thegman
Veteran
Sounds good to me! I am trying to reduce the amount of "stuff" I have at the moment though, as I am moving countries early next year, so I'm trying to stop buying things...
Slide Film, A CALL TO ARMS! : SHOOT IT OR IT WILL DIE
- Thread starter wilonstott
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Sounds good to me! I am trying to reduce the amount of "stuff" I have at the moment though, as I am moving countries early next year, so I'm trying to stop buying things...
HHPhoto
Well-known
Definitely not.
Diffuse pre exposure is very simple. You only need a camera with double exposure capability and a grey card or simply one sheet of paper. That's all. Generations of photographers have used it.
And using balanced fill-in flash is really extremely simple. In most cases you can rely on your TTL camera metering. From my experiences with the modern Canon and Nikon balanced fill-in flash systems these sytems are working extremely precise.
Cheers, Jan
Athiril
Established
For any UK shooters; I was browsing 7dayshop.com and Velvia 50 and 100 are 10-11 pounds per pro pack (5 rolls) dated to May 2012 iirc.
HHPhoto:
Sorry, but that is just bunk.
We are talking about film here, not scans and prints. That is a bit of a straw man. The same will be said of E-6 scans with different scanners, and different people. They may use the film as a reference, but the scanning work flow and monitor needs to be fully calibrated. And the actual viewing itself of the E-6 slide introduces more variables for scan inconsistency. How it is viewed, in what conditions while matching.
If they are going through so much trouble for so much consistency. They will likely have an IT8 target setup for their own process - Velvia 100f through their own chemistry, Portra 160 through their own chemistry, etc.
If you are otherwise just paying for cheap noritsu/frontier scans that are automated. Then well, that is a different issue not related to the film.
That is an inaccurate picture you're painting. Different results is not caused by the film. The results (we're comparing film v film here) you get back from the labs would all be as identical as possibly can be from the labs running consistent chemistry with test strips. You are more likely to find differences on E-6 films, since the time may be adjusted within range off aim to get a good test strip, changing the time will affect colour balance a little, and probably have slightly mismatched contrast curves of the colour layers.
Rigorous testing has indicated C-41 films a fair way in front of ANY E-6 films including Provia, test put together. It isn't theory, it's practise. Real world results: C-41 is THE colour accurate material. E-6 is not colour accurate, has a smaller gamut, and can suffer other problems, such as dropping detail in highly coloured objects.
I'm sorry, but your tests cannot be accurate if that is what they show. Talk to Ron Mowrey, he is often on APUG, he is the most qualified and knowledgeable person on this subject (more than anyone else that is willing to discuss it). He has performed more in depth and rigorous testing than anyone during his time making these products. You can't beat the physics of imperfect dyes. Regardless of how much you want to insist that E-6 is more accurate than C-41, it just simply isn't, and your word isn't good enough to go against known established fact.
There is 1 very good way to deal with high contrast with C-41 - just expose the film normally. No tricks. No gimmicks. No fogging the film. No stuffing around. Load the film in your camera, and start shooting. Process normally. Enjoy your images however you please, not simply how Fuji decided they should be rendered.
Balanced fill in flash is not suitable in landscapes. It is also not always suitable, you are changing the lighting setup. I presume film shooters here are photography enthusiasts. Fill flash is in many cases a compromise unless part of the desired look of the image. Other times, yes, it is useful, but that goes for negative, slide, or digital. People against a sunset background for example, you will need to light them.
When fill flash is suitable, looks good, it doubly goes for neg and digital. It is not an argument to choose slide over something else.
In any case, you are suggesting to a range finder user to use TTL fill flash as a solution, so that they can shoot slide instead of negative? Fill flash isn't a reason to use slide over negative. Also I am unaware of many rangefinder's (especially the one's people here use) having popup flashes with TTL functionality. Or are you suggesting they start using one type of camera over their preference so that they can shoot slide instead?
Regarding pre-exposure; sure I'll pull out my portable dark room out in the middle of the forest next time, and stuff around for a few hours instead of loading the film and be shooting within a minute.
