However, I am primarily a color slide shooter, and processing is prohibitively expensive.
It is not, Dave.
There are lots of professional labs who are doing an excellent job at reasonable and even cheap prices.
Have a look here for recommended E6 labs:
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137289
Here in Germany for example E6 processing is really cheap: The drug store chains offer it for only 1,95€ to 2,55€. And professional local labs for 4,00 - 5,50€.
And for a correct calculation you have to include the prints with colour negative film.
E6 is not expensive if you consider all costs. It is even cheaper than shooting colour negative film.
Because:
1. With a transparency / slide you already have a finished picture you can look at.
With negative film you need prints. And prints in really good quality do cost, which add up in the end to more than the reversal film and development.
And the slides can be viewed enlarged in excellent quality with an excellent slide loupe (e.g. the ones from Schneider-Kreuznach or Rodenstock), delivering even better quality in comparison to the prints.
Some may say you can scan and look at it at a computer monitor.
Why using a high-tec medium like film (no matter whether reversal or negative film), and then using by far the viewing medium with the
absolut lowest quality?
That does not make sense.
LCD monitors are unable to show real halftones, the colours cannot really match the real, natural colours.
And the resolution is ridiculous low with 1 - 1,5 MP.
The same is valid for DSLRs: It does not make any sense to spend huge amounts of money for a 16, 24, 35 MP camera, and then only using the tiny fraction 1 - 1,5 MP of it using the computer monitor for looking at the pictures.
Complete waste of money.
(spending so much money would make sense making bigger prints).
2. If you project your slides, you get pictures as big as you want, as big as your projection screen is.
To make such a big, brillant picture of e.g. 1 meter x 1,50 meter cost you the film and development, and a slide mount.
Cost for projector and screen are negligible per shot, especially over a longer period.
So you get a 1m x 1,5m brillant picture for such an extremely low amount of money.
A print from a negative (or a digital file) of the same size do cost more than 150€ in good quality. And you did not get the brillance and sharpness from the print you get with an excellent projection lens.
So the difference in cost is extreme in favour of slides. Slides are ridiculous cheap in comparison.
I have processed thousands of rolls of E-6 in rotary drums, with chemicals in a water bath controlled by a fish-tank heater, but don't really want to go back to that.
E6 home processing is very easy and cheap using a Jobo CPE or CPP machine. Then it is even more easy than developing BW at home.
Using the Fuji, Tetenal or Bellini E6 kits the costs for E6 processing at home are extremely low.
Cheers, Jan