resurgence of slide film... viewing?

[ASA 32]

For me, as a change of pace, shooting slide film is a source of great enjoyment. Something about viewing the results on a light table with a good loupe pretty much knocks my socks off.

_181209_1609_007.jpg
by
ASA 32, on Flickr

 

[ASA 32]

And I'm fortunate to own a Dimage Scan Multi Pro scanner, so I can do this:

Warehouse Door
by
ASA 32, on Flickr

 

[dave lackey]

Beautiful!!!😀

 

[J enea]

years ago i went thru my dads old slides. he had 50+ slide trays full of travel shots. after he died I set up his projector and went thru a couple of trays. it brought back many memories.

but the bigger thing was just the quality of not only the image, but the colors, the details, the entire viewing experience. It is what slides were made for. this prompted me to look at my own shots. so over the next three months I went big into MF slides. it started at the time by me going to my local drug dealer (the used camera store which always had tons of film gear). they had just gotten in a hasselblad PCP-80 projector. so for an amazing price i walked out with the projector, 3 trays and all the accessories i needed. while I really do not like using or printing 6x6 negs, I needed a 6x6 camera for slides. so found a great condition mamiya 6 and I was off. luckily this was 10+ years ago when film camera prices were in free fall.

120 slides projected are a thing of beauty. everyone who shoots slides should have the chance to shoot, project and view for themselves that magic that are slides. I laugh at my friends who chase digital, gotta have the 30+ mp camera and them view them on their 3 or 4 mp tv. but whatever makes you happy.

as long as I can get the film I will continue to shoot slides. when I want to print them, yes i have to scan and print from a digital file, but it is what it is. I even like shooting B&W slides, using a home brew to develop them, so if fuji gets out of the game, that is still an option. but I have been back-filling slide film when the price is right. Keep buying and buying fresh. force fuji to keep velvia and provia in production.

happy shooting and projecting.

john

 

[Ted Striker]

I wonder why there has been a resurgence in slide film with the reintroduction of Ektachrome. If people wanted to shoot slide film, Velvia and Provia have been continuously available to them. I have a feeling people are going to shoot a few rolls of Ektachome just for the heck of it, and then revert back to what they were doing before.

Well said. A slight difference in color is all that Ektachrome brings to the table. Provia and Velvia have been available for years and still slide film has been dwindling away. Labs close, SKU's get discontinued. Kodak bringing back slide film is not going to change any fo that.

One photographer I knew 6 or more years ago shot slide film regularly. I've lost touch with him now so I dont know if he is still at it. Other than that, I've never met anyone shot has shot a frame of E6 film.

Slide film is a niche within a niche.

 

[ChrisPlatt]

A niche product perhaps, but Kodak must think they'll sell enough of it
to justify the cost of gearing up for production of the new Ektachrome.

Chris

 

[ptpdprinter]

A niche product perhaps, but Kodak must think they'll sell enough of it to justify the cost of gearing up for production of the new Ektachrome.

I think that when Kodak went down the Ektachrome road they also planned to feed Super8 film to their new Super8 camera, about which we have not had any update for nearly a year. I don't know how the failure to deliver their Super8 camera will alter their profitability projections.

 

[Guth]

I'll admit that my recent Ektachrome purchase was intended to be a fun experiment and a (small) show of support for Kodak's decision to bring this product back to the market. That might make me shallow in the eyes of others but I'm just looking for ways to enjoy photography once again. So far it's been working. (Before stepping away from film photography I had previously come to prefer using Velvia for my color transparency needs.)

 

[David Hughes]

FWIW, Leica made some very nice slide projectors and they sell for very silly prices compared to what I paid for my one and a lens decades ago...

Ilford used to publish a fact sheet as a pdf about making B&W slides but my link to it got an error message. And there's ADOX Scala BW 160film especially for slides but how it's processed is beyond me.

Regards, David

 

[Ted Striker]

A niche product perhaps, but Kodak must think they'll sell enough of it
to justify the cost of gearing up for production of the new Ektachrome.

Chris

Yeah well, Kodak is well known for making an almost unlimited number of poor decisions.

As already noted, no sign at all of their new Super 8mm camera, announced in *2016*. No sign at all.

And nearly 1 year ago Kodak made a huge splash with their IPO announcement, Kodak Coins.

No sign of them either.

Regardless of how good a film the new Ektachrome is (and it is good), it's still E6 and that market has been on life support for half a decade or more. More film is not the solution to the problems E6 is facing.

 

[Ted Striker]

I'll admit that my recent Ektachrome purchase was intended to be a fun experiment and a (small) show of support for Kodak's decision to bring this product back to the market. That might make me shallow in the eyes of others but I'm just looking for ways to enjoy photography once again. So far it's been working. (Before stepping away from film photography I had previously come to prefer using Velvia for my color transparency needs.)

