On a forum that is dedicated to analogue photography, nobody's going to tell you that digital looks better than or equally good as slide film. Take that bias into account.
Personally, I don't care much for colour film in 35mm, be it slide or negative. But a correctly exposed 6x9 slide is a thing of beauty that digital will never match.
And the sign said, "long haired freaky people need not apply"
For the last 2-3 years I have been shooting almost exclusively B&W, slowly learning to take control of the image from beginning to end. Occasionally a little Portra or the Leica v-lux for color. Just last night I stayed up later than I should, with the loupe and light box, going over some 3-8 year old slides from my love affair with Velvia. Most of these didn't impress me all that much at the time, but I was shocked at the nearly 3D detail and how the colors leaped off the film. Digital is easy and gives nice, accurate color, but it just doesn't measure up in image quality. It makes me want to drag out Mom's old projector to see them at life size.
Definitely drag out the projector. It doesn't matter if it's a Leica or a cheap little projector, there's nothing like seeing your slides projected. A couple months ago I got mine out and projected on the side of the garage. Just amazing!
ME Super
Shoot more film.
There are eight ways to put a slide into a projector tray. Seven of them are wrong.
Slide film will provide generally speaking (that is, if we exclude the very very best in the digital field) better resolution, and either natural looking colours with, IMO, a very high degree of verisimilarity (with things like Astia or Sensia, and probably Provia) or that oversaturated look that many people, in the analogue just as in the digital world, appreciate (with things like Velvia).
Overall colour rendition is certainly not a problem with slides.
The choice between slide and digital is based on different reasons than colour accuracy: digital has its advantages, and slides have their advantages. But colour is not a field where digital has an advantage over film. The colours you'll find in your slides are WAY BETTER than the awfully wrong scans people generally post on sites like Flicker.
That said, there is one caveat. With slide film used in open shade (blue sky) you can see a bluish cast in the shadows, which is actually there in reality but normally the eye compensates for it. In those cases you might want to use a "skylight" filter (slight shade of amber) to make the shades more neutral. I repeat, they were not neutral in reality, it's just a trick you use to make the image more like you would remember it. With digital you can shoot "raw" and choose the white balance after the fact. This is the only situation where digital has a "colour advantage", I would say. But no monitor can give you the nice detail and contrast of a nice slide projection.
Last edited by Diapositivo; 10-12-2012 at 03:28 PM. Click to view previous post history.
Slides are special because you can do the whole thing without ever going near a computer and that's something exceptional in this screen dominated age.
This is a 1/2 decent scan of a 645 E100 Ektachrome slide.
It looks great on a light table. I haven't mounted it yet for projection.
EDIT: I also need to do a bit of spotting for dust.
Matt
“Photography is a complex and fluid medium, and its many factors are not applied in simple sequence. Rather, the process may be likened to the art of the juggler in keeping many balls in the air at one time!”
Ansel Adams, from the introduction to The Negative - The New Ansel Adams Photography Series / Book 2
I use nothing else but Velvia. Velvia scans very well, does not require too much inversion of colourimetrics (Velvia 100F does, and it's a pain to use) and presents a good level of sharpness. It is worlds away from digital in terms of rendering of hue and colour (I am not all that interested in getting anal about sharpness, only railing if the image is noticeably unfocused!).
Like so many others I rate RVP at EI40 in 35mm and 'as is' in 6x7 and 6x6/6x9 (pinhole). From experience I can say that Velvia is occasionally troublesome in 35mm because the small format compresses the tonal range; in larger formats, the tonal range spreads out for much more pleasing results; I am not biased in formats — I have used Velvia in 35mm for a good 18 years at least, printing to Ilfochrome Classic, but I like the result more in MF (ironically with no Ilfochrome to print to...).
Velvia (Provia also) will last longer if projected frequently, unlike Kodachrome that keeps and ages well without so much projection. Velvia images from 1993 are now as vibrant as Kodachrome slides I have from 1970s to 1989. Print from them while they're beautiful.