Granted, I suppose you could use an on lens-diffuser. Like the digital white balance expo-discs take one exposure in camera, then double expose with the resulting image. This still doesn't help with the below points about intense objects or bright objects. It will allow you to expose less without being muddy, but that's all, the pre-exposure+underexposure is still pushing up to the those areas to the same values. All you're doing is fogging the film, and causing a loss of contrast. Which will reduce also your sharpness, which can be quite severe depending on the level of pre-exposure. As your response rate at x spatial frequency will be lowered due lower contrast.
I also wouldn't want to do this on location, as in my case, there is no neutral coloured source in a 5600K situation to shoot (there was 5600K light but not on me specifically), as to not colour-bias/cast the slide. You can do post-exposure afterwards, but it is risky business, if you make a mistake in the amount or stuff it up, you compromise or lose the shot.
Regardless, it would take more time to shoot on location, I wouldn't be up and shooting quickly, I'd need to measure the amount of fog exposure to add with more intricate metering and calculations, as opposed to simple incident metering, exposing once, and moving on.
And I still wouldn't have been able to expose that long in direct sun to get movement in the water, in my above example.
Fogging the film is not a useful solution. I would never suggest for someone to go and fog their film. I would suggest to use the right material for the job.
You're also replying to someone talking about latitude, rather than dynamic range, slide doesn't have latitude. It is not made for major adjustments.
The straight line portion of Provia 100f is 5 stops. There is another 1 and 2/3rds of stops of visible (dense) lower shadow contrast on the toe. Before the contrast is a flat line (nothing). There is a little bit of room above the straight line, but not much, and I certainly would not rely on it in the real world to capture anything I wanted to be there on the slide.
Apart from the contrast curves mismatching as you get above the straight line.
When you make a regular normal exposure, in many situations you are going to lose highlights, or even simply bright detail, even in flat/overcast lighting that typically has a small dynamic range. Because one bright object is above the cut off point of slide film. Underexposing isn't an option for slide if don't like muddy looking slides. You simply have to accept that there won't be detail there (not always important) - if you even realise that is just a tad too bright to be recorded (usually not noticed).
If it's a heavily coloured object rather than neutral it may look funky in colour even.
Last example I saw, was just a pet photo in overcast conditions, good bang on correct exposure, one section of a light tan fur on the dog's head was a bit too hot, not particularly important, contrast was very nice and optimal, any exposure change would only give an overall poorer image. But I am responding to your concept here. Underexposing would make it look terrible. As would fogging the film + underexposing and washing out the image.
You don't want to particularly underexpose, or you'll lose so much, and everything will be muddy.
It is not not high contrast scenes you run into these problems, it is every day scenes. They may or may not be important to some people.
But to say that that Provia will represent an 8 stop scene, and will only have problem in scenes over 8 stops is simply not true, when it can't even fully render 3 stop scenes in some cases given proper exposure.
The curve of Provia may fit 8 stops. But it is not a useful 8 stops, because it has no latitude for exposure adjustment. But this is only in a perfect ideal, not in the real world. It doesn't tell you about the lighting setup of the scene you are a shooting.
A 6 stop scene may need 3 stops of underexposure (if you wanted to represent X at midtones, but would need to place X 3 stops lower in order to fit in the entire scene's range). Etc etc etc.
Of course that underexposure of 3 stops, may be someone else's correct exposure, because they are not interested in rendering X as 'normal' (at midtones, say a human, and their skin at midtones), but capturing the lighting or other parts of the scene itself, which warrants that exposure as normal, then that fits into Provia's scale as a normal exposure for that person.
Hence, it is not a useful 8 stops. 8 stops will simply not fit on Provia in many scenes even with a basic 18% grey being placed at midtones in that scene. Let alone Bill who comes along and has a different idea to Joe about what should be placed at midtones, what should be placed at shadows, and what should be placed at highlights, etc.
Many slide shooters avoid some of the most beautiful lighting conditions. Backlit, high contrast (I would call 8 stops getting into high contrast for slide shooters, as many seem to stick mostly to overcast). I know my friend would simply not shoot his nature stuff (617 slides) when ever the sun came out.
HHPhoto:
Sorry, but that is just bunk.
