Color Slides

CMoore · Jul 11, 2016

My wife's daughter is having a baby in August/September.
She wants me to generate color slides to "document" the first 5-6-7 years of the kids life.
I bought a Kodak Ektagraphic III projector and some extra 80 Carousels.
Anyway.....I have a:
Nikon ...F2 and F3 and FM
Canon F1-N and A-1 and AT-1
My experience with slides is..... one roll of Kodachrome in 1980.
In Your Experienced Opinions.....would i be wise to use one of those cameras over the others for slides, or just pick one camera and stick with it for a time.?
They all have proper shutter speeds and a calibrated meter.
Thank You

Dan Fromm · Jul 11, 2016

Pick the one you're most comfortable using. They're all light-tight boxes with reflex viewing. If in good order they'll all do what they're supposed to. In alphabetical order, most Canon and Nikon lenses are better than good enough. Ergonomics should make the difference, not make.

If you're going to use flash and can stand to use the camera that has the highest flash sync speed, that's the one to use. I don't know Canons very well, so can't say anything about them. Among the Nikons you listed I think the FM has the highest sync speed.

Les Sarile · Jul 11, 2016

If you plan to use flash then the only one on her your list that supports TTL flash mode is the Nikin F3.

jeffreyg · Jul 11, 2016

In addition to your slides I suggest if there is a video camera available that they take about ten seconds of video each month on the same card and at one point they will have a time lapse type record as the child develops ie crawling to walking, mumbling to talking etc.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

cuthbert · Jul 11, 2016

I would recommend to use the F-1N as it has the best metering system and you can change it with the screen, but I also suggest to shoot a test roll with the camera to check out if your metering is accurate and understand how the E-6 film you chose behaves.

In reality I also use E-6 with camera with a relatively primitive lightmeter (Pentax SPF) and in just one case I missed a shot.

MartinCrabtree · Jul 11, 2016

Beware the Nikon TTL when ambient light is high.

railwayman3 · Jul 11, 2016

Those are all quality cameras, and any of them are fine for your purposes; I assume that you have used them all before, and are well familiar with them, so just choose the one which you feel most comfortable with.
More importantly, run one or two E6 test films (of the make or speed(s) you propose to use) before August, so that you are confident of the results under different conditions and lighting. You can then enjoy documenting the little one's first years, without worrying too much about the technical aspects of your picture-taking.

John51 · Jul 11, 2016

Would a zoom lens be better for this than primes?

Chan Tran · Jul 11, 2016

More important is that you must make sure you can have slide film and processing in 7 years. I hope we can still buy slide films for a long time but if any film got to go I think it's color slide film first and then color negative. The last to go is B&W film. In the 80's and 90's I think most people shoot color film and B&W wasn't very popular. Today I think film shooter in B&W are the majority among film users.

Les Sarile · Jul 11, 2016

Chan Tran said:
Today I think film shooter in B&W are the majority among film users.

Probably a personal/regional assessment. I am curios what the actual numbers are.

Chan Tran · Jul 11, 2016

I don't know either Les but whenever someone said they shoot film it's very likely that they shoot B&W and not color.

cuthbert · Jul 11, 2016

Chan Tran said:
I don't know either Les but whenever someone said they shoot film it's very likely that they shoot B&W and not color.

It's easy to shoot B&W because you can develop at home and today labs that do E-6 are becoming increasingly rare, same thing to a certain extend for C41.

CMoore · Jul 11, 2016

Uhg...i really do live in the past.
I never even considered the shrinking commerce of color slides.
I suppose the reality is...i just shoot them until they stop being Made/Developed.
The idea of a group of people sitting in front of a screen and looking at pictures appealed to my Daughter/Son In-Law.
No doubt this is terrain better served by a modern projector and Digital SLR.....but they would have to find a different Grandpa for that.

cuthbert · Jul 11, 2016

CMoore said:
Uhg...i really do live in the past.
I never even considered the shrinking commerce of color slides.
I suppose the reality is...i just shoot them until they stop being Made/Developed.
The idea of a group of people sitting in front of a screen and looking at pictures appealed to my Daughter/Son In-Law.
No doubt this is terrain better served by a modern projector and Digital SLR.....but they would have to find a different Grandpa for that.

E6 is good! I mostly use Agfa Precisa (that appears to be Sensia) because it's cheap in Europe, or at least not bloody expensive.

Some shots:

T90 + FDn 50mm f1.2:

Jenaflex, Pentacton 28mm f2.8 (I think):

SPF and SMC Takumar 50mm f1.4:

F2A and Nikkor 85mm f1.8 K:

Super A, A50mm f1.4:

The only thing that prevents me from shooting more E6 is the cost and availability of labs around.

