Slide Film, A CALL TO ARMS! : SHOOT IT OR IT WILL DIE

[wilonstott]

Others have made good points regarding spiraling prices, limited latitude and fewer options for processing, but if you select your subject, lighting and metering carefully then you can't beat the satisfaction of directly viewing large positive film on a light table, or better yet projected. It looks like few film stocks are left and especially Kodak prices are rising sharply. For me, saving one film, Velvia (not 100) might be the best that we can do ultimately and for me that would be good enough. In the U.S. it looks like Dwaynes will be the last lab standing.. much like Kodachrome, but we are talking a very small subset of a subset and soon yet another subset when most shoot exclusively cell phone cameras. Good luck, but most likely if you want to save slide you will lose, but if you concentrate on one , or two film stocks.. maybe it can be done.. at least for awhile.

Sounds an awful lot like eulogizing something that isn't dead yet.

Read my initial post.

I'm glad you dig slide film, but don't put that downer stuff on the thread, man.

Consider the frame of your discourse.

Be positive.

Shoot more slide film.

Best work you've ever done.

 

[Athiril]

By the way...

C-41 makes no sense in the current world. Since everything is scanned before printing, slides make the most sense. You scan see them, project them, they have better colors and are easy to store and protect.

That goofy orange mask on C-N film may have been important for optical prints but is useless in electronic scanning and printing.

I say we eliminate all color negative film and replace it with slides.

Have to disagree, the orange mask wasn't made because of paper's sensitivity, paper was made to match the orange mask. It is a mask, and not a filter.

Dyes cannot be perfect. The mask is variable in density across the frame according to the image contents, the film is self-masking. Like a mask in photoshop.

It is there for very high colour accuracy. Good E-6 cannot match good C-41 in colour (including gamut). This goes the same for maskless C-41, it cannot match masked C-41 in colour.


I prefer C-41 for both landscapes and portraits, I have had many landscapes that couldn't be shot on E-6 due to contrast.

Such as;

Waterfall by athiril, on Flickr

I was also not carrying an ND filter, just a CPL.


In regards to exposure, you really need to be as meticulous as for slide exposure for best results, good exposure is good exposure after all. You can place you exposure differently with different methods though. But going willy nilly on exposure with colour neg, then writing it off as not being able to deliver the goods is silly imho.


If you want to delve purely into scanning materials, C-41 has a massive, ridiculous dynamic range. That doens't fit on current RA-4 papers in the dark room in standard process, straight print, without other techniques.

 

[bwcolor]

Sounds an awful lot like eulogizing something that isn't dead yet.

Read my initial post.

I'm glad you dig slide film, but don't put that downer stuff on the thread, man.

Consider the frame of your discourse.

Be positive.

Shoot more slide film.

Best work you've ever done.

yup.. you got-it.
So shoot it while you can.

I've a dedicated freezer full of film and I soup B&W, C-41 and E-6 in 35mm, 645 and 6x7. I also have a fifty degree dedicated film and chemical refrigerator, two JOBOs and three scanners, but mood making doesn't get the job done. So, I'm sorry that my comments are seen as unfit for your thread, but they were intended as a sincere attempt to suggest a probable future and the most likely avenue to keep some emulsion around for future use. I bet you that home chemicals outlast the labs and only die with the last emulsion. Hopefully, we can delay such an outcome. My money is on Fuji in the stretch.

BTW.. as you know.. JOBO is about to reintroduce their motorized film lift system and Plustek their new 120 scanner. So, we are not forgotten, but such moves require that the consumer steps up and buys the product.

So, keep buying the E-6 kits from Arista and others. Save some money for your next scanner, or for those fortunate few.. keep that darkroom going. All these suggestions go against your support your local lab, but in the end, we will be left to support ourselves.

 

[HHPhoto]

I think my point, perhaps not well expressed, is that for e-6 to survive it needs to be priced about the same as c-41 for labs.

Well,

1. That is the case here in Germany and some other European countries: Development prices for E6 and C41 are the same (e.g. in some drugstore chains) or almost the same. Existing differences are quite small and not relevant, they don't have a prohibitive character.

AgfaPhoto CT Precisa slide film cost about only 3,23€ here at drugstore chain dm. Ektar is 4,35€.
This film surpasses Ektar in fineness of grain, resolution and sharpness. And it is much cheaper. Best bang for the buck.