We are talking about film here, not scans and prints. That is a bit of a straw man. The same will be said of E-6 scans with different scanners, and different people. They may use the film as a reference, but the scanning work flow and monitor needs to be fully calibrated. And the actual viewing itself of the E-6 slide introduces more variables for scan inconsistency. How it is viewed, in what conditions while matching.
If they are going through so much trouble for so much consistency. They will likely have an IT8 target setup for their own process - Velvia 100f through their own chemistry, Portra 160 through their own chemistry, etc.
If you are otherwise just paying for cheap noritsu/frontier scans that are automated. Then well, that is a different issue not related to the film.
That is an inaccurate picture you're painting. Different results is not caused by the film. The results (we're comparing film v film here) you get back from the labs would all be as identical as possibly can be from the labs running consistent chemistry with test strips. You are more likely to find differences on E-6 films, since the time may be adjusted within range off aim to get a good test strip, changing the time will affect colour balance a little, and probably have slightly mismatched contrast curves of the colour layers.
Rigorous testing has indicated C-41 films a fair way in front of ANY E-6 films including Provia, test put together. It isn't theory, it's practise. Real world results: C-41 is THE colour accurate material. E-6 is not colour accurate, has a smaller gamut, and can suffer other problems, such as dropping detail in highly coloured objects.
I'm sorry, but your tests cannot be accurate if that is what they show. Talk to Ron Mowrey, he is often on APUG, he is the most qualified and knowledgeable person on this subject (more than anyone else that is willing to discuss it). He has performed more in depth and rigorous testing than anyone during his time making these products. You can't beat the physics of imperfect dyes. Regardless of how much you want to insist that E-6 is more accurate than C-41, it just simply isn't, and your word isn't good enough to go against known established fact.
There is 1 very good way to deal with high contrast with C-41 - just expose the film normally. No tricks. No gimmicks. No fogging the film. No stuffing around. Load the film in your camera, and start shooting. Process normally. Enjoy your images however you please, not simply how Fuji decided they should be rendered.
Balanced fill in flash is not suitable in landscapes. It is also not always suitable, you are changing the lighting setup. I presume film shooters here are photography enthusiasts. Fill flash is in many cases a compromise unless part of the desired look of the image. Other times, yes, it is useful, but that goes for negative, slide, or digital. People against a sunset background for example, you will need to light them.
When fill flash is suitable, looks good, it doubly goes for neg and digital. It is not an argument to choose slide over something else.
In any case, you are suggesting to a range finder user to use TTL fill flash as a solution, so that they can shoot slide instead of negative? Fill flash isn't a reason to use slide over negative. Also I am unaware of many rangefinder's (especially the one's people here use) having popup flashes with TTL functionality. Or are you suggesting they start using one type of camera over their preference so that they can shoot slide instead?
Regarding pre-exposure; sure I'll pull out my portable dark room out in the middle of the forest next time, and stuff around for a few hours instead of loading the film and be shooting within a minute.
Granted, I suppose you could use an on lens-diffuser. Like the digital white balance expo-discs take one exposure in camera, then double expose with the resulting image. This still doesn't help with the below points about intense objects or bright objects. It will allow you to expose less without being muddy, but that's all, the pre-exposure+underexposure is still pushing up to the those areas to the same values. All you're doing is fogging the film, and causing a loss of contrast. Which will reduce also your sharpness, which can be quite severe depending on the level of pre-exposure. As your response rate at x spatial frequency will be lowered due lower contrast.
I also wouldn't want to do this on location, as in my case, there is no neutral coloured source in a 5600K situation to shoot (there was 5600K light but not on me specifically), as to not colour-bias/cast the slide. You can do post-exposure afterwards, but it is risky business, if you make a mistake in the amount or stuff it up, you compromise or lose the shot.
Regardless, it would take more time to shoot on location, I wouldn't be up and shooting quickly, I'd need to measure the amount of fog exposure to add with more intricate metering and calculations, as opposed to simple incident metering, exposing once, and moving on.
And I still wouldn't have been able to expose that long in direct sun to get movement in the water, in my above example.
Fogging the film is not a useful solution. I would never suggest for someone to go and fog their film. I would suggest to use the right material for the job.
You're also replying to someone talking about latitude, rather than dynamic range, slide doesn't have latitude. It is not made for major adjustments.