.::Garyh
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Canon EOS1N ('Brutus', 1993—), TS-E 24mm f3.5L, 20mm f2.8, 17-40 f4L, 70-200 f2.8L
Pentax 67 ('Pentaximus', 2010—) + SMCP 45mm f4, 55mm f4 & 165mm f4LS;
Zero Image 6x9 multi-format pinhole (2008—); Sekonic L758D;
Olympus XA, Nikon Coolpix P7700
"If you're not having fun, then you're not doing it right!"
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Do you want colour-accurate or not? Nothing beats digital for accurate colour, despite the pissing and moaning you will hear here from people who tried running an uncalibrated workflow. If you buy a flagship modern DSLR (A900/A99, 5DMkIII, D800), then that certainly has more resolution than 35mm slide film. However, I've not seen a digital camera under $50k (that new 80MP medium-format thing) that can approach 6x7 for resolution.
If you want cheap reasonably-accurate high resolution colour, shoot colour neg in medium format, e.g. Portra 160. That stuff is nearly as colour-accurate as digital and certainly better than chromes because it has the mask to deal with dye shortcomings. Or if you want crazy-colours, shoot Velvia or whatever. Chromes have more visible dynamic range (12+ stops) than any digital output device (monitor, projector or print) so they will look far better despite poor colour accuracy. That will change in 5 years as OLED displays become mainstream.
There are no films that can match a modern stabilised DSLR for lowlight sensitivity. My old A700 can shoot ISO3200 f/1.4 1/25s (85mm) and get good sharp results by the light of a couple candles; newer bodies are better still. By the same token, you can't buy a digital camera that can touch the cheapest 4x5 setup for resolution and DOF-control.
I looked at your gallery shots and the "Sampson defeats the Lion" shot is Stunning! I also shoot an RB67 and a Sinar F2 4x5 so I am not limited to 35mm. For whastever reason I always look for reasons to shot film over my digital gear. I have never shot Chromes before so I have much to learn.
Originally Posted by polyglot
Do you want colour-accurate or not? Nothing beats digital for accurate colour, despite the pissing and moaning you will hear here from people who tried running an uncalibrated workflow. If you buy a flagship modern DSLR (A900/A99, 5DMkIII, D800), then that certainly has more resolution than 35mm slide film. However, I've not seen a digital camera under $50k (that new 80MP medium-format thing) that can approach 6x7 for resolution.
If you want cheap reasonably-accurate high resolution colour, shoot colour neg in medium format, e.g. Portra 160. That stuff is nearly as colour-accurate as digital and certainly better than chromes because it has the mask to deal with dye shortcomings. Or if you want crazy-colours, shoot Velvia or whatever. Chromes have more visible dynamic range (12+ stops) than any digital output device (monitor, projector or print) so they will look far better despite poor colour accuracy. That will change in 5 years as OLED displays become mainstream.
There are no films that can match a modern stabilised DSLR for lowlight sensitivity. My old A700 can shoot ISO3200 f/1.4 1/25s (85mm) and get good sharp results by the light of a couple candles; newer bodies are better still. By the same token, you can't buy a digital camera that can touch the cheapest 4x5 setup for resolution and DOF-control.
If you want cheap reasonably-accurate high resolution colour, shoot colour neg in medium format, e.g. Portra 160.
I shoot Portra 160 on 6x7 and 6x17 medium format, and agree it is wonderful film with oodles of detail and lots of flexibility in use (although I do realise that the original poster is discussing chromes ). If you want accurate C41 scanning colours, use the Colorperfect plugin which accurately matches film colour to film brand / type: http://www.c-f-systems.com/Plug-ins.html
Another question about slide film??? What is generally considered the best method to meter, A) landscape, B) Product, and C) Portrait?
My Nikon bodies have Spot, center weighted and Matrix. And I also have a handheld spot meter and a hand held incidence/reflective meter..
Adv Reply
Originally Posted by pbromaghin
). If you want accurate C41 scanning colours, use the Colorperfect plugin which accurately matches film colour to film brand / type:
