Poll: Do you use slide film?

Poll: Do you use slide film?

  • Never

    Votes: 135 19.0%

  • Occasionally

    Votes: 261 36.7%

  • Frequently

    Votes: 254 35.7%

  • Other: e.g. I shoot slides but in my SLR instead

    Votes: 61 8.6%
  • Total voters
    711
haven't shot a roll of slide film in twenty years or so. Haven't realy shot film in 5 years either. Maybe I will try a roll of slide again just for fun. John
 
I exclusively use slide films. Occassionally, I use B&W films, but I can't seem to get good results like some people from this forum. I use Velvia 50 and 100F. Velvia 50 is a good film, but a bit impractical for most use. These days, I shoot mainly with Velvia 100F. Does anyone recommend other slide films?
 
Occasionally for me. Usually when I've just got a "new" camera. I will shoot a roll of slide film to make sure the camera is working OK. I did buy two rolls of 64 kodachrome just for something "special"--not sure what that will be yet.
Rob
 
I'd say 80% slide film as I purchase new. The only print film I'm using is that which my wife insists I use or it's old film that I'm using up.

Slide film show exactly what happened when I made a particular photo; no interpretation, degradation, duplication, reversal, etc. Permanent and unmanipulated.
 
I shoot mainly B&W (fun 'n cheap), but for important things - scenic vacations, family gatherings - I try to shoot Kodachrome.

I grew up with slide shows, and my dad shooting Kodachrome on a IIIf/Summitar. For me, it's the way photos are 'supposed' to look!!
 
rbiemer said:
Occasionally for me. Usually when I've just got a "new" camera. I will shoot a roll of slide film to make sure the camera is working OK. I did buy two rolls of 64 kodachrome just for something "special"--not sure what that will be yet.
Rob
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I never thought I would until I started buying it cheap from gone totally digital pros. Now I use slide exclusively with point and shoots or oly xa. I like the combo of best film with cheapest gear.

However, I've never shot kodachrome 64 and I'd like to try it out before it's too late...
Am I wrong about this? How much time do I have?

Much Respect
 
When I shoot colour it's almost always slide film I only shoot neg if a specific job or occasion calls for it (like a wedding). I'll shoot it in my Nikon SLR if exposure accuracy or long lenses are called for but otherwise I love how my Summicron 50 and CV 21 Skopar render colour from Kodak E100 VS and Fuji Provia 100.
I just realized I've never shot colour slide film in my Rollei so if the weather is good this week I'm gonna give it a go!
 
B&W about 75% of the time.
Colour the rest and always slide film (Provia 100F or 400F) as I've found that personally I have an easier time scanning and post-processing slide film than any C-41 film I've tried.
 
I've almost stopped using slide film. It's now either Fuji NPH or Ilford HP5+. They're 400 ISO and let me shoot indoors as well as outside under low light conditions, and still give a reasonable smooth picture..
 
I use slide film all the time, and when I use C-41 I cross process it in E6 chemistry anyway. I also do extreme slide film pushes like 100 to 3200 (but usually only 1600). It is mad good for that. E6 is awesome!
 
As an anthropologist and professor I have been interested in documenting cultures and using images from my field research in classroom presentations. Slides were the logical solution to my needs, and for many years I used Kodachrome 64 for most, if not all, of my shooting. This had another fortuitous consequence - Kodachrome has great archival qualities. I have Kodachrome slides from from the 1960s that still look wonderful, and some Ektachrome slides from the same period that display terrible color shifts.

Sadly, Kodachrome seems to be on its last legs and very few labs process it these days. This is a real tragedy for photographers who need color photography with archival permanence. Some might say that digital images are also archival, but this has not been proven. Digital formats and storage options evolve very rapidly and old formats quickly become obsolete.
 
I shoot velvia 50% of the time, and B/W ilford and fuji. I love viewing slides on my rollei projector or putting 120 velvia on a light box, digital doesn`t even come close!
 
I picked up a couple of rolls of Sensia 100 to try out. Sensia is relatively inexpensive and I'm told it's a decent film.

Gene
 
I think I only shot about 5 rolls of slide film in my life. Never had a projector, but always wanted one. Long time ago (well not that long, maybe 30 years ago) when I was a kid, I was always fascinated when my unlce would gather us in a darkened room and give us a slide show. Loved that, still remember some of the shots of the forest in the fall, red leaves hanging off the branches and lining the pathway. Maybe one day, if I find a cheap projector, I'll get one and start shooting some Provia.
Almost bought one at the last Thornhill photo show, but backed out. I only shoot B&W film, the rest is digital.
 
Oldprof said:
Sadly, Kodachrome seems to be on its last legs and very few labs process it these days. This is a real tragedy for photographers who need color photography with archival permanence. Some might say that digital images are also archival, but this has not been proven. Digital formats and storage options evolve very rapidly and old formats quickly become obsolete.
Click to expand...


Backward compatibility is something which is valued in IT. The next generation optical media readers/writers will be backward compatible to CDs. My top of the line Dual Layer DVD burner has no problems reading CD-Rs from 1993!

In february I had to restore a database modell from 3.5" floppy disks which we haven't used for 10 years to convert a customers archive system to todays software. We went from Windows 3.11 to Windows XP and a database engine which hasn't been maintained since 1994 to MS SQL Server 2000 without loosing anything.

Digital media are save as long as you buy decent media and take some care in storing them.
Well documented formats free of patents and IP constraints is a plus, TIFF and JPEG and PNG will be usable forever since it is no secret how they are encoded, vendor formats like Nikon NEF or Canon CRW and CR2 may cause a problem as they are protected by patentes and copyrights and you may not decode them with anything but the vendors application which may not be available in a couple of years.

So there is reason for concerns about the longevity of digital archives, but with a little care and some planing digital archives should pose no problem for the next couple of decades.
 
I love slide film and used to shoot that exclusively. However, once I started wanting to make some prints I found that the transneg costs were painful. So now I mainly shoot C41 for colour and old standbys like Tri-X for B&W.

The points made about scanning slide film are true. It's one of my pet peeves actually - I can shoot slide, scan and print out something decent at home, or I can shoot negs, get fantastic prints from a printer but get crappy scans at home.

Maybe I should just bite the bullet and invest in a proper film scanner...but it's the cost of a new lens, and I love those!
 
Socke said:
Backward compatibility is something which is valued in IT ...

... there is reason for concerns about the longevity of digital archives, but with a little care and some planing digital archives should pose no problem for the next couple of decades.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your thoughtful and informative reply Socke!
 
I prefer to use chrome (slide) film when shooting outdoors, rather than film, if I know I'm going to be shooting outside w/color. That way I don't have to fiddle around with white balance. If I know I will be indoors and outdoors with the same roll, I avoid slide film if I know there won't be a good source of natural light (again, due to the white balance issue).

I spend less than half the time scanning slides than if I were scanning color film, but it's about three or four times as expensive. You win some, you lose some.

My favorite slide film is Fuji Provia 100F, but Kodak's Elitechrome 100 is surprisingly good and cheap (relatively). Ektachrome 400 is not bad at all either.
 
So far I've only used slide film with medium format: at 6x9 transparencies become very cool to look at.

However now am switching to chromes for all the (infrequent) documentary color work I do in 35mm too. Granted, modern color negs are more forgiving, scan nearly as well and cost less, but color-proofing them for publication is a pain. For a high-volume color shooter it might be not worth it, but should be ok for occasional outings.
 
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