The straight line portion of Provia 100f is 5 stops. There is another 1 and 2/3rds of stops of visible (dense) lower shadow contrast on the toe. Before the contrast is a flat line (nothing). There is a little bit of room above the straight line, but not much, and I certainly would not rely on it in the real world to capture anything I wanted to be there on the slide.
Apart from the contrast curves mismatching as you get above the straight line.
When you make a regular normal exposure, in many situations you are going to lose highlights, or even simply bright detail, even in flat/overcast lighting that typically has a small dynamic range. Because one bright object is above the cut off point of slide film. Underexposing isn't an option for slide if don't like muddy looking slides. You simply have to accept that there won't be detail there (not always important) - if you even realise that is just a tad too bright to be recorded (usually not noticed).
If it's a heavily coloured object rather than neutral it may look funky in colour even.
Last example I saw, was just a pet photo in overcast conditions, good bang on correct exposure, one section of a light tan fur on the dog's head was a bit too hot, not particularly important, contrast was very nice and optimal, any exposure change would only give an overall poorer image. But I am responding to your concept here. Underexposing would make it look terrible. As would fogging the film + underexposing and washing out the image.
You don't want to particularly underexpose, or you'll lose so much, and everything will be muddy.
It is not not high contrast scenes you run into these problems, it is every day scenes. They may or may not be important to some people.
But to say that that Provia will represent an 8 stop scene, and will only have problem in scenes over 8 stops is simply not true, when it can't even fully render 3 stop scenes in some cases given proper exposure.
The curve of Provia may fit 8 stops. But it is not a useful 8 stops, because it has no latitude for exposure adjustment. But this is only in a perfect ideal, not in the real world. It doesn't tell you about the lighting setup of the scene you are a shooting.
A 6 stop scene may need 3 stops of underexposure (if you wanted to represent X at midtones, but would need to place X 3 stops lower in order to fit in the entire scene's range). Etc etc etc.
Of course that underexposure of 3 stops, may be someone else's correct exposure, because they are not interested in rendering X as 'normal' (at midtones, say a human, and their skin at midtones), but capturing the lighting or other parts of the scene itself, which warrants that exposure as normal, then that fits into Provia's scale as a normal exposure for that person.
Hence, it is not a useful 8 stops. 8 stops will simply not fit on Provia in many scenes even with a basic 18% grey being placed at midtones in that scene. Let alone Bill who comes along and has a different idea to Joe about what should be placed at midtones, what should be placed at shadows, and what should be placed at highlights, etc.
Many slide shooters avoid some of the most beautiful lighting conditions. Backlit, high contrast (I would call 8 stops getting into high contrast for slide shooters, as many seem to stick mostly to overcast). I know my friend would simply not shoot his nature stuff (617 slides) when ever the sun came out.
Athiril
Established
Do you know the inconvenience of dragging around a massive projector around the city, finding 3-phase industrial power to run it off to make it bright enough, and shutting down city power so people can actually look at your slide projected onto a building? (not having a dig at projection artists here) And the cost! Oh my god the cost!
Therefore slide is just a waste of money!!!1!!111
Sound ridiculous? It's as ridiculous as your statements and conclusion.
[FONT="]
Granted, prints are an ongoing cost.
But you know, many people want, such as photography enthusiasts here like the idea of having a gallery showing one day, or sharing a gallery show, perhaps putting their images in a book, or taking prints around with them (light weight, small, convenient). And the ability to have their images seen by a wider audience. But I guess all that are just silly dreams and a total waste of money, as it's treason to photography, as it's not projecting slides in a dark damp smelly basement with a whole of 3 people to ever see them.
Projecting outside of your own home is a pain in the arse. Many people may live quite a ways out, thus mostly themselves will only ever see it. They may not own a projector. Finding one might be difficult depending where they live, along with a high resolution projection lens (which would seems to be necessary to enjoy slides according to you and your rant about X5 not having enough resolution @ only 125 lp/mm resolving power)
[/FONT]Projecting in a conveniently publicly accessible gallery is more inconvenient and costly than a simple shared print exhibition. You need space for the projectors (mulitple if more than just you! You don't want to make the entire room dark when everyone else has prints!), power, setting up, etc.
