End use of colour slide film?

[Mainecoonmaniac]

I have been thinking about slide film lately which is the type I have shot mostly with. I love the look of slide film on a lightbox but when it is printed or on a electronic form it doesn't quite look the same. Myself who takes an interest in it might spend some time with a lightbox and pour my eyeballs over it. In terms of the real world and when a lot more professional photographers used film, did they have end use other than making a print or putting it inside a publication? So I have thought about lately if this lightbox thing is a fun time hobby only and slide film and other film is really about making a print or printing it inside a publication or making a print on a brochure or billboard - in otherwords printing?


Thanks.

When I did commercial work, I shot a lot of transparency film for publication. It's a real pain. Back in the day, I had to shoot tons of Polaroid to make sure the exposure was within the limited range of the film. Neg film has better latitude, but art directors prefer to see a positive for layouts. Printing from transparencies is tough too. Kodak's positive print material and Cibachrome was super contrasty. Some printers resorted to using masks to hold back the highlights. A good print was sure beautiful. I still think a well shot transparency on a light box still looks better than an image on an LCD-LED screen. Call me old.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

When I did commercial work, I shot a lot of transparency film for publication. It's a real pain. Back in the day, I had to shoot tons of Polaroid to make sure the exposure was within the limited range of the film. Balancing the color of transparency film was a pain and photographers used filters. Neg film has better latitude, but art directors prefer to see a positive for layouts. Printing from transparencies is tough too. Kodak's positive print material and Cibachrome was super contrasty. Some printers resorted to using masks to hold back the highlights. A good print was sure beautiful. I still think a well shot transparency on a light box still looks better than an image on an LCD-LED screen. Call me old.

 

[rayonline_nz]

Well FWIW, I took my Kodak Carousel out and had a blast in the garage by myself. Yes, by myself, no one else were interested and I got told to not use the lounge!

As I expected, slides look better projected or on a lightbox. The latter was better than the former. I enjoy taking shots in high contrast situations such as twilight blue hour and sunrise and sunsets. Even on holiday with travel I get in the early hours. Afternoon just look bland and average. How the artificial lights combine with the natural light and dance together before the sky goes black. It was a reminder to me to don't evaluate the slide on my computer screen but to take the film out and put it on my lightbox or just hold it up to the white clouds. Because these days if one wants to share your images with others who may live locally to you or they might live further away it means sharing online. Then you can get difficulty how it actually look like on those platforms. I've found lower contrast works better like a warm soft sunset or an overcast day.

I've started trying out Kodak Portra and Ekar, not sent them to the lab yet so it would be interesting.

 

[Les Sarile]

No doubt that if slides were not intended for print then most of us may have never known the Afghan Girl and Steve McCurry.

Slides might be best to look at on a light board, but there is nothing to keep it from looking great in every other media format. I am curious to know the workflow involved in publishing the front cover of that issue with the Afghan Girl though.

 

[bluechromis]

I saw that as another form of projection, actally even a way nearer to looking at slides on a lightbox, than on a reflective screen.

I have projectors that incorporate a rear projection screen, but also yield the possibility to project on a big, reflective screen. I got the impression that such dual-use projectors were more a european thing.

Wow.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Depends on the setup. If it’s casual background to conversation, like music, it can work. But notice how I write “tops”.
Problem is if there is a mini lecture attached to each and every slide.
That get’s old real fast.
Unless you are doing an actual lecture, it should be a very short show.
Twenty pictures at the most.
Or alternatively with a whole carrousel, something that is just there, while you converse and eat and drink.

Of course you should also enjoy you own photography.

It should never be a chore to take out the projector. Otherwise you might as well not have it.

Alan... actually, I watched that video about 6 months ago. All the way through. I admit, I did a bit of fast-forwarding between images. I was looking up Key Largo for some reason (the place, not the song).

Most home slideshows are boring to others. It's the same when someone shows you their photo album of their vacation to Outer Mongolia, or picture after picture of their new baby on a cell phone.. I once went to a lecture at my photo club given by an experienced semi-pro photographer. He was into flowers. For an hour, he went through about 100 slides explaining how he setup and shot each flower included the species and genus of each. By the time it was over, we were conspiring to execute the guy or break his projector.

You're right about twenty slides. But that's for others. You have to decide who the show is for. If it's for you as the vacationer/photographer, than make it longer. If you want to show it to others, then it has to be shorter, quick fades and a few more playful actions to keep the interest up. The scuba show was my first try at a video slideshow. I'm down to 4 seconds per shot. But the fact you actually finished it even though you skipped a lot, is rare. YouTube once gave me the average time each viewer looked. I think it was about two minutes and twenty seconds out of the 6 minute video.

 

[perkeleellinen]

One way to conduct a slideshow that isn’t a snore fest, is to keep the tempo up.
Keep them wanting.
If you used a year compiling the carousel doesn’t mean it should take an hour taking a round trip.
If your projector has an auto change set it to thirty seconds per slide tops.
Then let it go and let people do what they want.
That’s actually a good way to hone your skills of taking attention and interesting grabbing photos. They should hopefully do the job of attracting an audience themselves.