2. The crying of lots of Americans that loosing their local lab would increase their cost is mostly caused by a lack of economic knowledge.
Because in most cases using mail order systems for developing is much cheaper:
I have two local E6 labs in my city. But I very seldom use them because it is much cheaper (and more convenient) for me to send my films 500km away to one of the best German professional labs. Why that?
Using my local labs would mean going there by car or metro. That cost me time: 20-25 minutes for one tour, 40-50 minutes completely. Time is money. This time is "opportunity cost", I could have spent this time much more useful with other things. This time driving in a car is lost time = costs.
For the car I have costs for fuel, parking fees etc. Or the ticket for the metro.
Result: The costs for going to my local labs is significantly higher than the postage for sending the films outside my city to my preferred lab.
The turnaruond time for mail ordering is only two days here.

You Americans order your film by mail order from Freestyle, B&H, Adorama etc.
Why not using the same efficient system for developing your films? You have excellent labs in your country offering mail order.
We Europeans don't understand at all this "my local lab has closed, the sky is falling, I have to give up film" mentality of lots of Americans.

3. If you do a real cost analysis, with all costs involved, slide film is often cheaper than CN film.
The reason why I started with slide film as a young guy of 14 years was just simple: Shooting slide film was much cheaper than shooting negative film and having prints.
Nothing has changed since then:
Also today shooting slide film is cheaper for me than shooting CN film, because CN film only makes sense with prints. And quality prints of 13x18cm cost me 35-45 cents depending on the lab (I don't like inferior quality therefore the cheap prints are no option).
With my very good slide loupe on my lighttable I have with slide film the alternative of similar picture size to 10x15cm or 13x18cm quality prints.
But the slides on my lighttable viewed with my excellent Schneider and Rodenstock slide loupes deliver much better color brillance and better sharpness than the prints. And an almost three-dimensional effect.
A huge 1m x 1,5m projected slide on a screen cost you less than a buck, mostly only some cents.
A print of that huge dimension cost you more than 100 bucks!
[FONT=&quot]
And honestly, scanning is not a good option: The loss in quality is too big.
You always loose resolution, even with the best drum scanners.
We've compared with some other professional photographers the resolution power of the best projection lenses with the Imacon X5 drum scanner:
The best projection lenses have won by a big margin, no chance for the scanner.
And with scanners you have always increased grain by scanner noise.
That problem does not exist at all in projection.

And what would you do with your scan? Prints? See above, more expansive than viewing the slides with an excellent loupe and in projection.
Looking at the computer monitor?
I think that is absolutely stupid:
Using a high resolution medium like slide film, and then looking at the pictures on a computer monitor with only 1024x768 resolution, less than 1 Megapixel? And the bad tonality of the monitor?
Computer monitors are the viewing medium with by far the worst quality of all viewing mediums. Prints and viewing slides on a lighttable and in projection is all much much better.

Scanning high resolution film and than viewing only on a monitor is as senseless as buying a 24 or 35 Megapixel camera and looking at these pictures only at your monitor with it's extremely low resolution.
[/FONT] It is a complete waste of money.

Cheers, Jan

 

[thegman]

Jan,
I agree that some people need to get used to the idea of mailing film for development. I live in London, and even in this capital city, I order just about everything online, it's easier and cheaper. I can also confirm that E6 development tends to cost the same as C41 here.

I disagree that scanning is a waste of time or money, I have relatives on the other side of the world, if I want to show them photos, I can hardly use a slide projector. I do love slides though, I got one of these:

http://www.diapod.com/

Just to try out real projection, and it does indeed look incredible, but not everyone can come round to my flat to see them.

 

[HHPhoto]

Hi Daniel,

It is there for very high colour accuracy. Good E-6 cannot match good C-41 in colour (including gamut). This goes the same for maskless C-41, it cannot match masked C-41 in colour.

that may be right in theory or under scientific lab conditions.
But in real world it is a bit different:
If I send five E6 films for developing in the best five E6 labs, I will receive five identical results.
If I send five C41 films in the best five labs ordering best scans and / or prints (development only makes no sense with C41), I will receive five different results.
Because each lab use different technique, other scanners, profiles, different people as scanner operators, different paper.

Even if I use my best local C41/RA-4 lab here (they do great work) I get different results depending on the day, because of different staff, different people working there at the scanner with a different view on colors and contrast. The differences are not huge, but visible.

With E6 I get what I call the best 'color reliability'.