Looking on a monitor is preparing the images for output. Not everything will be printed, perhaps most will only ever be shown online (which can at least be seen by multiple people at convenience at any time - all different images at once, much like a gallery exhibition, rather than whenever you happen to invite the mailman in to look at your holiday slides, images which you've specifically chosen for them, because no one else comes near your house because you live in the back of bourke). But the capacity to be printed in good quality is there from a good scan or good digital camera. They are not a waste of time or money.
Also you need to upgrade from that 13" box bubble-screen, narrow-gamut CRT of yours, which was a cheap consumer monitor in 1991, if that is what you're using (reference to 1024x768).
If you want to get into real costs... projected images in your own home, then count in the projector and lens cost, perhaps it may not amount to much per roll depending when it was bought. But in any case, for most people, they would have to buy this. That is part of the cost per frame. The cost per frame is also going to be -much- higher for projected slides, then for prints. Want to know why?
Many, even most, photography enthusiasts wish to share work they are proud of. Thus viewers come into the cost scenario.
For most people, the amount of viewers they get for slides is going to be small and not very repeatable. The cost of that frame may not be as high as for a gallery, but divide that into the amount of cost per impressions. Then the gallery print cost become low. Maybe lower than the slide cost, depending on numerous factors.
A shared print exhibition is very cost effective, with a lot of people looking at your print. My 20x30" cost $50 to print, $40 to frame, and the gallery was $50 iirc to share for the week with a bunch of other people, as well as 60 cents for the frame of film, and 50 cents for the frame of film for processing (based on what I charge others). So I spent $141.10. Some people sold their prints and made good profits. I did not. So while their cost was negative (profit), which is good. Mine was $141.10. But with the amount of people that came through and saw it, the cost per impression was low.
dallard
Well-known
Quite a treatise. To be honest I wasn't patient enough to read it all but if you think slide film is so inferior, what the heck are you doing in this thread?
Getting back on topic: Has anyone bought or shot slide film lately?
Getting back on topic: Has anyone bought or shot slide film lately?
Athiril
Established
I think you're taking things the wrong way. Some ideas were brought up earlier. HHPhoto posted a whole lot of things which I think is plain ridiculous. I replied.
dallard
Well-known
Fine. But let's try not to get too bogged down with things that have nothing to do with the original intent of the thread. Let's focus on shooting more slides.
wilonstott
Wil O.
Let's do this.
I appreciate the lively debate, but gentlemen, let's not turn this into the technicians lounge.
C-41 is great. I like the new Portras in particular (I've had great results with the new 160).
I'm not worried about accurate color reproduction at this point.
Details are getting in the way of the bigger picture.
For me, the big picture is simple--same as it was at the beginning.
Awareness.
We want to increase usage, thereby increasing popularity of the medium.
We got such a great response from people with this simple approach, and I think it's because we're too used to focusing on negative aspects.
It becomes our default mode.
We get defensive. We get militant. We get angry. We get unhappy.
That's bullsh*t, guys.
And you know it.
It's for the weak.
I don't want to feel that way, and I hope you don't either.
Why can't we talk about something we love without focusing on the parts that we hate?
We're in this together. We don't have to see eye to eye.
That's the beauty of it.
I love taking pictures. I love old cameras.
I love slide film.
I just finished a roll and started another.
And (bonus, for me) found a 5-pack of fuji mailers in a drawer--I'd forgotten about them.
Let's get this back on track.
Who's shooting tonight?
dallard
Well-known
I'll definitely be shooting tonight although I'm out of slide film so it'll have to be Ektar 😱. Fortunately, this thread has been inspiring for me. I've been monitoring the thread in the background today while I download some of the scans from PCV that I hadn't gotten around to. I've also been looking at my old Kodachrome slides which is always a bittersweet experience. I really loved that film and only discovered it about 6 months before it was discontinued.
Athiril
Established
In case people missed it - 10-11 pounds delivered for a propack (120) of velvia 50 and 100 in the UK dated May from 7dayshop
anjoca76
Well-known
I'll be dropping off a couple rolls of Velvia tomorrow morning and then loading up my M2 with some Elite Chrome.