Good tips.

I'm using two projectors, normally with a hard cut or sometimes a very quick dissolve. I do around 4 seconds per slide with 10-20 slides tops, on auto with the presentation on a loop. That means the entire show is over in a minute or so, about the attention span of my friends and family used to scrolling screens. Photos of family and friends gain more attention than photos of mountains or flowers. I've found dissolving two slides of the same scene but with different focus points is a neat trick but it gets old quick.

 

[Helge]

Good tips.

I'm using two projectors, normally with a hard cut or sometimes a very quick dissolve. I do around 4 seconds per slide with 10-20 slides tops, on auto with the presentation on a loop. That means the entire show is over in a minute or so, about the attention span of my friends and family used to scrolling screens. Photos of family and friends gain more attention than photos of mountains or flowers. I've found dissolving two slides of the same scene but with different focus points is a neat trick but it gets old quick.

Two projectors just seems like vast overkill.
It gets ludicrously cumbersome to have the whole setup sitting around, or dragging it out every time.
And you have to part your show over two slide trays/carousels.

Cross-dissolve is a nice trick for a very professional looking show.
If you are pitching a new campaign to a board in 1985, or have your show at a fair or museum, it might lend a certain extra something to your presentation.

But for private use, it just telegraphs “too much”.

I’m writing this not so much to tell you what to do or not to do.
But more to dissuade others from pursuing the idea actively.
If a two projector setup drops in your lab you’d of course try it.
But I wouldn’t suggest making it a priority.

Actually one of my most successful “shows” was with a tiny, crappy Leitz seesaw projector, that takes one slide at a time.
And it was just a spur of the moment where I wanted to show one or two slides quickly, and we ended seeing a whole stack for thirty minutes.
No pressure to sit through a program, and no big 20kg projector with a fan.

 

[grat]

Obviously, the solution here is PowerPoint.

 

[DREW WILEY]

The only thing worse than Aunt Maude's four-hour long slideshow of her vacation to a dogfood factory in Peoria were the Powerpoint sales meetings at work.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Slide shows are mainly for the photographer. One thing nice about the digital slide shows plugged into your 4K TV, they're always ready to go. Just flip them on and show it. No setup of screens, projectors, stands, etc.

 

[AgX]

Slide shows are mainly for the photographer.

Here not long ago we got travelling slide shows were people paid money to look at projections of photos on expeditions and such.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Slide shows were once a big thing for pros too. When my brother was doing 4x5 chrome stock photography in the 60's, he had a friend making a very handsome living winning international slide show contests, all Leica work in his case. None of it was journalistic or story-telling, but all about snappy colors and catchy subjects, the kinds of things film manufacturers and travel agencies would seriously sponsor. He made enough money that way to travel all over the world repeatedly. Then there were those in the lecture tour circuit about their expedition to some exotic location who had one up over the competition with dual-projector medium format (6X7) slide shows. I remember those. Any web presentation is pathetic by comparison. But those rooms could get hot!

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

I remember as an undergrad, I had to make a slide show with music and a slide dissolve unit and 2 projectors. If I remember correctly, the music was on a cassette tape. Once side of the tape was for the music and the other side is to record instructions for the unit on how to dissolve between the projectors. Before Powerpoint, I saw a traveling show by photographer Dean Colins. He had a slide show with multiple projectors with a remote on his mic. It was a well practiced Dog and Pony show. It was back in the 80's

 

[DREW WILEY]

Except for a few new color film tests over the years, I haven't shot any 35mm slides for the past forty years. But I still have the projector and one box of old slides. I worked in medium format only about two years, did strictly large format shooting for a long time, and have since switched back and forth with MF, just to get proficient at that because there will inevitably come a point I can't lug around LF as much as I would like. The rapid rise in LF film expense is also a factor. But while there's at least a brief revival in color slide film, people should really take advantage of it. There's nothing like a good ole slide show unless it's some relative's or neighbor's endless vacation pictures, and all that kind of thing gets web posted now.

 

[rayonline_nz]

Slide shows are mainly for the photographer. One thing nice about the digital slide shows plugged into your 4K TV, they're always ready to go. Just flip them on and show it. No setup of screens, projectors, stands, etc.

Well my lot here doesn't like stuff in the lounge. Only exception is if they are having their passport photo taken!!

Yes, I agree with you. Non photographers are not into these stuff. Even with the convenience of digital or like yourself film and scanned then played on the LCD / LED TV, I no longer do that. In the past I selected maybe 18 photographs but that was also too long for them. It is about the photographer, hey look guys hurry hurry I just came back from my awesome trip, please come and see my fabulous photographs! Now I might show 5 or 6 quickly and that is it. For many trips I don't even do that. They are more interested in photographs with friends and family. Not playing around with photographs on the plane or on the train but a group photograph outside or at the restaurant. And maybe food photographs.