Poisson Du Jour · Jul 11, 2016

E6 -- the only slide (transparency) available now, is most unlikely (read: not at all) to be around in 7 years. I think it will be gone within a couple of years based on current rates of decline.

When Fuji pulls lthe plug on E6, the availability of chemicals for DIY will be a subsequent casualty. Other manufacturers are not relevant as saviours when the market is extremely small (and still shrinking), used by specialists who print from E6 for exhibitions etc., not snapshots. Quite aside from the simple question of what camera to use (I would choose the A1) is the question of film: where it is now, where it will be not long from now. Your best bet would be to experiment with some E6 (e.g. Provia for portraiture/people) and C41 (Portra 160) and throw in some B&W into the mix. But don't assume E6 will be around to see the kids grow up. Not even a crystal ball with fresh Energizer batteries is predicting that...

macfred · Jul 11, 2016

CMoore said:
.....would i be wise to use one of those cameras over the others for slides, or just pick one camera and stick with it for a time.?
They all have proper shutter speeds and a calibrated meter.
Thank You

It doesn't matter what cameras you are going to use - providing that you are familiar with your camera's metering system in several lighting conditions and with the (slide-) film's characteristics.
I have a Nikon FM and a F4; my wife owns a N2000 - all with various ways to meter a scene -
Matrix metering; Spot metering; center-weighted 40:60(N2000),60:40(FM,F4) :
It's not a problem to get analogues results,if you are familiar with them.

I also like Agfa Precisa 100 for 35mm (though I think it's Provia) :

Vintage Mercedes Benz by Andreas, on Flickr

FORD Thunderbird - 1 by Andreas, on Flickr

Plymouth Special Deluxe by Andreas, on Flickr

AgX · Jul 11, 2016

The films Cuthbert and macfred mentioned are branded AgfaPhoto, not Agfa.

Chan Tran · Jul 11, 2016

CMoore said:
Uhg...i really do live in the past.
I never even considered the shrinking commerce of color slides.
I suppose the reality is...i just shoot them until they stop being Made/Developed.
The idea of a group of people sitting in front of a screen and looking at pictures appealed to my Daughter/Son In-Law.
No doubt this is terrain better served by a modern projector and Digital SLR.....but they would have to find a different Grandpa for that.

Not really digital projector is only 4K max and that's 8MP. I think the 35mm slide has more details than an 8MP image. Today I don't shoot negative any more but only slides.

CMoore · Jul 11, 2016

Poisson Du Jour said:
..... aside from the simple question of what camera to use (I would choose the A1) is the question of film: where it is now

Funny you should say...i just loaded up the Canon A-1
I have some slide film, though i am not sure what it is.
Got it from The Film Photography Project a few months back.
It is ASA 160
I believe it was hand-rolled by them.

Love some of the proceeding slides.
Really Dig the Union Jack train wheels and the Red Mercedes...!!

Poisson Du Jour · Jul 11, 2016

Chan Tran said:
[...] Today I think film shooter in B&W are the majority among film users.

That is a somewhat spurious observation. Serious photographers — at least those making money from producing their work, use B&W and colour, and colour is the more expensive of the two. They exist and you can actually speak with them, view their work (they're the ones, like me, who print big for a market that still identifies strongly with a world pictured in colour, rather than 50 shades of grey. Their work also rarely appears online, preferring instead the captive audience of galleries). Somewhere not long ago people were observing that the loss of C41/E6 would have a knock-on effect to B&W; I am curious about this; I do not know what the connection is, or if it is well founded.

Poisson Du Jour · Jul 11, 2016

The FPP is said to use expired film, which is why it is so cheap. Expired transparency film is fine if it has been stored well, but not if it has been left lying around. Do a test roll on unimportant subjects to assess (colour palette and any casting) before committing it to kids.

Les Sarile · Jul 11, 2016

Chan Tran said:
Not really digital projector is only 4K max and that's 8MP. I think the 35mm slide has more details than an 8MP image.

Only by a bit . . . quite a bit . . .
I have local C41 process only for $4.50 that is both competent and very convenient. Like I said, others observations are likely personal or regional.

tedr1 · Jul 11, 2016

You might also want to grab a slide scanner for when they want prints..........

MartinCrabtree · Jul 11, 2016

You can no longer print directly from a transparency? Well that sucks. I know Cibachrome went south awhile ago.

Poisson Du Jour · Jul 11, 2016

MartinCrabtree said:
You can no longer print directly from a transparency? Well that sucks. I know Cibachrome went south awhile ago.

Yes and no. If there are people set up for wet colour printing and skilled in the numeracy of transparency printing, yes. Ciba has been gone for a long time now. I don't miss the Ilfochrome Classic process, even after a love affair with it from 1985 to 2010. Really, we can do much, much better than that old dame nowadays!

Color Slides

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