HHPhoto
Well-known
Hi Daniel,
well, as someone shooting slide and negative film for decades and having worked also semi-professional in the past I have to disagree with your statements.
It makes no sense to go in every detail, just some points:
You are completely missing the relevant point: Slide film can be used as developed film only, because you have a finished picture, color negative film can not. It always needs a second step, optical printing or scanning. And the second step has lots of additional variables which leads to the situation I've described.
This second step is always an interpretation, because our eyes can not convert the colors on a color negative into the original colors.
Our tests have had different results, and these tests were done very properly. There have also been tests by other reliable sources confirming our results.
I know him and I've all read what he has written. I do respect him very much.
But this "he is the god" attitude of his fans is completely ridiculous. He was proven wrong several times on apug (and often admitted that, respect for him for that).
He has been one of several hundred engineers at Kodak. And he retired already in 1997.
There are lots of people with more knowledge in the industry. E.g. I've had the opportunity to join a lecture held by the former head of research at Agfa (Dr. Willsau) and guess what.....what he explained on this subject has been different to what Ron has said.
If slide film would really be that bad concerning color accuracy as you say, then it would have not played any role in professional color photography at all.
Then no professional photographer would have used slide film for advertising and catalog work. No one for his wildlife and nature shots.
But fact is that slide film has been the dominat capture medium for these applications (I've worked there myself,I know from the daily work). Catalog work and advertising has been almost exclusively slide film. Same for printed photo books. A friend of mine has an international collection of photo books with color work: Nearly all shots on slide film. Same with National Geographic magazine and similar magazines like GEO and Mare. In the German nature and wildlife magazine "Naturfoto" all published photos have been on slide film.
So fact is that at least some ten thousands professional photographers in the last 50 years have chosen slide film for their color work. They certainly would not have done that if
colors of slide film were inferior to negative film.
I am using it for about 20 years now successfully in landscape photography.
Of course not in all situations. But often there is a lighting situation with shadows in the foreground and highlight in the background. And then you can easily get excellent results, absolutely natural looking shots with balanced fill-in flash.
The picture you showed as an example for not being possible with slide film would have been easy to handle with balanced fill-in flash and slide film.
By the way, one of the best landscape and travel photographers, famous for his excellent Terravision AV shows, Helfried Weyer, is regularly using fill-in flash in landscape with slide film.
Again not the point at all. I've never said this. I've said that in high contrast situations, where the higher contrast of slide film can be a problem, this problem can often be solved with balanced fill-in flash.
Well, all your comments here clearly indicate that you don't know at all how diffuse (or non diffuse) pre exposure works.
Lack of knowledge. If you want to learn, feel free to send me a pm.
Well, I am using slide film for decades now (as I do negative film) and besides my technical tests of the dynamic range of different films I've often shot situations in such contrast ranges.
Of course the exposure has to be precise to fully exploit this range, but accurate exposure is not a problem with our current light meters. And if you are unsure, just make bracketing.
It's all not rocket science.
(By the way, Tim Parkin from landscape uk recently has published his tests with Velvia with 8 stops range, too; My Provia values are a bit on the conservative side in comparison).
I know lots of slide film shooters. Really no one behave that way, it is completely the opposite.
Cheers, Jan
well, as someone shooting slide and negative film for decades and having worked also semi-professional in the past I have to disagree with your statements.
It makes no sense to go in every detail, just some points:
You are completely missing the relevant point: Slide film can be used as developed film only, because you have a finished picture, color negative film can not. It always needs a second step, optical printing or scanning. And the second step has lots of additional variables which leads to the situation I've described.
This second step is always an interpretation, because our eyes can not convert the colors on a color negative into the original colors.
Our tests have had different results, and these tests were done very properly. There have also been tests by other reliable sources confirming our results.
I know him and I've all read what he has written. I do respect him very much.
But this "he is the god" attitude of his fans is completely ridiculous. He was proven wrong several times on apug (and often admitted that, respect for him for that).
He has been one of several hundred engineers at Kodak. And he retired already in 1997.
There are lots of people with more knowledge in the industry. E.g. I've had the opportunity to join a lecture held by the former head of research at Agfa (Dr. Willsau) and guess what.....what he explained on this subject has been different to what Ron has said.
