolution and then outputted to a transparency( check out http://www.calypsoinc.com ).

 

Otherwise.. I was in Nepal for a month in May, and I shot mostly Velvia and Provia. I also shot a lot of Fuji 100 print film and some Agfa 200 slide film. These proved to be just about all I needed.

 

Not bringing a tripod was stupid, but that's another story.

[andy_piper2]

Almost every motion picture you see in a theater is a "slide from negative" - a transparent positive print from negative originals.

 

Some labs use the motion-picture process to create still slides from negs. I've never been impressed with the results. They never have the color/contrast/intensity of true slide film. And usually lose some sharpness.

 

My experience is that - if you want projection slides for talks afterwards - the best way to get slides from print-film is to just reshoot my prints on slide film.

 

My other experience - a very recent test - is that 400 Provia F and 400 Kodak UC (one of the best color neg films) gave results indistinguishable regarding grain - the slides were sharper - the negs held more shadow detail.

 

If it were me personally (wish it was!) - I'd be doing a David Alan Harvey and mixing filtered flash with long available-light exposures on slower slide film (Velvia by preference) - or just using the Provia 400F if capturing the 'local' lighting is critical.

[bruce johnson]

Andy: you say "I'd be doing a David Alan Harvey and mixing filtered flash with long available-light exposures on slower slide film" - what is this? Say I get 1/125 sec with no flash on NPZ @ ISO 1600; just fast enough to freeze a person's motion acceptably. On a slower ISO 100 speed slide film I get 1/8 sec exposure. If I use this for my long-light exposure and use fill-flash as well, I'll get those odd-looking double exposures with motion blur from the slow shutter speed (not to mention camera shake) and the frozen action with the flash. Is this what you mean? If so, I'd say I'm happy with less than 1 in 10 of these images that I take. Not quite what I had in mind. However, this is a total guess on my part and I'm probably not even close to guessing as to what this technique is. Please enlighten me (sorry about that pun...).

[jon_shiu]

I once got slides with my developed negs years ago from www.dalelabs.com. The transparency color was pretty good, but had a few dust specks. You might give them a try.

[ted_marcus1]

I shoot ISO 400 color negative film and send it to <a href="http://www.dalelabs.com">Dale Labs</a> to be printed as slides. They can make a set of prints at the same time. While the slides obviously aren't as fine-grained as Velvia or Provia, you won't see the grain unless you walk right up to the screen and squint. They make the slides on Kodak <i>Vision</i> film, normally used for making prints of movies for the local Cineplex. The color tends toward the bold and saturated, although it has its own palette like any real slide film-- either you like it or you don't.

 

<p>Dale's process is probably the best option if you want a high-speed slide film; the image quality will be a lot better than you'd get from ISO 400 slide film. I haven't tried getting slides from film faster than ISO 400. But I have shot Fuji Superia 800 (rated at 640) and made 2400 dpi scans from it. Based on this experience, I wouldn't hesitate to use it for slides if I needed to. It reminds me a lot of the old three-layer Super G Plus/Superia 400, with perhaps slightly finer grain. I have a lot of slides from that film, and I was very happy with the way they looked.

 

<p>I would suggest trying a few rolls of Portra 400UC, which is probably the best current general-purpose ISO 400 color negative film. It makes fine-grained, saturated slides. You might actually like it enough to use it for all your pictures in Nepal.

 

<p>I used to use ISO 100 slide film, but I eventually found that the combination of convenience and very good image quality made ISO 400 negative film the best choice for travel photography. The high speed provides versatility, and possibly greater sharpness from the use of smaller apertures and higher shutter speeds. There's no need to constantly lug a tripod. The latitude of negative film means you don't have to worry about fussy exposure and bracketing. Just make sure the shadows get enough exposure, and you're all set. You can make slides for projection, and negatives work better than slides with desktop scanners.

[andy_piper2]

Bruce - your guess is correct. I doubt DAH has a much better hit rate than you (nor do I) - but then Nat. Geo. is paying for his film, so what does he care? His results are beautiful when they pay off (e.g. street dancers at Carneval, etc.)

 

I't the option I'd use - doesn't mean you have to. Looks like some good alternatives suggested here.

[nathan_dandar]

This is only semi-related but unblinkingeye has an article on the mordancage process. I remember reading about it a few weeks ago. It was designed to make a film negative into a positive. It's not exactly what you were looking for but kind of related and definitely interesting reading.. You can read the article at:

 

http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Mordancage/mordancage.html

[todd_evans]

I used to work in a professional lab where we offered this service, and I was the technician that did it. We used Kodak SO-279 negative film, the same film used for white/blue and white/amber text slides. This film has a clear base. We exposed the film using a Beseler slide duplicator system with a Minolta X-700 attached. The Beseler allowed us to dial in cyan, magenta & yellow filtration. There was A LOT of filtration required, and EVERY negative required a slightly different filter pack.

 

Making slides from negatives is extremely time consuming, but they usually turn out very well if the technician has a good color eye. Most large-ish pro labs should be able to offer this service. Kodak has (or at least used to have) a procedure pamphlet explaining this process.

 

The last time I did this was 1994, so please excuse me if my information is out of date. Hope this helps!

[michael_taylor9]

How about this one, I had a roll of color neg film accidentally processed in e6 chemistry and got sepia slides. Weird, but interesting too....