Nothing wrong with that. If I had an E6 lab nearby, I'd shoot some too. As it is, there's no E6 lab within 200 miles of me so I don't buy and of this Kodak film, nor shoot the dozen or more Astia 100F 220 rolls in my freezer (along with Provia 400X).

 

[Huss]

And I'm fortunate to own a Dimage Scan Multi Pro scanner, so I can do this:

Warehouse Door
by
ASA 32, on Flickr

Nice!

I was fortunate enough to own a Nikon D750 so I could scan my Velvia shot on Xpan to do this:



I now scan my film (slide or negative) with a Z7

 

[d.dulin]

For me, as a change of pace, shooting slide film is a source of great enjoyment. Something about viewing the results on a light table with a good loupe pretty much knocks my socks off.

_181209_1609_007.jpg
by
ASA 32, on Flickr

This is absolutely gorgeous and totally the reason i love slide film- the reason i decided to shoot some.

Side note; I suppose those nice old "low contrast" lenses of the 30's-60's would help even out the exposure on the low latitude slide films, no?

 

[Murray Kelly]

I well remember switching on the lights after a sllde show only to find everyone asleep. Nowadays we have these enormous TVs with a USB input so the possibility exists to sit at the right distance from the image and accept 'some' loss of definition from one of those dreadful fixed focus scanners that cost <$100.

Nobody would seriously get up to critically analyse grain or minute sharpness and stand in front of everybody else's view.
I briefly had one of those bits of equipment but this dicussion has made me think it might be a route to show off your masterpieces without the snores.

 

[Guth]

I'm getting a kick out of some of the horror-filled stories of sleep inducing projector sessions back in the old days. But it does have me wondering if I'm the only one here that would sometimes go to the effort of setting everything up so that I could project slides simply for my own viewing pleasure? I've actually been contemplating doing exactly that once again some day soon after checking in on this thread a few times. I suppose I'm a glutton for punishment.

 

[joe bosak]

resurgence of slide film... viewing?

Ilford used to publish a fact sheet as a pdf about making B&W slides but my link to it got an error message. And there's ADOX Scala BW 160film especially for slides but how it's processed is beyond me.

Regards, David

I've always wondered about this sort of thing. The principle seems simple enough - develop, wash off the resulting silver particles, expose the yet-unexposed halide left on the film, and then develop and fix. Mind you, the process described on mr-alvandi.com involves washing off the silver with a nasty sounding concoction of potassium dichromate and sulphuric acid, so i won't be trying this anytime soon.

 

[FujiLove]

I've always wondered about this sort of thing. The principle seems simple enough - develop, wash off the resulting silver particles, expose the yet-unexposed halide left on the film, and then develop and fix. Mind you, the process described on mr-alvandi.com involves washing off the silver with a nasty sounding concoction of potassium dichromate and sulphuric acid, so i won't be trying this anytime soon.

Joe - there are at least a couple of different methods of reversing B&W film, and they don't all use sulphuric acid. Have a look at this thread over on Photrio where 'Iron Out' is used as a chemical reverser instead of light. It works really well with FP4+

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/b-w-reversal-day-some-fp4-and-xtreme-100.113375/

 

[J enea]

Joe - there are at least a couple of different methods of reversing B&W film, and they don't all use sulphuric acid. Have a look at this thread over on Photrio where 'Iron Out' is used as a chemical reverser instead of light. It works really well with FP4+

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/b-w-reversal-day-some-fp4-and-xtreme-100.113375/

yeh, thats my post. its really easy to do, just like normal B&W white film, just a few more steps. and being able to use room temp is much easier than doing color (not that color is hard). the hard part is getting the pot dichromate, which you can get from photo formulary. the other chems are easier to get, and the cost per roll is very inexpensive compared to color slide film

Give it a try. its nice being able to have 1 emulsion that can be used both ways. ask any question and ill try to answer. I can post my process if there is any interest.

seeing a B&W slide is really magical.

 

[David Hughes]

yeh, thats my post. its really easy to do, just like normal B&W white film, just a few more steps. and being able to use room temp is much easier than doing color (not that color is hard). the hard part is getting the pot dichromate, which you can get from photo formulary. the other chems are easier to get, and the cost per roll is very inexpensive compared to color slide film

Give it a try. its nice being able to have 1 emulsion that can be used both ways. ask any question and ill try to answer. I can post my process if there is any interest.

seeing a B&W slide is really magical.

Just to rub in what we have lost, in the good old days when beer was 2d a pint etc, you could buy an Agfa process paid B&W slide film and packs of all the chemicals needed for a few cassettes from the usual makers. It's a great pity we can't these days but I keep mentioning it in the hopes of stirring something up.

And they really are special.

Regards, David

 

[ChrisPlatt]

In USA we have a mail-order lab that specializes in BW reversal processing:

http://dr5.us/index.html

http://dr5.com

Chris