Furthermore we've done some color accuracy tests with different slide and CN films: Normed lighting conditions, color test charts and real life subjects with different colors and tones.
And then compared the results under the same lighting conditions with the real subjects we've shot.
The winner with the best color accuracy is Provia 100F. Its colors are nearest to the original colors, more precise results than Pro 160 NS, Reala, Portra (and of course Ektar).

I prefer C-41 for both landscapes and portraits, I have had many landscapes that couldn't be shot on E-6 due to contrast.

Such as;

I am doing a lot of landscape work as well, and often in high contrast situations. And I do this with slide film.
There are two very good to excellent methods to handle high contrast with slide film:
- using the old, for decades used zone system technique of diffuse pre exposure (you gain about one whole stop more contrast range)
- using modern cameras with modern balanced fill-in flash techniques; with this method I can manage even very high contrasts and nevertehless get both excellent shadow and highlight detail.
The simple trick is to reduce the power of the flash manually by -2/3 up to -3 stops, depending on your subject and the amount of shadow detail you want. You expose for the highlights for best highlight detail, and just add a little bit additional light for the shadows by using the balanced fill-in flash.
This technique works excellent if done right: Absolutely natural looking pictures with excellent shadow and highlight detail, and you don't even recognize that flash was used.

Therefore higher contrast situations don't worry me at all with slide film. It can be done successfully.
And so I am profiting from all other advantages of slide film, and not having a disadvantage.

I am using both CN and slide film. Horses for courses. Film choice is not at all a religion for me.
CN mostly if I shot for other persons who want prints: Portrait, wedding, birthdays.
Slide for most of my personal work for best quality: Landscapes, night photography (the light look best on a lighttable or in projection), stills, architecture, travel, cars and motorcycles ( the splendor of chrome and coat of lacquer / varnish looks absolutely outstanding and as in real life in projection, it is impossible to get that real life look in prints).

When I project my landscape pictures on my 1m x 1,50m screen with my excellent projector and lenses, then it is like I am back at this place at the moment when I pressed the shutter. It is like a 'time machine'.
I don't get this feeling with prints.
And if I compare the color brillance, the almost three-dimensional look of the projected slide, the outstanding sharpness and resolution of my 1m x 1,50m projected slide with a print of 80cmx120cm or 1m x 1,50m, than the print can't compete at all with the projected picture.
The quality of projection is a league of it's own.

Cheers, Jan

 

[HHPhoto]

Jan,
I agree that some people need to get used to the idea of mailing film for development. I live in London, and even in this capital city, I order just about everything online, it's easier and cheaper. I can also confirm that E6 development tends to cost the same as C41 here.

I disagree that scanning is a waste of time or money, I have relatives on the other side of the world, if I want to show them photos, I can hardly use a slide projector.

well, no need to argue about that. In this case of course scanning makes sense. I completely agree.
What I meant was that for your own use scanning a high res, high quality medium like film and then only watching it on the worst viewing medium, the computer monitor, makes no sense (same with using a super-duper Megapixel cam and then only viewing on a monitor).

I do love slides though, I got one of these:

http://www.diapod.com/

Just to try out real projection, and it does indeed look incredible,

It looks even much more outstanding with a real projector, with more power and an even better projection lens.
You can get excellent projectors and lenses quite cheap on the used market.
But you can even get lots of new ones (projector production is still running in Germany), at very attractive prices:

The outstanding Rollei projectors (MSC types with dissolving system and the unique 66 dual P multi format projector):
www.dhw-fototechnik.de

and at: www.atelier-rieter.de

The excellent Leica Pradovit PC is also still available new at ridiculous low prices at Atelier Rieter.

The incredible Götschmann medium format projectors:
http://www.gecko-cam.com/sales/goetschmann/

The very good Braun projectors:
http://www.braun-phototechnik.de/en/products/list/~pcat.106/Diatechnik.html

And Reflecta:
https://reflecta.de/en/products/list/~pcat.5/Dia-Projektoren.html

Stereo projectors by RBT:
http://www.rbt-3d.de/index.php?idcat=30

Your diapod is a first step. Go further for better quality and more joy.
If you have questions about recommandable projectors and lenses, feel free to ask me. I will help. I've lot's of experinece with different projection systems.

but not everyone can come round to my flat to see them.

Well, first of all, you do projection for yourself, for your own joy.
It's your own home cinema. And the show is exclusively for you, the king who is enjoying it
You can also show it to others, but you don't have to.