If slide film would really be that bad concerning color accuracy as you say, then it would have not played any role in professional color photography at all.
Then no professional photographer would have used slide film for advertising and catalog work. No one for his wildlife and nature shots.
But fact is that slide film has been the dominat capture medium for these applications (I've worked there myself,I know from the daily work). Catalog work and advertising has been almost exclusively slide film. Same for printed photo books. A friend of mine has an international collection of photo books with color work: Nearly all shots on slide film. Same with National Geographic magazine and similar magazines like GEO and Mare. In the German nature and wildlife magazine "Naturfoto" all published photos have been on slide film.
So fact is that at least some ten thousands professional photographers in the last 50 years have chosen slide film for their color work. They certainly would not have done that if
colors of slide film were inferior to negative film.
I am using it for about 20 years now successfully in landscape photography.
Of course not in all situations. But often there is a lighting situation with shadows in the foreground and highlight in the background. And then you can easily get excellent results, absolutely natural looking shots with balanced fill-in flash.
The picture you showed as an example for not being possible with slide film would have been easy to handle with balanced fill-in flash and slide film.
By the way, one of the best landscape and travel photographers, famous for his excellent Terravision AV shows, Helfried Weyer, is regularly using fill-in flash in landscape with slide film.
Again not the point at all. I've never said this. I've said that in high contrast situations, where the higher contrast of slide film can be a problem, this problem can often be solved with balanced fill-in flash.
Well, all your comments here clearly indicate that you don't know at all how diffuse (or non diffuse) pre exposure works.
Lack of knowledge. If you want to learn, feel free to send me a pm.
Well, I am using slide film for decades now (as I do negative film) and besides my technical tests of the dynamic range of different films I've often shot situations in such contrast ranges.
Of course the exposure has to be precise to fully exploit this range, but accurate exposure is not a problem with our current light meters. And if you are unsure, just make bracketing.
It's all not rocket science.
(By the way, Tim Parkin from landscape uk recently has published his tests with Velvia with 8 stops range, too; My Provia values are a bit on the conservative side in comparison).
I know lots of slide film shooters. Really no one behave that way, it is completely the opposite.
Cheers, Jan
Gumby
Veteran
There is no denying history... these are accurate statements. But there may be a bit of "apple and orange" in trying to make this point. Transparency film better supported the color separation and mechanical printing processes than did negative film. It may have been this attribute that made it more desireable for magazine and catalogue image capture... more than it's color "honesty". BTW, I'm sure you know this but (using your most accurate words) for magazine and catalogue images "This second step is always an interpretation".
At this point I seem to have forgotten what the thread is about. But I hope people will continue to use slide film where it meets the need. It is a good medium.
PrecisionCamera
Precision Camera & Video
This. I could do without the rest of this thread after this.
I'm even going to go out and do some long exposure work with the expired Fuji 64T I bought off here a few months ago! I stopped doing long exposure work after the switch from digital because of the color shifts from reciprocity failure, but was just enlightened (once again by the Film Photography Project) as to the added benefits of tungsten slide film's natural shift to daylight colors with the reciprocity failure!
Gonna go shoot some tonight. So glad to know that those twenty or so rolls are not just a waste of money (I had never shot tungsten, imagine my disappointment with my first roll of daylight unfiltered landscapes!) and that they are going to serve a very unique purpose in my RB67 kit!
dallard
Well-known
Sounds like a very cool project. I honestly have never even considered tungsten film but maybe I'll have to give it a try. I've been thinking about doing some night exposures lately.
PatrickONeill
Well-known
smoke em' while you got 'em.
to me, film photography is slide film.
I got three rolls of Kodak E100 sitting around. I want to use them for a 4th of july party melee. I really need to stock up on some more color film.
the local shop sells provia 100F in 135 and 120. I have to buy them whenever I see it in stock because they sell out quickly.
and I get my e6 done at walmart. which I think they mail out to fuji.
to me, film photography is slide film.
I got three rolls of Kodak E100 sitting around. I want to use them for a 4th of july party melee. I really need to stock up on some more color film.
the local shop sells provia 100F in 135 and 120. I have to buy them whenever I see it in stock because they sell out quickly.
and I get my e6 done at walmart. which I think they mail out to fuji.
