Slide film...convince me!

Forgot to mention, there is still one person in the States who can do Cibachromes. Waaaaay better than internegative, as anyone who has seen a large Cibachrome print from MF will confirm. I forget his name, but Google knows. Also not cheap.
 
Does the Cibachrome Process still exist?

photomoof said:
I would be shooting slides if it did, I love slides. Mine were all printed at Duggal when it was about $100 for an internegative and a 324x36 print. I only shot Ektachrome.

The darned things seem to never fade, even in sunlight from a skylight.

It's kind of a garish look, but personally I love it. Still have quite a few hanging in my studio.
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Nobody believes me :( Yes, it still exists. http://www.lab-ciba.com/index.html
Not widely available, but available, at least it was the last time I sent him some work 6 months ago.
 
I shoot, scan and project slide film. Just love the results, especially when projected, which is the real reason why you should shoot slide film in my mind. Nothing can come close to a nicely exposed and projected slide. forget digital. people rave about their 30+ MP camera and then dumb them down on their 3 MP television. enough said.

I develop all my slide film myself. not hard and not expensive. Costs, about $1.50 per roll for the chems. a large slow cooker to keep them chems at 100, $30. I have developed 100's of rolls, so the water bath unit cost is non consequential. yes the film is more expensive, but I find I tend to shoot fewer shots, resulting in much higher keeper rates and much better results. I also scan on a nikon coolscan 9000 and the results are fine for what I need them for. Yes the processing frame by frame cost is not cheap. and yes it does take a long time to get great results. but I find the cost and time worth it FOR ME. please re-read. for me. nobody can answer it for you, so give it a try before its to late. eat at home for one dinner instead of going out and you can get a propack of velvia 50.

For projection I have a hasselblad pcp-80 and it rocks! when I shoot 6x7 slides, I will, with the right image, shoot 2 of the same shot. I will cut 1 of the slides down to 6x6 so I can project it and keep the other for archival reasons. I do have a 6x6 camera but prefer to use my pentax 67 in the field. I mainly shoot landscapes. even if you dont project them, get a good lightbox, a loop and enjoy the amazing colors that I find are unique to slide film.
 
Provia 100F in 135 around 25% off today only at B&H. Always see lots of end of the world wailing about 10% price increases, but don't see things like this mentioned with quite the same intensity. Hmmmmmm.
 
I often shoot Fujichrome Provia 100 film, whether in 35mm, 645 or 6x7. I do shoot digital too, but with film I like how it makes me slow down and think more about what I want to achieve. In the U.S.A., Dwayne's photo will process the film and return the slides in just a few days. (Dwayne's is in Kansas, I live in Connecticut.) I've been happy with the scans I make using SilverFast or VueScan with my Minolta MultiPro scanner. And I'm happy too with the prints made with my Epson SP R3000 printer. I'd say try it and just see if you like it. What you like is—unless you're a pro—all that matters.
 
J enea said:
I shoot, scan and project slide film. Just love the results, especially when projected, which is the real reason why you should shoot slide film in my mind. Nothing can come close to a nicely exposed and projected slide. forget digital. people rave about their 30+ MP camera and then dumb them down on their 3 MP television. enough said.

I develop all my slide film myself. not hard and not expensive. Costs, about $1.50 per roll for the chems. a large slow cooker to keep them chems at 100, $30. I have developed 100's of rolls, so the water bath unit cost is non consequential. yes the film is more expensive, but I find I tend to shoot fewer shots, resulting in much higher keeper rates and much better results. I also scan on a nikon coolscan 9000 and the results are fine for what I need them for. Yes the processing frame by frame cost is not cheap. and yes it does take a long time to get great results. but I find the cost and time worth it FOR ME. please re-read. for me. nobody can answer it for you, so give it a try before its to late. eat at home for one dinner instead of going out and you can get a propack of velvia 50.

For projection I have a hasselblad pcp-80 and it rocks! when I shoot 6x7 slides, I will, with the right image, shoot 2 of the same shot. I will cut 1 of the slides down to 6x6 so I can project it and keep the other for archival reasons. I do have a 6x6 camera but prefer to use my pentax 67 in the field. I mainly shoot landscapes. even if you dont project them, get a good lightbox, a loop and enjoy the amazing colors that I find are unique to slide film.
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I was quite bummed out after the first few replies to this thread, and thought, "oh well, not for me". Anyway, thanks for the inspiration. I checked out some options earlier today and I'm definitely going to give some slide film a go. I have a Jobo CPP2, so I'll probably give home processing a go too.

I have a 35mm slide viewer in the loft. One of the things where you drop in one at once and view the slide through a magnifier. Did anyone produce one for medium format?
 
All this chit chat, but no shots taken with slide film...

Way expired Kodak Lumiere 100, my feet and a bee.

Bee%20Feet_zps5jcfme8l.jpg


I love how slide film really pops thanks to it's 'limited' DR.
 