Cheers, Jan

 

[Gumby]

... you can't beat the satisfaction of directly viewing large positive film on a light table, or better yet projected.

Slide film has never been about the capture, but mostly about the final application. If shooting for projection it can't be beat. Otherwise, other materials/methods really should be considered.

Given the latitude and contrast issues inherent in slide film, one just tortures themselves "for their art" unless there is an end-product reason for shooting transparency.

For a while I was using slide film as a cheap proofing for 4x5 studio work. Much cheaper than Polaroid, which was availalbe at the time. I could shoot, get it processed in 1 hour, and then shoot finals... very cheaply too. Not anymore.

 

[Aristophanes]

Trying to get people to spend more money on projectors and light tables is not going to help sell volume necessary to keep the medium alive.

They can get used projectors for free, so the real issue is the affordability in a process/scan/and web share world. That is how the consumer behaves today..

Proselytizing how people should use their photos vs. accommodating the product into how people economically use them in 2012 are two different agendas. People had 50 years to see the superiority of slide projection and then dumped it for digital. Scolding them will not make them buy more slide film. Same for scolding the non-German market. Mail order film processing is substantially more expensive for the North American consumer. Is there room for projections as a niche hobby? Maybe, but not until the sales declines stop.

Making E-6 affordable alongside C-41 and easier to process should stabilize prices which will, hopefully, stabilize volumes. Then Fuji can continue to produce, even if as an afterthought. If chrome film continues its trajectory down in sales, then it becomes a problem requiring a solution, as Kodak did.

 

[Gumby]

If chrome film continues its trajectory down in sales, then it becomes a problem requiring a solution, as Kodak did.

There isn't too much of an "if" about it, amigo.

 

[PrecisionCamera]

By the way...

C-41 makes no sense in the current world. Since everything is scanned before printing, slides make the most sense. You scan see them, project them, they have better colors and are easy to store and protect.

That goofy orange mask on C-N film may have been important for optical prints but is useless in electronic scanning and printing.

I say we eliminate all color negative film and replace it with slides.

Everything you say here is true. But whilst I realise a lot of people will not agree with me, personally, one of the reasons I find tranny so wonderful (quite apart from the beauty of the processed film), is that it is harder to expose correctly, and, thus, so much more satisfying than neg, when you get it right.
Regards,
Brett

One of my favorite things about C-41 is the latitude, but not because you can blow exposure and still pull a decent shot out. I love slide for just straight nailing it, and will continue to shoot slide for a long time coming. I actually just dropped a few more rolls through our service here and am really looking forward to the results!

Here is why C-41 is just plain awesome: The Film Photography Project - Mat Marrash: Pushing Kodak Portra

Why shoot grainy and expensive high ISO film when you can shoot gorgeous low ISO and still get nailed exposures in lowlight?

I realize this is a sidetrack on a slide thread, but we should be using all the film at our disposal!

I love this thread Wilon, thanks for starting this.

 

[HHPhoto]

Given the latitude and contrast issues inherent in slide film,

Which are not a problem in 95% of the shooting situations, because the object contrast is not higher than what the film can capture. Provia 100F and 400X for example can handle about 8 stops. It is the exception, not the norm that the object contrast is higher than that.
And in situations with higher contrast than 8 stops you can use
- diffuse pre exposure
- balanced fill-in flash
to handle these higher object contrasts very successfully (as described in my post above).

Cheers, Jan

 

[HHPhoto]

People had 50 years to see the superiority of slide projection and then dumped it for digital.

There are lots of photographers who enjoy projection in todays world, especially here in Europe.
And: Lot's of young photographers who grew up with digital and the crappy computer monitor quality now see a projected slide for the first time in your their lifes and are completely hooked by this outstanding quality.
I see this permanently here in our local photography scene.
Young photographers organize "open slide" events.
The young lomographers now start to discover projection, too.

Making E-6 affordable alongside C-41 and easier to process should stabilize prices which will, hopefully, stabilize volumes.

And again, I said it several times: Prices for E6 services have been quite stable in the biggest photo market worldwide, Europe, for the last years. It is not more expensive than C-41.
If you do a real, whole cost comparison including prints for CN E6 is even cheaper.

And your statement that local processing is always cheaper for North Americans would mean that Americans
- can 'beam themselves with light speed' from their home to their lab without using a car, or the metro, and at zero costs .