If you are just showing your travel photos, more often than not they would just close their eyes and try to nap, or fold their arms and look at the ceiling or the wall. Maybe read the newspaper or their phones.

I had a look at your video again, seen it before as well in the past. That is the kinda quality I can get yeah on my side. I've always liked the photographs you see with film manufacturers brochures like the Fujifilm Provia A4 sized brochures ie Provia 100F and 400F. They just look so sharp, grain free, you can literally count eyebrow strands. Not sure how they achieved those.

Kinda related to this. On YouTube Robin Wong compared a smartphone to his Micro Four Thirds camera and while the M43 was better. Non photographers would find no fault with the smartphone. The vast majority of them are not printing, they are not cropping or viewing it magnified, they are colorful and snappy.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Well my lot here doesn't like stuff in the lounge. Only exception is if they are having their passport photo taken!!

...
Kinda related to this. On YouTube Robin Wong compared a smartphone to his Micro Four Thirds camera and while the M43 was better. Non photographers would find no fault with the smartphone. The vast majority of them are not printing, they are not cropping or viewing it magnified, they are colorful and snappy.

My Men's Club went to our fire department's training grounds for a tour. I didn't take my camera but had my Samsung Galaxy S7. So I took pictures and short videos and made a 3-minute video show for the CLub group when we all met. They showed it on the ceiling-mounted digital projector onto a large screen. It turned out pretty good considering it was all cellphone captured with no tripod. The S7 is about a 3 or 4-year-old phone. I added the song of course in the Premiere Elements editing program.

 

[George Mann]

I have never seen any truly useful visual comparisons on youtube as it impossible to present images in a full, unaltered state in a video.

 

[MattKing]

Slide shows aren't just for the photographer, they are also for other photographers!
If your slides are boring, then your slide show will be boring, unless the information they convey is supportive of other forms of presentation - think of an interesting talk about steam engines, illustrated by record shots.
But if your slides stand on their own as being compelling photographs, then there is no better way to share them.

 

[Luckless]

Slide shows are mainly for the photographer. One thing nice about the digital slide shows plugged into your 4K TV, they're always ready to go. Just flip them on and show it. No setup of screens, projectors, stands, etc.

That's just down to how dedicated you want to be about it...

A few of my professors in University still used slides, and it wasn't a fussy setup - Walk in, pull down the screen, index the slides to the first one, turn the projector on, and away they went.

Took the average student longer just to plug in their thumb drive and find their PowerPoint for presentations...


Nothing stops you from installing a nice screen and projector in your living room if you really wanted it. [And could easily double up with movie projectors too if you're keen.]

 

[rayonline_nz]

Slide shows aren't just for the photographer, they are also for other photographers!
If your slides are boring, then your slide show will be boring, unless the information they convey is supportive of other forms of presentation - think of an interesting talk about steam engines, illustrated by record shots.
But if your slides stand on their own as being compelling photographs, then there is no better way to share them.

For non photographers things they might be interested might be a wedding album yeah. Maybe family photographs over the years and over the generations that kinda stuff. Yep, addressing the target audience. Young people might be goofy things and selfies. To our group anyway, family holiday pics not really even if they are those snappy vacation photos of family members at best sent via WhatsApp hahah. Photography type images or slideshows stick to a photography group or club, hahah.

Edit. If one had an interest in mountain biking or pottery or cars. That can be a pretty isolated activity.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I have never seen any truly useful visual comparisons on youtube as it impossible to present images in a full, unaltered state in a video.

What does that mean George? If the video is good and the images are also pretty good, who's comparing? No one watches two editions of the same video. They watch the one. If it's good, it's good. There's nothing to compare.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

That's just down to how dedicated you want to be about it...

A few of my professors in University still used slides, and it wasn't a fussy setup - Walk in, pull down the screen, index the slides to the first one, turn the projector on, and away they went.

Took the average student longer just to plug in their thumb drive and find their PowerPoint for presentations...


Nothing stops you from installing a nice screen and projector in your living room if you really wanted it. [And could easily double up with movie projectors too if you're keen.]

The professor didn't have to ask his wife if she'd mind a permanently installed screen on the ceiling and projector all set up to go in the living room.

 

[MattKing]

Fred Herzog used to rent church basement halls and charge people to see his slides. And people were happy to pay.
In other words, it depends on the slides.
Travel photography is a type of photography that can interest others, and seeing compelling images of interesting and exotic places, organized and projected well and accompanied by interesting narration, is very worthwhile (and distinctly different from most people's vacation shots).

 

[Sirius Glass]

Except for my in-laws, everyone enjoyed and asked to see my slides since the slides were well composed a follow a story-line, usually the travel log or about a subject which was being explained. It is a skill, not a bunch of snaps of the family at the beach where they are like ducks in a line, only the order of the ducks, the age of the ducks, the ducks bathing suits and sometimes even the beach changed. Gawd that was boring to type that.