Yes, it can be harder to shoot. But when you really hit it...oh! The colors just sing. I hear colors other than green are well-represented too. All these look even better on the light table.

12198419555_3aecd2c596_b.jpg

Elitechrome xc 35mm
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E100VS 120
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Elitechrome 35mm
 
I love slides! But since you asked, my advice would be to stay 'focused' on the end result. Color reversal film can provoke ecstasy when projected...trying to do anything else with them can provoke the opposite.

With one caveat: if you're enjoying doing analog color printing yourself, and want to stay in the analog realm, you could make DIY MF internegatives and print from those (MF SLRs like Bronica, Pentax, Mamiya etc. and macro bellows are pretty cheap these days). We've been doing something like this in the motion picture world for decades and the results can be wonderful. Lots to learn about color, contrast, light sources etc.
 
Larry Cloetta said:
FWIW, it is worth considering that when someone says that digital color is better than transparency color what they are saying, if expressed a little more accurately, is that they like digital color better for some personal reason of theirs. Those reasons might not apply to you. If ultimate dynamic range and resolution are the only things that count for you, then digital with a high resolution sensor is better, for you, than slide film. If qualities outside those two quantifiable measures matter to you, then slide film might be something you would really enjoy.
I shoot both color slide film and high resolution digital color. They're different. Better DR is not the same as better photograph. Some people here have said that there is no point in shooting color transparency film any longer. That is their opinion, I just can't see it. But that's only my opinion.
It might be difficult to get a good scan of an improperly exposed transparency, but that is an exposure problem, not a scanning issue. With a properly exposed slide, it is absolutely not difficult to scan-other than the fact that good scanning is not particularly easy to begin with, for any media.
You've got a MF camera. That right there is a great reason to shoot color slides, but mostly for projection, secondarily for creating huge vibrant prints.
A 6x7 projector is hard to come by. Hasselblad PCP 80 projectors are readily available, but are not cheap. In your position, buying one of those and projecting slides cropped to 6X6 or 6X4.5 would be the best reason for shooting slides, in my book. If that is not something you want to do, you lose one of the big reasons for shooting slides, IMO. Most people who do that will tell you that viewing a digital color photo on a monitor, or a large print, is a joke compared to the visual impact of a projected medium format color slide. That is the biggest reason I shoot MF transparencies. But, it's expensive, and a little cumbersome. I can show a photo to my family on a monitor, and have them say "that's pretty", then show them the same photo a month later, projected, and the usual reaction is "oh, my God!"
Personally, I prefer the available transparency emulsions to the available C-41 emulsions, so for film I mostly gravitate to black and white and slides, but that is a color palette issue, and personal preference only. Mostly Provia for people and general work, Velvia 50 for landscapes.
I scan with a Nikon 9000 MF scanner and use Silverfast software, both the Ai scanning software, scanning with multi exposure at 64 bit RAW, and their HDR processing software. Their HDR processing of the resulting RAW scans is absolutely critical to getting the scans I am happy with. Any drawbacks to the inherent dynamic range limitations of slide films are minimized with this method. 6x7 you will end up with around a 280MB TIFF file, with which you can do almost anything. Scanning on a flatbed with Vuescan wont get you the same results. You can get extremely rich files using this method which hold up amazingly well to processing in PS, with excellent tonal range. But then, at this point you are back in the digital realm, which perhaps you don't wish to be. But, you asked for personal opinions and experiences.
So, if I had a MF film camera, I would absolutely shoot color slides.
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Thanks for all those details Larry, really appreciate hearing your perspective.

I'm certainly keen to keep everything, or as much as humanly possible, out of the digital realm, so projection is appealing. My experience of projectors is limited to the cheap 35mm device that my Dad used in the 70's. We had loads of fun with it, but looking back, the projector was certainly lacking. I don't recall it being very bright.

In addition to the very expensive Hasselblad projector, I found the Mamiya Pro Cabin 6x7 which seems like better value, although very rare. Are there any other options for medium format?

All this talk of projecting slides makes me think I should really get hold of a decent 35mm projector so I can view all the Kodachromes I have tucked away in boxes. I know absolutely nothing about them. Are there any particular models that are worth seeking out?
 
The more I think about it, the more I think projected slides would be a fabulous solution for me. I have a new loft room with big pure white walls just begging to be projected upon. I even have a comfy sofa placed against the opposite wall :)
 
FujiLove said:
The more I think about it, the more I think projected slides would be a fabulous solution for me. I have a new loft room with big pure white walls just begging to be projected upon. I even have a comfy sofa placed against the opposite wall :)
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Plus PLUS PLUS!:D

A big part of photography as a personal pursuit is pleasure.

GO FOR IT
 
A roll of slides of the children each year after getting a digital camera. Wonderful colour and a physical object similar to ones I have which are well over 50 years old. Will my digital files last that long? Maybe.

And rare trips. My slides of Christchurch 2009 are utterly irreplaceable now.
 
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