Sorry, my friend, but you North Americans have at least the same costs (mostly even higher costs because of greater distances and your bigger cities) to go to your local lab as we Europeans have.
And spended time is always opportunity cost. Each economic student learns that in his first semester.
Spending your time in traffic jams on the way to your local lab do costs you a lot.

Mail ordering is cheaper in most cases, in Europe and NA.
And the clever labs offer efficient mail ordering systems and so increase their client basis.

Cheers, Jan

 

[Gumby]

I don't know the data behind your proposed percentage (post 212)... but it is only a problem when the slide comes out of processing and highights are blown or shadows are blocked.

Sure, there are some transparency emulsions that have more latitude than others, and ways to control... but that takes time, skill and experience. Anyone without these will be tempting fate for the sheer desire to shoot transparency material. If there is a compelling need to project then transparency is a no-brainer. If scan or print is the end product than there are easier and more sure-fire capture tools to use. That's all I'm saying.

 

[dallard]

There are lots of photographers who enjoy projection in todays world, especially here in Europe.
And: Lot's of young photographers who grew up with digital and the crappy computer monitor quality now see a projected slide for the first time in your their lifes and are completely hooked by this outstanding quality.
I see this permanently here in our local photography scene.
Young photographers organize "open slide" events.
The young lomographers now start to discover projection, too.



And again, I said it several times: Prices for E6 services have been quite stable in the biggest photo market worldwide, Europe, for the last years. It is not more expensive than C-41.
If you do a real, whole cost comparison including prints for CN E6 is even cheaper.

And your statement that local processing is always cheaper for North Americans would mean that Americans
- can 'beam themselves with light speed' from their home to their lab without using a car, or the metro, and at zero costs .

Sorry, my friend, but you North Americans have at least the same costs (mostly even higher costs because of greater distances and your bigger cities) to go to your local lab as we Europeans have.
And spended time is always opportunity cost. Each economic student learns that in his first semester.
Spending your time in traffic jams on the way to your local lab do costs you a lot.

Mail ordering is cheaper in most cases, in Europe and NA.
And the clever labs offer efficient mail ordering systems and so increase their client basis.

Cheers, Jan

If folks here in the States are looking for economical and easy developing you could just buy Fuji mailers at the same time you buy your film from B&H. Processing is only as far away as the nearest mailbox.

 

[Gumby]

Ha ha ha... this US vs Europe discussion has me LMFAO. Everyone needs to determine their own metric for "cost".. no matter where they live. For me the time to drive to lab was negligible and even if that was my sole reason for travel to the lab... it was not lost opportunity, but more a cost of doing business. And, for me, when E-6 processing could not be obtained in 2 hour turnaround (15 minutes to, 60 minute processing turnaround, and 15 minute fro) then it became useless TO ME.

 

[HHPhoto]

Sure, there are some transparency emulsions that have more latitude than others, and ways to control... but that takes time, skill and experience.

Well diffuse pre exposure takes some seconds. But so what, so little time is irrelevant in landscape, architecture or night photography.
And using balanced fill-in flash with modern cameras and flash units is completely easy and not time consuming at all.

Scanning, post processing or developing your RAW files, that is much more time consuming and needs much more effort and knowledge than handling higher objects contrast with slide film just at the moment of the shot.

Cheers, Jan

 

[HHPhoto]

If folks here in the States are looking for economical and easy developing you could just buy Fuji mailers at the same time you buy your film from B&H. Processing is only as far away as the nearest mailbox.

That is exactly what I am saying.
Therefore all this "my local lab has closed, the sky is falling, I have to give up film" ist stupid.

Cheers, Jan

 

[Gumby]

At this point, Jan, you are just getting argumentative. We agree, but c'mon... you are oversimplifying the skill requirement. Where each one of us spends or values our time is an individual decision that is partially based in our individual workflow processes. Blanket statements about time management are not very usefull.

 

[dallard]

Ha ha ha... this US vs Europe discussion has me LMFAO.

You and me both. This thread seems to be deviating from its original purpose to get people shooting more E6. I could care less about the technical aspects of orange masks on C41 or forgiveness of exposure range. I've been shooting my E6 in a Leica with a basic center weighted meter for years and they come out fine. You don't need a fancy 1,045,693,779 segment matrix meter to get good slides, you just need to know what you're doing.
PS: Just bought 5 rolls of Provia 400X and the Fuji mailers for cheap processing. Really looking forward to it!