HHPhoto
Well-known
Sorry, your above statement is completely ridiculous and clearly show a lack of knowledge.
I do present my slides sometimes outside my house and neither is it a problem to carry my projector (it is not massive), nor are there any light problems. It is bright enough for a 4m projection width and there are no problems at all with power supply. It is a standard 250W projector.
When you clean your room with a vacuum cleaner / hoover you're using 1200W or more without any problems. Lots of halogen lamps in living rooms have 300W or more.
[FONT="]Again, you are completey misinterpreting what I've written. I also make prints (have my own BW lab), have photo albums etc. I like it, and I like my slides on the lighttable and in projection.
But I am aware of the whole costs I have.
And here and in other internet forums is often said that slides are so much more expensive than color negative film.
And that is simply not true in general if you look at all costs you have.
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No. Most of my friends do also enjoy slide projection and have their own projector 🙂.
If I go to someone who don't have a projector, I either take my own projector and project there on a white wall. Or mostly I just take one of my excellent slides loupes and my little slimline lighttable. This set-up is much smaller and lighter than a laptop or a photo album.
I often show my slides outside my home at other friends and at photographer meetings.
I don't have any problems to show others my slides outside my home.
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There are lots of excellent projection lenses on the market with highest resolution power: Leica Colorplan, Leica Super-Colorplan, Zeiss P-Sonnar, Rollei AV-Apogon, Schneider AV Xenotar, Braun Ultralit PL, Ultralit MC-B, Kindermann (Docter) MC and MC-B etc.
It is all there on the market, and available at extremely attractive prices.
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I've just visited an exhibition with also a projection presentation. The organisators had no problems with it.
But the most commen form for public slide projection are AV shows. Made by famous photographers like Weyer, Rosing, Martin etc.. The quality is outstanding, impossible to achieve with digital equipment.
This cost is extremely low and negligible. Excellent projectors can be bought used at extremeley low prices.
Even new ones are extremely cheap. I can buy a top-of the line Leica Prodovit PC for only 249€ here.
This is all very fast amortized after a few films.
Most enthusiast certainly do photography primarily for their own joy, and don't care so much what others think about their photos.
Which is good. If you are happy with your own results, than photography has done its job for you. More is not needed.
If you want to show it to others, well, than just do it, no problem.
And of course that can be done with slides, too.
Either via lighttable, or with projection (or with scanning and showing online).
And if you want a bigger audience, of course that is possible with projection, too. Then you make a public slide show / AV show.
With hundreds (or sometimes more than thousand) people in the audience.
Such AV shows have been very popular here in the middle of Europe for decades. Lot's of professional photographers earn their money with it.
But all that has not been my point in my original post, so you've missed again the topic.
I've said that for a big print of 50x75cm, 80x120cm or even 1mx1,50m I have to pay a lot of money. With best quality more than 100 bucks.
And in projection the whole cost of such a huge picture is less than a buck for me. And with even better quality.
I like my pictures big and impressive, and affordable. A brillant projected slide is exactly that.
Cheers, Jan
HHPhoto
Well-known
Well yes, right, but both are factors, or more precise, three factors
why slide film has been used (and still is used by some professionals) in all these applications:
- good color reproduction, finer grain, higher sharpness and resolution
- color separation as you mentioned
- with the slide you have your original with which you can easily compare or adjust your final output.
Cheers, Jan
Gumby
Veteran
I guess this is where our agreement parts. I don't know of much current use by professionals anymore. Even in magazine and catalogue work where it once was king. Sure, "some" professionals may... but not a signifcant number of them.
wilonstott
Wil O.
Christian: Fantastic, man. I hope the shoot goes well. Post the product.
Patrick: Smoke them indeed--keep up the good work man.
Jan: Your info is great as ususal, but you've got to reign in the diatribes. I really appreciate your perspective, but lets keep things on course.
Keep shooting.
Lets get other people interested.
Take people out with you.
Patrick: Smoke them indeed--keep up the good work man.
Jan: Your info is great as ususal, but you've got to reign in the diatribes. I really appreciate your perspective, but lets keep things on course.
Keep shooting.
Lets get other people interested.
Take people out with you.